Vogel bought aphone made by WiFi Communications, Inc Three months later, after recharging the battery through a power jack, Vogel picked up the phone only to have it ignite in his hand. Suffering a severe burn, Vogel filed a suit against WiFi, alleging

Question

that a design defect in the phone weakened the connection between the power jack and the motherboard, causing the wiring to overheat and creating an unreasonable safety hazard.Could Vogel succeed on his strict product liability claim? Explain.

Answer 1

Yes, Vogel can succeed with his claim if he can meet the requirements.
A product is defective in design when the foreseeable risk of harm posed by the product could have been reduced or avoided by the adoption of a reasonable alternative design, and its omission renders the product not reasonably safe.
Vogel must show that the phone was defective when WiFi sold it, WiFi was normally engaged in selling that product, the phone was unreasonably dangerous to a user because of its defect,Vogel incurred physical harm by use of the phone, the defect was the proximate cause of the harm, and the phone was not substantially changed from the time that it was sold to the time of the injury.