Product Liability Demand Letter: Template, Liability, and Damages

Why Product Liability demand letters are different

A Product Liability demand letter follows the same eight-section structure as any other personal-injury demand, but the liability theory, the medical narrative, and the verdict-comparable anchors are very different from a generic auto claim. Insurance adjusters who handle Product Liability files specifically know the case-law shortcuts, the affirmative defenses, and the typical jury ranges in their venue. A demand letter that ignores those nuances reads as inexperienced and produces a low offer.

This guide walks you through the Product Liability-specific drafting decisions: how to plead liability, which records to attach, how to value pain and suffering for the injuries this case type usually produces, and which deadlines matter most.

Liability section: what you must establish

Defective products, failure to warn, and design defect claims.

Your liability section should walk the adjuster through the duty owed by the at-fault party, the breach of that duty supported by an admissible piece of evidence (police report, surveillance video, OSHA citation, expert engineering opinion), and the causal link to your injuries. Adjusters discount demands that fail to cite an affirmative piece of liability evidence; do not assume the file already contains it.

Medical narrative: build the causation story

For Product Liability cases, the medical narrative must connect each diagnosis back to the mechanism of injury. Adjusters routinely argue “degenerative” or “pre-existing” for spine and joint complaints; the demand letter should preempt this by attaching a treating physician’s opinion that the conditions are causally related to the incident, supported by pre- and post-incident imaging where available.

Include every emergency-department record, every diagnostic imaging report, and every specialist consult. Where possible, attach an AMA Guides impairment rating for permanent impairments — this single document moves the adjuster’s reserve more than any other.

Damages: special and general

Itemize every medical bill, every prescription, every mile driven for treatment, and every hour of work missed. For Product Liability cases, juries respond to future medical costs and lost earning capacity as much as past specials — make sure both are documented by a treating provider and a vocational expert if appropriate.

For pain and suffering, use a multiplier of 1.5–2.5 for soft-tissue cases, 3–4 for cases involving surgery, and 4–5+ for catastrophic permanent impairment. Justify the multiplier in the letter by walking through the McDougald factors (loss of enjoyment, mental anguish, disfigurement, duration).

The number, the deadline, and the reservation of rights

Your demand should be one specific dollar figure with a 30-day response deadline. Do not include a range — adjusters anchor to the bottom of any range you offer. Always close the letter with an FRE 408 reservation of rights so that nothing in the letter is admissible at trial as an admission against your interest.

Documents to attach to a Product Liability demand

• Police, incident, or OSHA report.
• Color photographs of the scene, hazard, and injuries.
• Complete medical records from every treating provider.
• All diagnostic imaging reports.
• Itemized billing ledgers with CPT codes.
• Lost-wage verification on employer letterhead.
• Treating physician narrative report on causation and prognosis.
• AMA Guides impairment rating, if applicable.

Common mistakes in Product Liability demand letters

Three mistakes appear repeatedly in Product Liability demands drafted without an attorney: (1) failing to plead a specific statutory or common-law duty, leaving the adjuster free to deny liability; (2) relying only on past medical bills and ignoring future care and earning-capacity losses; and (3) missing the notice-of-claim deadline that applies when a government entity is a defendant. All three are avoidable with experienced counsel.

Your next step

Use this template as a checklist when reviewing your attorney’s draft demand letter, or as a starting point for a free consultation. Most attorneys will review and rework the draft for free as part of intake.

Frequently asked questions