Morris & Dewett has handled serious injury cases for 25 years.
Texas Product Liability Law: Three Theories of Recovery
Texas product liability law does not follow the strict liability framework used in many states. Texas grounds these claims in negligence, breach of warranty, and the statutory rules in CPRC Chapter 82. Understanding which theory applies to your situation shapes the entire case strategy.
design defect
A product deficiency where the product’s blueprint or specifications made it unreasonably dangerous as designed. Every unit of that product shares the same flaw.
risk-utility test
A balancing analysis used to evaluate design defect claims. Courts weigh the product’s utility against the risks it creates and ask whether a reasonable alternative design would have been safer without impairing usefulness.
A design defect claim requires showing the product was unreasonably dangerous as designed. Texas uses a risk-utility test to evaluate this. The plaintiff must show a safer alternative design existed and was economically and technically feasible. A car roof that collapses under normal rollover forces, or oilfield pressure equipment designed without adequate relief valves, are examples of design defects.
manufacturing defect
A flaw that occurs during production of one specific unit, causing it to differ from what the manufacturer intended. The design itself may be sound. This particular product was built wrong.
A manufacturing defect claim focuses on a deviation from the intended design. The product came off the line wrong. This can happen with tires cured improperly, fasteners installed with wrong torque specifications, or industrial equipment assembled with substandard materials. The defect exists in that unit, not in the design across all units.
failure to warn
Also called a marketing defect. A claim that the product lacked adequate instructions or safety warnings, making it unreasonably dangerous for foreseeable uses.
A failure to warn claim targets the information provided with the product. If a chemical product lacks hazard warnings required for safe handling, or a piece of machinery ships without safety guards and instructions for preventing entanglement, the seller may be liable for injuries that adequate warnings would have prevented.
In Longview and East Texas, these claims frequently involve oilfield equipment, industrial machinery, power tools, and chemical containers. The local industrial base creates regular exposure to heavy-duty equipment where defects cause serious injuries.
The theory that applies determines what evidence and experts the case needs and how the timeline works. Learn more about our broader personal injury practice in Longview.
The Innocent Seller Defense Under CPRC Chapter 82
Texas CPRC Section 82.003 generally shields sellers who did not manufacture the product from product liability claims. This is the innocent seller defense. If you bought an industrial tool from a local supply house and the tool was defective, the supply house can often point the lawsuit back to the manufacturer.
The defense has six exceptions. A seller loses the protection if the seller knew about the specific defect before the sale. It also fails if the seller modified the product and that modification caused the harm. Sellers who exercised substantial control over design or manufacturing are not protected. Sellers who failed to provide adequate warnings they had a duty to give also lose the defense. False express warranties strip the protection as well. The final exception: the manufacturer is insolvent or not subject to Texas jurisdiction.
That last exception matters in Longview’s industrial supply context. Equipment imported from overseas manufacturers, or products from companies that have since dissolved, may leave only the seller in reach. When the manufacturer cannot be found or cannot pay, the exception analysis determines whether any recovery is possible at all. Identifying the manufacturer, confirming its solvency, and determining its jurisdictional exposure is the foundation for knowing who can be sued.
What We Handle
Longview Practice Areas
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Car Accidents Rear-end, intersection, and highway collisions across Louisiana. -
Truck Accidents 18-wheeler and commercial-vehicle wrecks governed by federal trucking rules. -
Motorcycle Accidents Serious-injury motorcycle crashes where bias against riders is common. -
Pedestrian Accidents Crosswalk and roadway pedestrian injuries with high-stakes liability. -
Premises Liability Slip-and-fall and unsafe-property injuries on someone else's premises. - Slip & Fall Falls caused by wet floors, poor maintenance, and hidden hazards.
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Catastrophic Injury Brain, spinal-cord, amputation, and severe-burn injuries that change a life. -
Brain Injury Traumatic brain injuries with long-term cognitive and physical effects. -
Burn Injury Severe burns from fires, explosions, chemicals, and electrical contact. -
Wrongful Death Claims brought by families after a fatal accident or act of negligence. -
Product Liability Injuries caused by defective or unreasonably dangerous products. -
Offshore Accidents Rig, platform, and vessel injuries beyond the shoreline. -
Maritime & Jones Act Jones Act and general-maritime claims for seamen and vessel crews. -
Workers' Compensation On-the-job injuries and the benefits owed to injured workers.
Proportionate Responsibility in Multi-Party Product Cases
Proportionate responsibility
Texas’s fault allocation system under CPRC Chapter 33. Each party’s percentage of fault is determined by the jury, and recovery is reduced accordingly. A plaintiff at 51% or more recovers nothing.
Texas CPRC Chapter 33 governs fault allocation in personal injury cases, including product liability. Proportionate responsibility means the jury assigns a percentage of fault to every responsible party: the manufacturer, the distributor, the employer, the plaintiff, and any third parties.
Under Section 33.001, a plaintiff who is 50% or less responsible recovers, but their damages are reduced by their percentage. A plaintiff at exactly 50% keeps half the verdict. A plaintiff at 51% or more recovers nothing. This cutoff is precise. One percent makes the difference between recovery and zero.
Section 33.004 allows defendants to designate responsible third parties. A manufacturer can designate the employer as a responsible party, reducing the manufacturer’s share of fault. The plaintiff then has 60 days to join that third party as a defendant or accept the reduced recovery. This is a common tactic in industrial product cases where an employer’s failure to maintain or inspect equipment also contributed to the injury.
Joint and several liability under Section 33.013 applies only to defendants whose assigned fault exceeds 50%. A defendant at 30% fault pays only 30% of the judgment. A defendant at 60% fault can be forced to pay the full remaining judgment if other defendants cannot pay. In cases with multiple defendants (equipment manufacturer, rental company, parts supplier), this allocation matters enormously.
When an employer is designated as a responsible third party, the plaintiff has 60 days to join that party as a defendant; missing the window closes off a potential recovery source. Our Longview injury team handles multi-party product cases regularly.
Past results do not guarantee future outcomes; each case is decided on its own facts. See our full case results.
Statute of Limitations and the 15-Year Statute of Repose
Texas product liability claims have two overlapping time limits. Both can end your right to sue, and they work differently.
The statute of limitations under CPRC Section 16.003 gives you two years to file suit. The clock starts when you were injured, or when you knew or reasonably should have known about the injury and its cause. The discovery rule applies in cases where the injury was not immediately apparent, such as latent toxic exposure from industrial chemicals or asbestos-containing materials used in Longview’s industrial facilities.
statute of repose
A hard deadline that bars claims after a set number of years from a triggering event, regardless of when the injury occurred or was discovered. Unlike a statute of limitations, it cannot be extended by the discovery rule or minority tolling in most cases.
The statute of repose under CPRC Section 16.012 is a separate and harder cutoff. No product liability claim can be brought against a manufacturer more than 15 years after the product was first sold to a consumer. This clock runs from the sale date, not the injury date. A product sold in 2009 bars claims after 2024, regardless of when the injury happened or was discovered.
The repose bar is not tolled by minority. A child injured by a defective product during the last year of the repose period faces the same cutoff as an adult. Tolling under CPRC Section 16.001 suspends the statute of limitations for minors until age 18, then starts the two-year clock. But Section 16.001 does not suspend the repose bar.
Wrongful death product claims follow the two-year statute of limitations running from the date of death under Section 16.003(b). The repose bar also applies to these claims.
The product’s original sale date controls the repose deadline. In East Texas industrial cases involving equipment with long service lives, repose can close claims that would otherwise be viable.
Exemplary Damages for Gross Negligence
exemplary damages
Texas’s term for what other states call punitive damages. Awarded on top of actual damages to punish conduct involving fraud, malice, or gross negligence. Requires clear and convincing evidence.
Texas allows exemplary damages in product cases under CPRC Chapter 41. These are not automatic. The plaintiff must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the manufacturer acted with fraud, malice, or gross negligence.
Gross negligence requires two elements. The act or omission must involve an extreme degree of risk. And the defendant must have been subjectively aware of that risk but consciously chosen to proceed anyway. Ordinary negligence is not enough. The evidence must show the manufacturer knew the product was dangerous and sold it anyway, or ignored documented safety failures to cut costs.
The cap under Section 41.008 limits exemplary damages to the greater of two times economic damages plus noneconomic damages up to $750,000, or $200,000. For severe injuries with high economic damages, the two-times formula typically produces a larger number than the flat $200,000 floor.
Evidence that supports a gross negligence claim includes internal testing records showing known defects. Prior CPSC complaints or recall decisions the manufacturer failed to act on also matter. Cost-benefit memos showing deliberate decisions to avoid a safer design, and prior injury claims involving the same product, round out the record. This evidence does not always surface during initial discovery. Building it requires specific document requests and sometimes corporate depositions.
Not every defective product case supports a claim for exemplary damages.
Your Longview Injury Attorneys
Founding partners Trey Morris and Justin Dewett lead every Longview injury case Morris & Dewett takes.
Class Actions, MDL, and Mass Tort Litigation
MDL
Multidistrict Litigation. A federal procedural mechanism that consolidates pre-trial proceedings for related cases into one court to avoid duplicative discovery. Each plaintiff retains their individual claim and individual trial right.
When a defective product injures many consumers, litigation consolidates into a class action or a MDL. This happens when the same product (a vehicle component, a medical device, or an industrial chemical) produces similar injuries across many plaintiffs.
Class actions under FRCP Rule 23 require that the injury, the defect, and the legal claims be sufficiently uniform across all plaintiffs. Mass tort MDLs, by contrast, consolidate only pretrial proceedings. Each plaintiff in an MDL keeps their individual case and their right to an individual trial. Most MDL cases settle globally before trials occur.
The Eastern District of Texas (with courthouses in Tyler and Marshall) handles Texas product liability cases. Major national MDLs are centralized in other districts by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. Longview-area plaintiffs injured by widely distributed products (automotive recalls, pharmaceutical injuries, industrial equipment defects) may already be part of an active MDL without knowing it.
Your individual claim can proceed regardless of what happens in an MDL. You can join a class or MDL settlement, opt out and pursue an individual recovery, or file independently if no consolidated proceeding exists. The right approach depends on the nature of the defect and the size of your injury.
Our team handles individual product liability cases for Longview clients.
What clients say
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Wonderful experience with Morris and DeWitt, everyone was articulate and punctual, and open to all my questions about the process.
My case couldn't have been handled by a better team! Caity Nerren, Jessica Christian, and Meghan Nolen were all fantastic and helped every step of the way. Thanks again for all of your hard work.
Reviews reflect individual client experiences. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.
Evidence and Investigation in Longview Product Cases
The most important thing to do after a product injury is preserve the product. Do not use it again. Do not repair it. Do not discard it. The physical product is often the central exhibit in a product liability case. Once it is modified or destroyed, proving what was wrong with it becomes far more difficult.
Spoliation
The destruction, alteration, or loss of evidence after a party has notice of potential litigation. Courts can instruct juries to draw negative inferences from the destruction.
Spoliation can work against either party. If the manufacturer destroys testing records or design files after being put on notice of your claim, that destruction can be argued to the jury as evidence the records were damaging. If you repair or discard the product, the defense will argue you eliminated the evidence of the alleged defect.
Key evidence in a product liability case includes the product itself, the original purchase receipt, and any written warranties. Maintenance records, prior recall notices from the Consumer Product Safety Commission or National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and internal quality control records are all relevant. Complaints filed by other consumers about the same product can establish the manufacturer had prior notice.
Product liability cases almost always require expert witnesses. An engineering or design expert testifies that the product deviated from applicable safety standards or that an alternative design was feasible. Without expert testimony, most product defect claims cannot survive summary judgment. Identifying and retaining the right expert early is not a formality. It is one of the most consequential decisions in the case.
In Longview’s industrial context, workplace product injuries often involve additional evidence layers. OSHA inspection reports, employer maintenance records, equipment rental agreements, and co-worker statements may all bear on both liability and the responsible party designations under Chapter 33. If the product injury happened at work, you may also have a workers’ compensation claim running alongside the product liability case.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the difference between a design defect and a manufacturing defect in Texas?
- A design defect means the entire product line is defective because the blueprint itself created an unreasonable danger. Every unit of that product shares the same flaw. A manufacturing defect means only the specific unit that injured you deviated from the intended design during production. Other units made correctly would be safe. Texas uses the risk-utility test for design defect claims, which requires showing that a safer alternative design was feasible. Manufacturing defect claims focus on the gap between what the manufacturer intended and what was actually built.
- Can I sue a retailer or seller for a defective product in Texas?
- Generally, no. CPRC Section 82.003 gives sellers who did not manufacture the product a defense against product liability claims. However, six exceptions remove that protection: the seller knew about the defect, the seller modified the product, the seller exercised substantial control over design or manufacturing, the seller failed to give adequate warnings it had a duty to provide, the seller made false express warranties, or the manufacturer is insolvent or outside Texas jurisdiction. In Longview's industrial supply market, that last exception is frequently relevant when foreign manufacturers or dissolved companies are involved.
- How long do I have to file a product liability lawsuit in Texas?
- The statute of limitations is two years from the date of injury or from the date you knew or should have known about the injury and its cause under CPRC Section 16.003. For minors, Section 16.001 tolls the two-year clock until age 18, giving minors until their 20th birthday. Wrongful death claims run two years from the date of death. Toxic exposure and latent injury cases benefit from the discovery rule, which starts the clock when you knew or reasonably should have known about the injury and its cause.
- What is the 15-year statute of repose and how does it affect my claim?
- CPRC Section 16.012 bars all claims against a manufacturer brought more than 15 years after the product was first sold to a consumer. This clock runs from the original sale date, not from your injury date. It is a hard cutoff. Unlike the statute of limitations, the repose bar is generally not extended by the discovery rule, minority, or fraudulent concealment. A product sold in 2008 and still in service today cannot be the basis for a new manufacturer claim. This is especially relevant for long-service industrial equipment common in East Texas oilfield and manufacturing operations.
- What does proportionate responsibility mean in a product case with multiple defendants?
- Texas CPRC Chapter 33 requires the jury to assign a fault percentage to every responsible party, including the plaintiff. If your assigned percentage is 50% or less, you recover. Your damages are reduced by your percentage. At 51% or more, you recover nothing. Defendants can designate other parties as responsible third parties under Section 33.004, which can shift fault away from them. You have 60 days after a designation to join that party as a defendant. In industrial product cases, manufacturers routinely designate employers or co-workers to reduce their own fault share.
- Can I recover exemplary damages if the manufacturer knew the product was dangerous?
- Texas allows exemplary damages under CPRC Chapter 41 when a manufacturer acted with gross negligence, fraud, or malice. Gross negligence requires clear and convincing evidence that the conduct involved an extreme degree of risk and the manufacturer was subjectively aware of that risk but proceeded anyway. The cap is the greater of two times economic damages plus noneconomic damages up to $750,000, or $200,000. Evidence that supports this claim includes internal testing records showing known defects, prior recalls or CPSC complaints the manufacturer ignored, and cost-benefit documents reflecting deliberate decisions to avoid a safer design. Not every product case meets this standard.
- What should I do with the defective product after I am injured?
- Preserve it. Do not use it, repair it, modify it, or discard it. The physical product is often the most important evidence in a product liability case. Photograph it immediately from multiple angles before anything is moved or cleaned up. Store it in a safe location where it will not be altered. Send your attorney a written notice of the defect as soon as you retain counsel so they can send a spoliation hold letter to the manufacturer and seller. Destroying or losing the product after a claim arises can severely damage your case. The Consumer Product Safety Commission also maintains a public database of product incidents and recalls that may contain prior complaints about the same product.
- Does Texas allow class action lawsuits for defective products?
- Yes. Texas state courts handle class actions under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 42, and federal courts in the Eastern District of Texas follow FRCP Rule 23. A class action requires that the defect, the injuries, and the legal claims be sufficiently uniform across plaintiffs to make group litigation practical. Many major product defect cases involving widely distributed products proceed instead as federal Multidistrict Litigation, which consolidates pre-trial proceedings without merging individual claims. Your individual claim can be pursued separately even if an MDL or class action exists. Whether to join consolidated proceedings or proceed independently depends on the specific product, the extent of your injuries, and the litigation posture of the manufacturer.
Last updated June 5, 2026