A cracked luggage wheel sends you sprawling in an airport terminal. A rental car’s brakes fail on an unfamiliar Texas highway. A hotel’s malfunctioning space heater sparks a fire in your room. Being hurt by a faulty product is stressful enough at home, but when it happens hundreds of miles away, you may wonder whether you have any legal options at all.
At Byrd Davis Alden & Henrichson, LLP, we have represented injured Texans for over 65 years, and our attorneys understand that a defective product does not stop being the manufacturer’s responsibility just because the injury happened away from home. Whether you were hurt in Austin or somewhere else entirely, you may be able to pursue compensation from the company that made or sold the product.
What Counts as a Defective Product Injury During Travel
Products travelers rely on every day can carry hidden dangers. Rental vehicles with unresolved safety recalls, hotel equipment such as space heaters or pool lift chairs, portable chargers and lithium batteries, and even luggage or travel gear can all cause serious harm when something goes wrong with their design, manufacturing, or warning labels. A defective vehicle is one of the most common culprits, since travelers rarely have the chance to inspect a rental car’s history before hitting the road.
Rental cars deserve particular attention. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 2024 Annual Report on Safety Recalls, average vehicle recall completion rates have hovered between roughly 62 and 73 percent in recent years, which means a meaningful share of recalled vehicles, potentially including ones sitting on rental lots, may never receive their repair. A traveler renting a car has no way of knowing its recall history without checking, and a failure caused by that unresolved defect is not the traveler’s fault.
Who Can Be Held Responsible
Texas product liability law allows an injured person to pursue a claim against more than just the retailer who sold the product. Depending on the circumstances, responsibility may fall on the manufacturer that designed or built the defective part, a distributor or wholesaler that moved the product through the supply chain, a rental company that failed to address a known recall, or a hotel or venue that provided defective equipment to guests. Because these cases often involve multiple parties, identifying every liable party matters for recovering full compensation, especially in a car accident or rideshare situation where more than one company may share fault.
Why the Location of Your Injury Does Not Bar Your Claim
Some travelers assume that being injured outside their home state or even outside Texas means they cannot pursue a case, or that a Texas resident hurt elsewhere must abandon their claim entirely. That is not necessarily true. Product liability law generally follows where the injury occurred, and an experienced attorney can help sort out which state’s laws apply and whether local counsel is needed. If you were injured while traveling through Texas, including in an Uber or Lyft crash involving a defective vehicle part, our attorneys can evaluate whether Texas law applies to your claim from the start.
Steps to Protect Your Claim After a Travel Injury
Acting quickly after a defective product injury can make a meaningful difference in your case. Consider taking the following steps as soon as it is safe to do so.
- Preserve the product: Do not discard, repair, or return the item, since it may serve as key evidence.
- Photograph everything: Capture the product, your injuries, and the surrounding scene before conditions change.
- Seek medical care immediately: Prompt treatment protects your health and creates a documented record connecting your injury to the product.
- Report the incident: Notify hotel staff, the rental company, or venue management and request a written report.
- Avoid recorded statements: Insurance adjusters may ask you to describe the incident before you have spoken with an attorney.
Following these steps helps preserve the evidence needed to support a claim, and an attorney can build on that foundation from there.
What Compensation May Be Available
Depending on the severity of your injury, you may be able to recover damages for medical expenses, lost wages if the injury kept you from working, pain and suffering, and any additional travel costs tied directly to the incident, such as rebooking flights or extending a hotel stay. Some travel injuries lead to lasting harm that requires ongoing care, which is why our catastrophic injury attorneys evaluate the full scope of a claim rather than settling for the first number an insurer offers. The value of a claim depends heavily on the facts involved, including the severity of the injury and the strength of the evidence connecting it to the defective product.
Contact Byrd Davis Alden & Henrichson, LLP After a Travel Injury
Being hurt by a defective product while traveling can leave you dealing with unfamiliar insurance companies, out-of-state paperwork, and mounting medical bills, all while trying to get home. Our attorneys, Kevin Henrichson, Robert Alden, Hunter Wallen, and Carson May, have spent decades building a 98% success rate and recovering over $100 million for injured clients, and we know how to investigate a defective product claim no matter where the injury occurred.
If you were hurt by a defective product during a trip, we encourage you to reach out through our contact form to discuss what happened. We can help you understand your options and take the next steps toward recovering the compensation you may be owed.
