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Product liability encompasses a number of legal claims that allow an injured party to recover financial compensation from the manufacturer or seller of a product. In the United States, the claims most commonly associated with product liability are negligence, strict liability, breach of warranty, and various consumer protection claims. The majority of product liability laws are determined at the state level and vary widely from state to state. Each type of product liability claim requires different elements to be proven to present a successful claim.
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Product liability and negligence
A basic negligence claim consists of proof of (1) a duty owed on the part of the manufacturer, (2) a breach of that duty, (3) that the breach caused the plaintiff's injury, and (4) an injury. A products liability negligence claim usually falls into one of three possible types: those claiming a design defect, a manufacturing defect, or a failure to warn. Over time, several other negligence concepts have arisen to deal with certain specific situations, including negligence per se (using a manufacturer's violation of a law or regulation in place of proof of a duty and a breach) and res ipsa loquitur (an inference of negligence under certain conditions). The difficulties of an injured customer to prove what a manufacturer did or did not do during the design or manufacture of product has led to the development of newer product liability claims such as strict liability.
Product liability and strict liability
Rather than focus on the behavior of the manufacturer (as in negligence), strict liability claims focus on the product itself. Under strict liability, the manufacturer is liable if the product is defective, even if the manufacturer was not negligent in making that product defective. Because stict liability is a harsh regime for a manufacturer, who is forced to pay for all injuries caused by his products, even if he is not at fault, strict liability is applied only to manufacturing defects (when a product varies from its intended design) and almost never applied to design and warning defects. The first case to apply strict liability to manufacturing defects involved an exploding Coca-Cola bottle.
There is some confusion in judicial opinions as to whether strict liability is being applied in cases of design and warning defects. The courts may even state that they are applying strict liability. However, when the court proclaims to apply strict liability while determining product's defectiveness through the use of a (consumer expectations test) or (risk utility test), it is applying the negligence principles and not strict liability. Although the tests are not based on the conduct of the manufacturer, rather focusing on the product itself, they attempt to determine if the product's design or warning is reasonable. It is widely known that reasonableness is the staple of negligence, not strict liability.
Proponents of strict liability for defective products argue that that strict liability is necessary because between two parties who are not negligent (manufacturer and consumer), one will still have to suffer the economic cost of the injury. The proponents argue that it is preferable to place the economic costs on the manufacturer because it can better absorbe them and pass them on to other consumers by the way of higher prices. As such, the manufacturer becomes the insurer of consumers that are injured by its defective products, with premiums paid by other consumers.
A related argument arises from the fact that the distribution of information about any given product is highly asymmetrical; the manufacturer of any given product is in a better position than the consumer to know of its particular dangers. Therefore, in order to fulfill the public policy of minimizing injury, it is more reasonable to impose the burden of finding and correcting such dangers upon the manufacturer as opposed to imposing the burden of finding and avoiding unsafe products upon the consumer. These arguments is often mentioned in cases of design and warning defects and less so in the case of manufacturing defects, since the latter are throught to be less preventable by the manufacturer because he is already acting with due care.
History
In the 1940s and 1950s, many American courts decided that it was too harsh to require seriously injured consumer plaintiffs to prove negligence claims against manufacturers or retailers. To avoid having to deny such plaintiffs any relief, these courts began to look for facts in their cases which they could characterize as an express or implied warranty from the manufacturer to the consumer. Over time, the resulting legal fictions became increasingly strained.
Of the various U.S. states, California was the first to throw away the fiction of a warranty and to boldly assert the doctrine of strict liability in tort for defective products, in 1963 (under the guidance of then-Associate Justice Roger J. Traynor). See Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, 59 Cal. 2d 57 (1963) 1. The importance of Greenman cannot be understated: in 1996, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America celebrated its 50th anniversary by polling tort lawyers and law professors on the top ten developments in tort law during the past half-century, and Greenman topped the list.2
Although the Supreme Court of California has since become more conservative, it continues to endorse and expand the doctrine. In 2002 it held that strict liability for defective products even applies to makers of component products that are installed into and sold as part of real property.
Product liability and breach of warranty
Warranties are statements by a manufacturer or seller concerning a product during a commercial transaction. Unlike negligence claims, which focus on the manufacturer's conduct, or strict liability claims, which focus on the condition of the product, warranty claims focus on how these issues relate to a commercial transaction. Warranty claims commonly require privity between the injured party and the manufacturer or seller. Breach of warranty based product liability claims usually focus on one of three types: (1) breach of an express warranty, (2) breach of an implied warranty of merchantability, and (3) breach of an implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose. Additionally, claims involving real estate may also take the form of an implied warranty of habitability. Express warranty claims focus on express statements by the manufacturer or the seller concerning the product (e.g., "This chainsaw is useful to cut turkeys"). The various implied warranties cover those expectations common to all products (e.g., that a tool is not unreasonably dangerous when used for its proper purpose), unless specifically disclaimed by the manufacturer or the seller.
References
^ White, Robert Jeffrey. "Top 10 in torts: evolution in the common law." Trial 32, no. 7 (July 1996): 50-53.