Rumberger, Kirk & Caldwell is a premier product liability defense firm in Florida and Alabama. Named by several of the nation's leading conveyance manufacturers as primary defense counsel in the Southeast, the firm has defended products and crashworthiness cases involving everything from wheeled construction & agricultural equipment to motor vehicles, motorcycles, boats & watercraft, airplanes, helicopters, and more. However, RKC’s technical knowledge and product litigation expertise are not limited to motorized passenger products.
Below is a representative list demonstrating the diversity of manufactured goods we have successfully defended in more than 30 years of litigation in the field:
Aircraft and Aviation Components
Asbestos containing products
Automobiles
Beverage bottles
Boats
Carpets (allegedly impregnated with noxious substances)
Chlorine cylinders and valves
Cleaners
Concrete mixes for road construction projects
Corrugated steel flooring for refrigerated storage units
Cosmetics
Electronics
Elevators and escalators
Explosives
Factory and product packaging machinery
Forklifts
Front-end loaders
Fluorescent and halide light fixtures
Garage-type overhead doors
Liquid CO 2 delivery systems
Lathes
Latex gloves
Lawnmowers
Morphine injection systems
Neon signs
Pesticides/termiticides
Pharmaceuticals
Pollution control "scrubbers" for incinerators
Radial arm saws
Roller coasters/amusement park rides
Scuba breathing valves
Shotguns
Steel handles for grain delivery mechanisms
Stump cutters/grinders
Swimming pool pump/filtration systems
Tennis Shoes
Tires
Trucks
A Leader in Defending Automotive Product Liability Cases
Since the origins of product liability jurisprudence in Florida, RKC has been at the forefront in establishing the legal doctrines and defenses that evolved to protect product manufacturers here. Indeed, a researcher would be hard pressed to find a Florida auto products defense attorney without some original connection to RKC. Such status is one reason U.S. News & Word Report ranked Rumberger Kirk & Caldwell as a "Tier 1" products liability defense firm. It also in part explains why Chambers & Partners, the leading independent evaluator of the world’s best law firms, cited a “prevailing market opinion” of Rumberger, Kirk & Caldwell as a firm with "especially strong experience in products liability."
RKC partners are routinely cited as authorities in product liability jurisprudence. For example, J. Richard Caldwell, Jr. of the firm’s Tampa Office, was selected by the Defense Research Institute to write the Florida chapter of the Institute’s “Product Liability Defenses: A State-by-State Compendium” in the DRI Defense Library Series. Product liability law articles authored by Larry Roth, a partner in the Orlando Office, have been cited as authoritative by appellate courts and the Florida legislature alike. See Sta-Rite Industries, Inc. v. Levey 909 So.2d 901, 908 (Fla. 3d DCA 2004) and, SB 142, Florida Senate Bill Analysis and Fiscal Impact Statement, pg 4 et seq. at www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2011/0142/Analyses.
Boating, Marine, Personal Watercraft
Moreover, the firm’s presence in two southeastern states known as primary destinations for water sports activities, as well as the proximity of RKC’s Miami and Tampa offices to two different oceans, has resulted in Rumberger, Kirk & Caldwell becoming a key defense firm for watercraft manufacturers / distributors, pleasure craft operators and, more international ocean-going concerns. In defending clients in such maritime cases, RKC attorneys have developed a distinct agility and mastery of the amalgamation of law applicable to this field, including: admiralty, product liability, personal injury, wrongful death, cargo loss, and the Jones Act. The firm counts among its clients a number of the world's largest cargo and maritime insurers and several major manufacturers of boats and other personal watercraft
