Products liability deals with the problem of injuries accidentally inflicted on people by “defective” products. As will be seen in the following materials, injured parties have employed a number of legal theories in seeking a remedy for product harms. The most important of these are negligence, warranty, and strict liability. 

1. Strict Liability in Tort

In Greenman v. Yuba Power Products case, the injury occurred when the piece of wood on which the plaintiff was working came loose and flew out of the machine, striking him in the forehead. The plaintiff demonstrated at trial that the piece of wood came loose because “inadequate set screws were used to hold parts of the machine together so that normal vibration caused the tailstock of the lathe to move away from the piece of wood being turned permitting it to fly out of the lathe.” The plaintiff’s experts also testified “that were other more positive ways of fastening the parts of the machine together, the use of which would have prevented the accident.” The court noted that this evidence could establish both negligence on the part of the manufacturer or breach of warranty. However, the defendant claimed that the warranty claim must fail because the plaintiff had not provided the notice called for by the sales act. Rather than placing the basis of liability in the breach of warranty, however, the court explicitly adopted strict liability in tort as the appropriate basis for liability of a manufacturer to a consumer injured by a defective product: “A manufacturer is strictly liable in tort when an article he places on the market, knowing that it is to be used without inspection for defects, proves to have a defect that causes injury to human being. Recognized first in the case of unwholesome food products, such liability has now been extended to a variety of other products that create as great or greater hazards if defective.”

Although in these cases strict liability has usually been based on the theory of an express or implied warranty running from the manufacturer to the plaintiff, the abandonment of the requirement of a contract between them, the recognition that the liability is not assumed by agreement but imposed by law and the refusal to permit the manufacturer to define the scope of its own responsibility for defective products make clear that the liability is not none governed by the law of conduct warranties byt by the law of strict liability in tort. Accordingly, rules defining and governing warranties that were developed to meet the needs of commercial transactions cannot properly be invoked to govern the manufacturer’s liability to those injured by their defective products unless those rules also serve the purposes for which such liability is imposed.”

The adoption of section 402A as part of the Second Restatement of Torts sealed this development, as strict products liability quickly swept the nation, with many courts explicitly adopting the standards set forth by 402A. It is therefore important to become familiar with section 402A’s formulation of strict products liability, both in the text of the section itself and in the accompanying “comments.” It is equally important to recognize 402A’s limitation, and to understand the ways in which the courts have to expend on the outline of liability found there. The development in the courts has recently led to a new attempt to restate the law of products liability, the Third Restatement of Torts. The relevant sections of the Third Restatement will be used to introduce the relevant topics as we address them.

402A. Special Liability of Seller of Product for Physical Harm to User or consumer

(1) One who sells any product in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user or consumer or to his property is subject to liability for physical harm thereby caused to the ultimate user or consumer, or to his property, if

(a) The seller is engaged in the business of selling such a product, and 

(b) It is expected to and does reach the user or consumer without substantial change in the condition in which it is sold.

(2) The rule stated in Subsection (1) applies although

(a) The seller has exercised all possible care in the preparation and sale of his product, and 

(b) The user or consumer has not bought the product from or entered into any contractual relation with the seller.

 

2. The Definition of “Defective”

There are defects in which the products leave the control of the manufacturer in a condition that is different from what the manufacturer intended. In other words, the product was not made correctly and the mistake escaped the manufacturer’s quality control. When the mistake makes the product unreasonably dangerous, it is considered “defective” under Section 402A. Also, a product could be defective if the manufacturer failed to provide the consumer with necessary warnings or instructions for use. The Greenman case itself imposed liability for a defect in the design of the product. Courts soon recognized that all types of defect could result in strict liability under section 402A. Courts also recognized, however, that each different type of defect called for different standards for the imposition of liability. In dealing with manufacturing defects, for example, it was always possible to compare the product to the standard manufacturer itself had established. With both design and warning defects, however, the product had to be compared to an external standard of “proper” design or warning.