028 Are the Products You’re Using Safe?

VERONICA: Hey, come on into our House and make yourselves right at home. Welcome to Lawyers in the House with Montlick. I’m your host, Veronica Waters and rest assured. You are safe with us.

ALAN: About 37 years, I think, yeah.

VERONICA: Yeah, and I believe today’s show is actually very close to your heart, isn’t it, Alan?

VERONICA: Yeah.

ALAN: So happy to be here.

VERONICA: Let’s get into a little bit about your journey through the world of law. At this point, do you even remember what first sparked your interest?

ALAN: What first sparked my interest was really what we’re doing here today. We’re talking about product liability. And I was interested in that even before I went to law school. So, this is a labor of love for me to be here today and to be able to talk about product liability.

ALAN: I learned that I experienced situations in life and that help me in my work. And one example of that would be I had a riding lawn mower when we had an acre and a half of grass when I was younger, and my kids were very young.

VERONICA: I got chills when you were telling that story. Goosebumps.

ALAN: Me too.

ALAN: People like to hear truth. And stories that are true are resonating with people.

VERONICA: So true. Also rejoining us today is someone whom you first met on our housewarming show of Lawyers in the House. Nikki Montlick. Welcome back, Nikki.

NIKKI: Thank you, Veronica. So happy to be here.

VERONICA: Nikki is – You might have guessed from the last name Montlick-

NIKKI: Well, I grew up watching my dad who was very passionate about public service.

VERONICA: Tell me about one that really touched your heart. I saw when we were first getting to know each other… And I was looking at these videos of you about A4K… What’s A4K?

NIKKI: Yeah, A4K Club is the Ambassador for Kids Club.

VERONICA: What is it that calls to you about the field of law? You said that you have watched your dad since you were little, kind of, in this work. But he didn’t push you into it.

ALAN: Well, product liability is a doctrine in law that is really one of my favorite areas of practice. This important doctrine of law holds a manufacturer liable for a defective consumer product. It’s a unique area. And it’s a unique area in that trial lawyers are able to help enforce these laws, encouraging companies to make safer products. There are various ways the law helps to make us all safer as consumers through product liability law.

VERONICA: I love that you were able to sort of lay out all of these different aspects of product liability because there are so many different ways that we could be hurt by a product.

VERONICA: So how badly I’m hurt?

ALAN: How badly you’re hurt is a key consideration. Yeah.

VERONICA: What about, you know, let’s say… Okay, I had one of my friends use this popular mascara that everyone loves.

ALAN: Stinging probably doesn’t spawn a personal injury case. It’s not something that’s a large enough injury to sue a manufacturer. Manufacturers are strong financially and they take a lot of money to fight. So, you really have to have an injury that’s worth fighting for.

ALAN: Small cases is one of my favorites. I got a call one time from a person years ago that had talked to a lawyer at another firm and they had told her that she didn’t have an injury that was big enough for a product liability case.

VERONICA: All right, so we are talking about product liability. We’ve got a good example of a little case, but it sounds pretty big to me- losing the tip of a finger. What happened with that case? And what happens when there is a product problem that everybody knows about?

You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Join us 8 a.m. every Sunday if you want to listen live on 95.5 WSB.

VERONICA: Welcome back to Lawyers in the House with Montlick as we take a look at product liability and what happens when something we buy, or use, is actually what hurts us.

ALAN: Well, Veronica, it was pretty easy for me in a prior episode of this show. I talked about actually seeing somebody shut a minivan door on a lady’s hand. And it looked like she was going to lose that hand. She didn’t. The door came open and it was engineered into the car.

VERONICA: Yeah, and tell the truth, I’m sure somebody turned the case down before it got to you.

ALAN: That’s what I heard.

VERONICA: Yeah. I think so maybe that’s a design defect… I think you were talking about…

VERONICA: Yeah, okay, so is this the kind of thing where we would see, like, a recall? Nikki, talk to me about recalls and the importance of those. How do those come into play?

NIKKI: Yeah, so that’s a great example of a circumstance where it would warrant bringing a product liability lawsuit. But there’s various defective products where a recall is more appropriate.

VERONICA: These are the cases that everybody knows about because we often hear them in the news.

NIKKI: Yeah, and these have been trending on social media a lot, at least that I’ve seen. But when a recall is issued, stores are supposed to pull the product off the shelf. So, the best thing that you can do if you hear that a product that you have is recalled is to stop using it. That’s the safest thing to do. You can also go to the website and the manufacturer is supposed to issue instructions. But the best thing to do is when you hear that stop using it, and you can also take the product back to the store and get a refund.

You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Join us 8 a.m. every Sunday on 95.5 WSB.

VERONICA: Hey, hey folks, so glad you are back with us.

NIKKI: So, Veronica, I love your disclaimer first of all; but there’s a few ingredients that when you are reading ingredient label to look out for. And so, practicing something that we like to call label literacy is super important.

VERONICA: Yikes.

NIKKI: So, benzene is one to try to avoid, and then another one is fragrance. Fragrance is a general term, it can encompass over a hundred different ingredients.

VERONICA: Wait, what?

NIKKI: Yeah. So, if you see fragrance listed on your product, you actually have no idea what’s actually in it.

VERONICA: Oh, that… you know, that’s a good point because sometimes you’ll see that this product was made with, I don’t know, say, I don’t know, milk, right? Or butter, and then it’ll say like 2% milk and whatever else goes into the butter. But on a tube of something that says, it’s got fragrance added there’s no little parenthesis after fragrance that says the mini ingredients that go into that. That is cr…

VERONICA: You know, I’ve sometimes taken to the Internet to try to find sites that will help me understand the ingredients that are in things. And some of them are kind of confusing. I’ve looked for apps online or in the Apple store that can help me- I think there’s one called Think Dirty I’ve used.

NIKKI: You would think so. But the reality is the FDA- they can’t and they don’t regulate every single product. And the difference is with the U.S.

VERONICA: Wow, that is crazy. That is crazy. Just because it’s on the shelf does not mean it is safe. I’m curious to know, though, whether or not there is this built in expectation of safety, right?

ALAN: Well, that’s what product liability is all about. And we just talked about strict liability, meaning that a product could be defective, and the manufacturer might not actually know that the product was effective when they built the product.

VERONICA: Yeah, it’s so interesting. You know and sometimes the product gets on the market and they find they do find out later. I remember a long time ago, something about hip replacements and people were getting something and it would, like, degrade in the body. And they didn’t know it apparently at first. And that turned into a huge thing. Okay, quickly, can I this is not like all about the girls. Okay, we all use personal care products.

NIKKI: I do as well. There was a recent recall in December 2022 where they the FDA recalled 19 dry shampoos from… name brands because they had elevated levels of benzene. This included brands like Dove, TRESemmé. An independent lab actually found that it had elevated levels of benzene in 70% of the dry shampoos that they tested.

VERONICA: Yeah, Johnson & Johnson has been under fire. I remember covering part of a trial over the talcum powder that they sold that was in downtown Atlanta.

ALAN: Well, Veronica, not everything out there is dangerous.

ALAN: Well, big cases don’t often present themselves in terms of big when you think monetarily, but you know they’re big right off the bat because they’re bad injuries. And one that comes to mind (and they’re all dear to my heart), but one that I think about a lot is we had a very bad car accident involving teenagers, a full car.

VERONICA: And those middle seats in the back don’t have those harnesses…

ALAN: or they don’t all and they’re making them now. And we’re seeing more and more shoulder harnesses in the middle. So, we figured this out.

ALAN: We believe they rolled the dice and we believe that our lawsuit resulted in them putting that shoulder harness in that middle seat the very next model year.

ALAN: In this case, we are. That’s exactly product liability is all about.

VERONICA: You know what? You are the law and the order. All right, thank you so much, Alan Saltzman and Nikki Montlick. We have been talking about product liability and coming up next what you’ve been waiting for all hour long. The Montlick closing argument. Don’t miss it.

VERONICA: Thank you so much for hanging with us here in the House, on Lawyers in the House with Montlick.

NIKKI: So, it’s very important to stay up to date on recalls and product safety news. You can do that by when you buy a product, like for example, car seat often it comes with a warranty card where you can go online or there may be a phone number and you can register the warranty card and that’ll keep you up to date with any product recalls.

VERONICA: I love that.

ALAN: Absolutely not. When you’re injured, you need a firm with the experience and with the resources to be able to pay the expenses to prosecute your case. And that’s what we do. We wish for you that you never have an accident where you need a lawyer. But if you do, we handle cases, Veronica, everywhere.

VERONICA: You know, it’s so good that you mentioned that too because even though we are in the studios in Atlanta, Georgia, you are handling cases all over the country, which is important because these products are sold everywhere. Don’t forget that you can sign up for safety and legal tips from Montlick.com. Go to the website. You can get a lot more information about product liability there.

You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Catch us live every Sunday, 8 a.m. on 95.5 WSB.