Should I Sue Manufacturer Because 11-Year-Old Got Spring from Mechanical Pencil Stuck Through His Finger?

Those commentators and politicians who complain about frivolous lawsuits have no idea how many frivolous cases experienced lawyers screen out of the system.  Here’s the latest I’ve seen.

Q.  My 11 years old son was injured by a defective mechanical pencil. A spring from the pencil went through his finger. We had to take my son to the doctor to have it removed. I am jus wondering do I have a product liabilty case against them?

A.  Having gone to an ER for removal of a large spring from my own finger once, and having taken my own kids to the ER for a variety of minor injuries and ailments, I understand you are upset. However, as was mentioned in another response, a products liability case is inordinately expensive and complex. Unless there is a catastrophic permanent injury, a products liability case is generally not worthwhile. If you think about this a while, you may conclude that only the defense lawyers would make any money on this case and the story of your lawsuit would become an urban legend circulated by tort reform advocates for years as an example of frivolous litigation. Unless your son lost his finger, I hope you do not clog up the court system with this claim.

Ken Shigley is a trial attorney in Atlanta, Georgia who has been listed as a “Super Lawyer” (Atlanta Magazine), among the “Legal Elite” (Georgia Trend Magazine), and in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers (Martindale), and is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy,. Mr. Shigley has extensive experience representing parties in trucking and bus accidents, products liability, catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, brain injury, spinal cord injury and burn injury cases.  Currently he is Secretary of the 40,000 member State Bar of Georgia.