Defensive designs minimize hazards: To prevent customer injuries and avoid lawsuits, engineers must anticipate bizarre or unexpected ways in which products might be misused

Liability is one of the biggest issues that design engineers and manufacturing companies face, assert several lawyers. “If you're going to come out with a brand new product that does something unfamiliar, and offer it to a mass market and it has some hazard, then you are going to pay liability claims,” declared Peter W. Huber, a senior associate with Science Concepts Inc. in Washington, D.C., consultants on product liability.