In a failure to warn claim, what must be proven about the risks of harm?

In a failure to warn claim, it is necessary to demonstrate that the risks of harm are foreseeable and not obvious. This means that the manufacturer or entity responsible for a product has a duty to warn consumers of dangers that are not readily apparent or intuitive. If the risks are obvious, users are generally assumed to understand them, and the duty to provide a warning may not apply.

For a successful claim, it is critical that the risks in question are foreseeable; this means that the manufacturer could reasonably predict that the product might cause harm if used in a certain way, even if that risk was not previously recognized by the user. Thus, when the risks are not obvious, the manufacturer is obligated to provide sufficient warnings or instructions to ensure the safety of its users.

In contrast, options suggesting that risks need to be obvious to all users or completely avoidable do not align with the legal framework surrounding duty to warn. Similarly, while well-documented risks can support a claim, documentation alone does not address the core requirement of foreseeability and the necessary nature of the warning about non-obvious risks.