Products Liability and Warranty Claims
Product liability in Michigan is statute-inflected: the elements come from the product liability act and the UCC, and the proof requirements are demanding.
Theories
MCL 600.2945 to 600.2949b governs claims for death or injury caused by a product. Plaintiffs commonly plead negligence, breach of the implied warranty of merchantability (MCL 440.2314), and misrepresentation. Michigan does not use a free-standing strict-liability label; the practical question is whether the product left the manufacturer's control in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous.
Proving design defect
Under MCL 600.2946(2), a design-defect plaintiff must show that a practical and technically feasible alternative design or production practice would have prevented the harm without significantly impairing the product's usefulness or desirability. Compliance with an applicable government standard, and FDA approval for drugs, creates a rebuttable presumption of nondefectiveness under MCL 600.2946.
Warnings
A manufacturer must warn of risks it knows or should know and that the ordinary user would not discover. A failure-to-warn claim requires proof that an adequate warning would have made a difference; an inadequate product warning can also support allocating fault to the user.
Economic loss
The economic-loss doctrine (Neibarger v Universal Cooperatives) bars tort recovery for damage to the product itself; pursue UCC warranty remedies instead.
Worked example
A punch press amputates fingers at an unguarded point of operation. Plaintiff offers evidence of a feasible interlock guard that costs little and does not reduce the machine's function. That evidence satisfies MCL 600.2946(2) and supports a design-defect claim; the employer's misuse is then allocated as fault.
Traps
Confusing warranty and tort damages; proposing an alternative design that compromises the product's utility; ignoring an obvious hazard or an adequate post-sale warning; suing a defendant that never had control of the product.