Sunday Special: Researching defective products

I have featured a few product liability lawsuits.  These are good sources for dark side of a company’s product information but its not easy to find them.   While many courts provide access to their electronic court dockets there are hundreds of them to search and many don’t allow you to search easily by company name.  The SEC filings could be useful but they often mask the true nature of the suits or don’t mention them at all.  For example, earlier I featured a lawsuit against Hewlett Packard involving a faulty video card but if you look at the SEC filings none of those kinds of suits are listed.

This is where the Consumer Product Safety Commission comes in.  Frequently, products are subject to warnings or recalls before major litigation occurs and you can find out about a company’s less successful product offerings.  In the case of Hewlett Packard, you can use the cumbersome search feature (HERE) to look for the products with major safety and health issues.  The most recent HP recalls have all involved products that have caught fire.

Note that the lawsuit involving the video card has no precedent at the commission.  This is because the commission doesn’t recall faulty products unless they cause a health and safety problem.  So if you buy a lemon and you want justice, you’ll have to go to court.  Best to find others in a like position and a class action attorney ready to take the case.  Otherwise, your damages won’t get you into superior court.

Hewlett Packard Notebooks Defective According to Lawsuit

Both HP and NVIDIA are being sued in San Jose Federal Court for selling laptops with faulty video cards.  The complaint makes it clear that this has been an ongoing problem but according to the Consumer Safety Practices Commission, these laptops haven’t been subject to recall.  Makes me wonder how significant this defect is.

Here is the complaint.  (Thanks CourthouseNews)