Introduction
Product liability and injury claims in Turkey arise when a person suffers bodily injury, death, property damage, financial loss, or other harm because of a defective or unsafe product. A defective product may be a household appliance, vehicle part, machine, medical device, cosmetic product, food item, electronic device, toy, industrial product, construction material, battery, chemical product, furniture item, pharmaceutical product, or any other product placed on the market. Where the product is unsafe, lacks required characteristics, contains inadequate warnings, fails to comply with technical regulations, or causes injury due to design, production, labeling, or instruction defects, Turkish law may allow the injured person to claim compensation.
Product liability in Turkey is not governed by only one legal source. Depending on the facts, a claim may involve the Turkish Code of Obligations, Law No. 6502 on the Protection of Consumers, Law No. 7223 on Product Safety and Technical Regulations, insurance law, criminal law, and special sector regulations. Product injury cases may also overlap with personal injury law, consumer law, commercial law, occupational safety law, medical malpractice, and administrative product safety enforcement.
The Turkish Ministry of Trade explains that Law No. 7223 on Product Safety and Technical Regulations entered into force in March 2021 and establishes a general framework for technical regulations, conformity assessment, CE marking, market surveillance, economic operator responsibilities, administrative penalties, product recalls, online sales, traceability, and product liability principles. The Ministry also states that Law No. 7223 aligns Türkiye’s product safety system with EU product safety principles and requires products to be safe and compliant with relevant technical regulations.
For an injured claimant, the practical legal questions are: What made the product defective? Who is responsible? Was the product unsafe when placed on the market? Did the manufacturer or importer provide proper warnings? Was there a recall? Can the seller also be sued? What compensation can be claimed? What evidence is needed? What limitation period applies? This article explains product liability and injury claims in Turkey from a practical legal perspective.
1. What Is Product Liability in Turkey?
Product liability refers to the legal responsibility of persons or businesses involved in placing a product on the market when that product causes damage. The responsible party may be the manufacturer, importer, distributor, seller, authorized representative, online marketplace-related operator, supplier, repair service, installer, or another economic operator depending on the product, legal relationship, and source of defect.
A product liability claim may arise from different types of defects. A design defect exists where the product is unsafe because of its design, even if manufactured according to plan. A manufacturing defect exists where a particular product is defective because it deviates from the intended design or production standards. A warning or instruction defect exists where the product lacks adequate safety warnings, user instructions, risk disclosures, installation guidance, age restrictions, dosage instructions, maintenance instructions, or safety labels. A compliance defect may arise where the product fails to comply with technical regulations, standards, CE marking requirements, or sector-specific safety rules.
Injury claims are usually stronger where the defect can be connected to a concrete harm. For example, a defective battery may explode and cause burns. A defective ladder may collapse and cause fractures. A faulty vehicle part may cause a crash. A contaminated food product may cause illness. A medical device may malfunction and cause bodily harm. A toy may injure a child because of unsafe design or toxic material. A machine may injure a worker because protective guards were defective or missing.
The key point is causation. The claimant must connect the unsafe product to the injury. It is not enough to show that the product was imperfect. The defect must have caused or materially contributed to the damage claimed.
2. Legal Framework: Tort, Consumer Law, and Product Safety Law
Product injury claims in Turkey usually rely on several legal grounds at the same time.
First, the Turkish Code of Obligations provides the general tort liability framework. Article 49 states that a person causing damage to another by a wrongful and unlawful act is liable to compensate that damage; Article 50 places the burden of proving damage and fault on the injured party, while Article 51 allows the judge to determine the scope and method of compensation according to the circumstances and severity of fault.
Second, consumer law becomes important where the injured person purchased or used the product as a consumer. The Law on Consumer Protection defines defective goods and regulates the seller’s obligation to deliver goods in conformity with the contract. Goods that do not conform to characteristics appearing on packaging, labels, user manuals, internet portals, advertisements, announcements, seller statements, or technical regulations may be treated as defective.
Third, Law No. 7223 governs product safety and technical compliance. It focuses on ensuring that products placed on the market are safe, traceable, compliant with technical regulations, and subject to market surveillance, recall, and administrative measures where necessary. The Ministry of Trade identifies online trade, traceability, separate responsibilities of manufacturers, importers, authorized representatives and distributors, recall obligations, and product liability principles as highlights of this law.
These legal routes may overlap. A claimant injured by a defective product may rely on tort law for personal injury compensation, consumer law for defective goods remedies, and product safety law to establish regulatory non-compliance, unsafe product status, recall obligations, or economic operator responsibility.
3. What Counts as a Defective Product?
A product may be defective if it does not provide the safety that a person is reasonably entitled to expect, does not conform to the contract, does not match packaging or advertising statements, lacks required technical characteristics, or is unsafe under relevant regulations.
In consumer transactions, defective goods are not limited to completely unusable products. A product may be defective if it lacks the characteristics objectively expected from that product type. For example, a heater should not create an unreasonable fire risk. A child’s toy should not contain detachable dangerous parts or toxic substances. A vehicle brake component should function safely. A cosmetic product should not contain harmful substances beyond lawful limits. A ladder should support the declared load. A medical device should function as represented.
Defects may also relate to instructions and warnings. Some products are inherently risky if misused, but the manufacturer or seller may still have a duty to provide clear instructions. For example, chemicals require safety warnings. Electrical products require installation and usage guidance. Medical devices require contraindications and risk disclosures. Children’s products require age and choking hazard warnings. Failure to provide adequate warnings may turn a product into a legally defective or unsafe product.
4. Who Can Be Liable for a Defective Product Injury?
Several parties may be responsible in a product injury claim in Turkey.
The manufacturer may be liable if the defect arose from product design, production, quality control, labeling, warnings, or failure to comply with technical regulations. The manufacturer is usually the primary target in serious product liability cases.
The importer may also be liable, especially where the product was manufactured abroad and placed on the Turkish market by an importer. Consumer law defines the importer as a natural or legal person who imports goods, services, raw materials, or intermediate goods for commercial or professional purposes and places them on the market through sale, lease, financial leasing, or similar means.
The distributor or seller may be liable depending on the claim type. In consumer law, the seller is obliged to deliver goods to the consumer in conformity with the sales contract. If the injured claimant purchased the product directly from the seller, contractual and consumer remedies may be available against the seller.
The supplier, installer, maintenance provider, or repair service may also be relevant. Some injuries arise not from the original product but from improper installation, defective repair, wrong maintenance, or unsafe modification. For example, a gas appliance may be safe as manufactured but dangerous because of improper installation. A machine may become unsafe after a defective repair. A medical device may fail because maintenance instructions were ignored.
The online seller or distance sales operator may also be important. The Ministry of Trade states that online trade has been included within the scope of Law No. 7223 so that products sold online must also be safe and compliant with related technical regulations.
5. Types of Product Injury Claims in Turkey
Defective Consumer Goods
Consumer goods such as home appliances, electronics, furniture, cosmetics, toys, sports equipment, cleaning products, kitchen appliances, heaters, chargers, and batteries may cause injury if unsafe. A defective kettle may explode, a charger may cause electric shock, a chair may collapse, or a toy may injure a child.
Defective Vehicle Parts
Vehicle defects may lead to serious accidents. Brake defects, tire defects, steering failures, airbag failures, seatbelt defects, battery fires, or defective motorcycle parts may cause bodily injury or death. These claims may overlap with traffic accident compensation and insurance claims.
Defective Medical Devices and Healthcare Products
Medical devices, implants, surgical materials, prosthetics, diagnostic devices, dental products, or hospital equipment may cause injury if defective. These cases may overlap with medical malpractice, hospital liability, product safety law, and technical compliance regulations.
Defective Industrial Machinery
Machinery defects can cause workplace injuries. Missing guards, defective emergency stop systems, unsafe blades, hydraulic failures, electrical defects, and inadequate warnings may cause amputations, crushing injuries, burns, or death. These cases may involve both product liability and employer liability.
Food, Cosmetics, and Chemical Product Injuries
Contaminated food, mislabeled allergens, unsafe cosmetics, toxic chemicals, cleaning products, pesticides, and chemical exposure cases may cause serious harm. Evidence may require laboratory testing, batch numbers, packaging, invoices, medical records, and regulatory findings.
6. What Compensation Can Be Claimed?
A person injured by a defective product in Turkey may claim material compensation and moral damages, depending on the facts.
Treatment Expenses
Treatment expenses may include emergency care, ambulance costs, hospitalization, surgery, medication, physical therapy, rehabilitation, prosthetics, medical devices, psychological treatment, follow-up examinations, and future medical costs. If the defective product caused burns, fractures, poisoning, neurological injury, or permanent impairment, treatment costs may be substantial.
Loss of Earnings
If the injured person cannot work during recovery, they may claim loss of earnings. Employees may rely on payroll records, social security documents, employer letters, and bank salary payments. Self-employed persons may rely on tax records, invoices, commercial books, bank statements, contracts, and professional documents.
Permanent Disability Compensation
If the product injury causes long-term impairment, the injured person may claim permanent disability compensation. The calculation may consider age, income, occupation, disability rate, working-life expectancy, and causation. For example, a hand injury caused by a defective machine may permanently affect a technician, chef, surgeon, dentist, mechanic, musician, or factory worker.
Loss of Economic Future
A serious product injury may reduce future career opportunities even where the injured person can still work. Turkish law recognizes losses arising from reduction or loss of working capacity and disruption of economic future as bodily injury damages under Article 54 of the Turkish Code of Obligations.
Moral Damages
Moral damages compensate pain, suffering, emotional distress, psychological trauma, permanent scars, fear, anxiety, and loss of life quality. Article 56 of the Turkish Code of Obligations allows moral damages where bodily integrity is harmed.
Fatal Product Injury Claims
If a defective product causes death, relatives and dependants may claim funeral expenses, treatment expenses incurred before death, deprivation of support compensation, and moral damages. These claims require careful evidence concerning the deceased’s income, family support, dependency, and the causal link between the product defect and death.
7. Evidence Needed in Product Liability Claims
Evidence is usually the decisive issue in product liability litigation. Product defect cases are technical. The claimant should preserve the product itself whenever possible. Throwing away the defective product may seriously weaken the case.
Important evidence may include:
- The defective product itself
- Packaging, labels, batch numbers, serial numbers, and model numbers
- Purchase invoice, receipt, warranty certificate, or online order record
- User manuals and safety instructions
- Photographs and videos of the product and accident scene
- Medical records, emergency reports, surgery notes, prescriptions, and invoices
- Expert reports on product defect, causation, and safety compliance
- Witness statements
- Repair and maintenance records
- Recall notices and market surveillance findings
- Communications with seller, importer, manufacturer, or service provider
- Laboratory analysis for food, cosmetics, chemicals, or pharmaceuticals
- Income documents and disability reports
Traceability is particularly important. Law No. 7223 introduced traceability principles to identify the responsible economic operator for unsafe or non-compliant products. The claimant should therefore preserve all identifying information on the product and packaging.
8. Expert Reports and Technical Analysis
Product liability claims often require expert analysis because the judge may need technical knowledge to determine whether a product was unsafe, defective, incorrectly designed, improperly manufactured, insufficiently labeled, or non-compliant with technical standards.
Depending on the product, experts may include mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, chemical engineers, food safety experts, medical device experts, automotive engineers, occupational safety experts, forensic experts, toxicologists, or medical experts. The expert may examine whether the defect existed when the product was placed on the market, whether the product was misused, whether warnings were adequate, whether the injury was caused by the product, and whether the claimant’s damage is medically consistent with the alleged defect.
A strong product liability case should not rely only on general allegations. It should identify the defect theory clearly: design defect, manufacturing defect, warning defect, technical non-compliance, contamination, malfunction, or unsafe installation. The more precise the theory, the stronger the expert examination.
9. Product Recalls and Market Surveillance
Product recalls may be powerful evidence in a product liability claim. If a product was recalled because of safety concerns, this may support the argument that the product was unsafe. However, recall evidence still needs to be connected to the claimant’s specific injury.
Law No. 7223 highlights recall of unsafe products from end users as an obligation and emphasizes public notification regarding unsafe products. Market surveillance findings, administrative sanctions, recall notices, ministry announcements, or technical non-compliance findings may all support a civil compensation claim.
However, administrative product safety enforcement and private compensation litigation are different. A product may be subject to administrative action, but the injured claimant must still prove personal injury, causation, damage, and the amount of compensation.
10. Consumer Remedies and Injury Compensation
Consumer law gives consumers remedies for defective goods. These may include rights such as repair, replacement, rescission, or price reduction depending on the product and legal conditions. The Law on Consumer Protection also provides that the consumer may request compensation in line with the Turkish Code of Obligations together with certain rights of choice.
This is important because there is a difference between a defective product dispute and a product injury claim. If a consumer buys a defective washing machine that does not function properly, the main claim may be repair, replacement, or refund. But if the defective machine causes electric shock and bodily injury, the case becomes a personal injury claim with medical expenses, loss of earnings, permanent disability, and moral damages.
A consumer should therefore avoid settling only the product price dispute where bodily injury exists. A refund or replacement may not cover personal injury losses.
11. Limitation Periods in Product Liability Claims
Limitation periods depend on the legal basis of the claim.
For consumer defective goods claims, the Law on Consumer Protection generally provides a two-year limitation period from delivery for defective goods unless a longer period is provided by law or contract; for immovable property intended for housing or vacationing, the period is five years from delivery. If the defect is hidden through gross negligence or deceit, limitation provisions do not apply.
For defective service claims, the general consumer limitation period is two years from performance of the service unless a longer period is provided, and limitation provisions do not apply if the defect is hidden through gross negligence or deceit.
For tort-based product injury claims, the general rule under Turkish law is commonly analyzed as two years from learning the damage and the liable person and a ten-year long-stop period from the harmful act; where the incident also constitutes a criminal offence with a longer limitation period, that longer period may apply to bodily injury or death claims.
Limitation analysis should always be made according to the specific claim. A refund claim, warranty claim, consumer claim, tort-based bodily injury claim, fatal accident claim, insurance claim, or criminal complaint may involve different time risks.
12. Product Liability Claims by Foreigners in Turkey
Foreign nationals injured by defective products in Turkey may claim compensation if Turkish courts have jurisdiction and the legal conditions are met. This may include tourists injured by defective hotel equipment, foreign workers injured by defective machinery, foreign patients harmed by defective medical devices, expatriates injured by consumer products, or business visitors injured by unsafe products.
Foreign claimants should preserve evidence before leaving Turkey. This includes the product, packaging, invoice, photographs, medical records, witness information, hotel or workplace records, repair records, and correspondence with the seller or manufacturer. If treatment continues abroad, foreign medical records, invoices, disability reports, and income documents may be relevant.
Foreign documents usually require sworn Turkish translation, and some documents may require apostille or consular legalization. A foreign claimant can usually appoint a Turkish lawyer through a properly issued power of attorney so that the case can proceed in Turkey after the claimant returns home.
13. Product Liability in Workplace Accidents
Product liability may overlap with workplace accident law. A worker may be injured because an industrial machine, tool, ladder, crane component, electrical device, chemical product, safety harness, scaffold part, or protective equipment was defective.
In such cases, the worker may have claims against the employer for occupational safety failures and claims against product-related parties if the product itself was defective. The employer may argue that the manufacturer was responsible, while the manufacturer may argue that the employer misused or failed to maintain the product. Expert analysis is usually required.
The injured worker should preserve the product, machine records, maintenance records, training records, workplace accident report, photographs, witness statements, and medical evidence. If the defective product is repaired or discarded before inspection, proving defect may become difficult.
14. Common Defenses in Product Liability Cases
Defendants may raise several defenses. They may argue that the product was not defective, that the product was misused, that warnings were adequate, that the injury was caused by improper installation or maintenance, that the product was altered after sale, that the claimant ignored instructions, that the damage was caused by another product, that the injury was pre-existing, or that the claim is time-barred.
In response, the claimant must present technical and medical evidence. If misuse is alleged, the claimant should show ordinary and foreseeable use. If warnings are alleged to be sufficient, the claimant should examine whether they were visible, understandable, complete, and provided in the proper language. If alteration is alleged, maintenance and repair records become important. If causation is disputed, medical chronology and expert analysis are necessary.
15. Settlement and Insurance Considerations
Some product liability claims may be resolved through settlement. Manufacturers, importers, sellers, insurers, or distributors may offer repair, replacement, refund, medical expense reimbursement, or a lump-sum settlement.
Settlement may be useful where liability is clear and the injury is minor. However, early settlement can be dangerous in serious injury cases. Permanent disability, future surgery, long-term treatment, loss of earnings, moral damages, and future economic loss may not yet be clear.
Before signing any release, waiver, or settlement agreement, the claimant should confirm whether the payment covers only the product price or all injury-related losses. A refund for the defective product is not the same as compensation for bodily injury. A broad release may prevent future claims.
16. Practical Steps After a Defective Product Injury in Turkey
An injured person should act quickly:
First, seek medical treatment and obtain written medical records. Second, preserve the defective product without repairing, altering, or discarding it. Third, keep the packaging, labels, serial number, batch number, user manual, warranty certificate, invoice, and order confirmation. Fourth, take photographs and videos of the product, accident scene, injuries, and surrounding conditions. Fifth, identify witnesses. Sixth, report the incident to the seller, importer, manufacturer, workplace, hotel, or relevant authority in writing. Seventh, preserve all communications. Eighth, check whether the product has been recalled. Ninth, avoid signing settlement documents without legal review. Tenth, consult a Turkish product liability lawyer if the injury is serious or causation is disputed.
These steps are especially important because product evidence may be lost quickly. Once the product is repaired, thrown away, returned to the seller, or destroyed, technical proof becomes harder.
17. Why Legal Representation Matters
Product liability and injury claims in Turkey require legal, technical, medical, and procedural analysis. The claimant must identify the correct defendants, preserve product evidence, obtain expert review, prove defect and causation, calculate compensation, and comply with limitation periods.
A Turkish product liability lawyer can help determine whether the claim should be based on tort law, consumer law, product safety law, contract law, workplace accident law, or a combination of these. Legal counsel can also request expert examination, obtain medical records, communicate with insurers, challenge defective expert reports, negotiate settlement, and file lawsuits.
For manufacturers, importers, distributors, and sellers, legal representation is also important. A defense strategy may involve product compliance evidence, technical files, quality control records, warning labels, user manuals, recall history, distribution chain documents, and causation analysis.
Conclusion
Product liability and injury claims in Turkey provide important legal remedies for people harmed by defective or unsafe products. A product may be defective because of design, manufacturing, inadequate warnings, unsafe instructions, contamination, technical non-compliance, improper installation, or failure to meet objective safety expectations.
Turkish law evaluates product injury claims through several legal frameworks. The Turkish Code of Obligations provides the general basis for tort liability and bodily injury compensation. Consumer law regulates defective goods and defective services and allows consumers to request compensation together with statutory remedies. Law No. 7223 provides the modern product safety framework, including technical compliance, market surveillance, traceability, online sales, economic operator responsibilities, recall obligations, and product liability principles.
An injured claimant may seek treatment expenses, loss of earnings, permanent disability compensation, loss of economic future, moral damages, and in fatal cases, loss of support and funeral expenses. The success of the claim depends heavily on evidence. The defective product, packaging, invoice, serial number, batch number, user manual, photographs, medical reports, witness statements, recall notices, technical records, and expert reports should be preserved immediately.
A well-prepared product liability claim should clearly identify the defect, responsible parties, causal link, injuries, financial losses, moral harm, and applicable limitation period. With proper legal and technical preparation, injured consumers, workers, tourists, and other victims can pursue fair compensation under Turkish product liability and personal injury law.
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