Personal Injury Advocate
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Were you hurt by a defective or unsafe product? Here is what to do next

You trusted the product, and it failed you.

Are you in an emergency right now?

  • Check yourself and others for injuries and bleeding.
  • Call 911 if anyone is seriously hurt.
  • Stop using the product right away, but do not throw it away.
  • Get medical care even if you feel fine. Some injuries show up later.
  • This page is for after you are safe.

This page covers defective product claim deadlines and what to do right now. We are the injured person's advocate. We connect you with a lawyer who handles cases like yours, so you get the full settlement your recovery deserves. Always free. Talk to an advocate. We usually reply within minutes, at most one business day.

Why defective product claims get tricky

Product cases often depend on evidence that disappears fast. The product itself, its packaging, and any instructions are key evidence, and they can get thrown away, repaired, or lost if you are not careful.

Warning: don't wait! The filing deadline is a trap. Some states use a "statute of repose" (a hard cutoff based on when the product was sold, not when it hurt you), so people wait, and waiting kills cases. A product could be many years old, and the window to sue may already be closed by the time it fails, no matter how clearly defective it was. The longer you wait, the fuzzier memories get and receipts get lost. Talk to an advocate immediately. And important: medical claims can have different, often shorter deadlines. Do not assume the standard rule covers a hospital or doctor case.

Companies also often respond to an unrepresented person with a very low first offer. Without knowing the real cost of your injury, that offer can look reasonable when it is not.

Talk to an advocate. You do not have to weigh a first offer alone.

Protect your case

  1. Talk to an advocate at WeHelpInjured. It is free.
  2. Keep the product and the receipt exactly as they were when it failed. Do not repair it, clean it, or throw it away.
  3. Take photos of the product, any damage, and your injury.
  4. Keep the packaging, manual, receipt, or any purchase record you can find.
  5. Write down exactly how you were using the product when it failed.
  6. Report the incident to the manufacturer or the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the federal agency that tracks unsafe products.

Never do these

Why waiting or going it alone can cost you

In 1992, 79-year-old Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico suffered third-degree burns on 6 percent of her body from a spilled cup of coffee served near 180 degrees. Her family first handled it alone, writing McDonald's a letter asking the company to cover her roughly $10,000 in medical bills. McDonald's offered $800, less than a tenth of her costs. Once she hired a lawyer, evidence came out of about 700 prior burn complaints against the company. (Retro Report)

Her family was not wrong to try writing a simple letter first. The system simply was not built to respond fairly to that. Talk to an advocate before you accept any offer.

What we can help with

All of it is free to you. We never take money from injured people.

Talk to an advocate. A product that failed you is not your fault.

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