A lawsuit has been filed by a man who was crushed under his truck when a defective jack stand broke.
The plaintiff, 43-year-old Justin B., is a man from Michigan who worked in automotive collision repairs for almost 20 years. He claims that he was seriously injured by a jack stand from Harbor Freight.
On March 31, 2021, he placed the jack stand at a lift point near the front driver’s side door of his 2006 Dodge Ram 1500 pickup truck.
When he was working under the front bumper of his truck, the jack stand broke without warning and toppled over, dropping the front end of the truck onto his chest. He suffered blunt trauma to his abdomen and chest, multiple rib fractures, kidney injuries, and a collapsed lung.
His lawsuit blames the accident on a defective weld that failed on the jack stand, which caused a support leg to deform and drop the truck.
In the lawsuit, he accuses Harbor Freight of knowingly selling jack stands that were in “unreasonably dangerous condition due to their defective welding.”
Furthermore, he alleges that the jack stands were “inherently dangerous because they can collapse under a load causing danger, injury or death to nearby individuals and damage to property.”
In May and July 2020, Harbor Freight recalled more than 1.7 million Pittsburgh Automotive 3-Ton and 6-Ton Heavy Duty Steel Jack Stands because they can collapse under load, causing severe injury or death to people underneath or nearby a lifted vehicle.
The lawsuit was filed on July 21, 2023 against Harbor Freight Tools USA Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan (Northern Division) — Case 2:23-cv-00136-RJJ-MV.
Source: Johnson//Becker Files Lawsuit Against Harbor Freight Tools USA for Jack Stand Injuries in Michigan