Consumer Product Safety Commission

Consumer Product Safety Commission has the authority for regulating the manufacture and sale of different consumer products, from all-terrain vehicles to cribs and from swimming pools to barbecue grills. It fulfils the mission of protecting consumers against the unreasonable injury risks by developing mandatory and voluntary standards, banning harmful consumer products, researching on the potential hazards related to consumer products and issuing recall on the products that are already available in the market. The CPSC comes to learn about various unsafe products in the market in different ways. It maintains consumer web site and hotlines through which the consumers can report their product liability cases regarding any unsafe products and injuries caused by those products.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is tasked for setting the basic standards which every manufacturer of several product are required to follow. If any manufacturer or factory is found guilty of producing hazardous products against the standards set by CPSC, then the consumers have the full legal and civil right to claim for compensation, and the manufacturing company will be legally liable to compensate the buyers and the users. All the links right from the beginning of the product cycle including the manufacturer of raw materials, the component manufacturer, the assembler, the wholesaler and even the retailer are liable to compensate for the damage that is caused by the finished product. The exact product liability depends upon the investigation and analysis of the products and their parts that led to the damage, enabling to point out the link which is responsible for the damage caused to the consumer.

The product liability laws apply to all tangible as well as intangible products, but may vary from country to country and from county to county. In order to make a valid claim, the users are needed to prove the evidence, and to prove that the manufactured product was defective. Three kinds of defects can arouse the claim: manufacturing, designing and defecting in marketing. Designing defects are in-built and already occur even before the manufacture of the product. This kind of defect may involve all the products that were made using the same design method, and are needed to be taken back unless the design is corrected. Manufacturing defects take place during the process of manufacturing, caused due to the ignorance or mistake of the workmen. Defects in marketing refer to improper instructions printed on the product, or non-involvement of a warning if there are any impending dangers of using the products. All of the above defects can render a manufacturer to compensate the injured party.