Jack Harrington, Of Counsel, SmithAmundsen LLC, a legal firm attending the marcus evans Aerospace & Defense Manufacturing Summit 2012, on being ready for product liability litigation.

New York, NY, Oct 9, 2012 - (ACN Newswire) - The aerospace industry works so hard to build good products, but it needs to work just as hard to protect them for when litigation occurs, says Jack Harrington, Of Counsel, SmithAmundsen LLC.

A masterclass presenter from a legal firm attending the upcoming marcus evans Aerospace & Defense Manufacturing Summit 2012, in Las Vegas, Nevada, October 25-26, Harrington turns the spotlight on product liability litigation and what role electronic discovery (eDiscovery) can play in the aerospace product manufacturing industry.

- How can the aerospace industry better handle product liability litigation?

In the past, defense lawyers used to deal with product liability litigation by bringing in experts, who would argue that the accident or incident was not caused by the product, while the plaintiff would bring specialists suggesting otherwise. With eDiscovery, there is now an entirely new element to product liability litigation.

Most communication and correspondence today is through emails, and eDiscovery is making available a tremendous amount of information, including poorly written emails between colleagues, when no one thought that years later they would be in a witness stand trying to explain to the jury what they actually meant to say.

- What is the way around this issue?

Many aircraft companies that want to protect the integrity of products are providing product integrity training, telling employees to be careful with emails as they can potentially come up in court decades later.

The second part of the training must focus on document retention, and keeping only the pieces of communication that may be required by the government or for the running of the business. Saving every email just opens up the company to enquiries that could lead to inaccurate theories in a lawsuit. People who are injured by faulty products should be protected and compensated, but at the same time the business should not have to worry that if a crash occurs counsel will present and convince a different case to the jury.

We encourage companies to build the best products they can, make sure everyone realizes they are the best that they can be, but to address product issues that arise.

More here:

Aerospace Product Liability Litigation: Are You Ready?