Talk:Product liability

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

⚖
Law Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Law, an attempt at providing a comprehensive, standardised, pan-jurisdictional and up-to-date resource for the legal field and the subjects encompassed by it.
??? This article has not yet received a quality rating on the assessment scale.
Top This article has been assessed as Top-importance on the assessment scale.

added basic rationale of strict liability. tried to balance the argument, which was one-sided in favor of negligence. there is a sensible reason almost all jurisdictions have moved to strict liability. --Rmalloy 23:49, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Jimenez is about extension of strict liability to fixtures

Some anonymous editor (probably not a lawyer) tried to change the summary of Jimenez to refer to personal property instead of real property. That is incorrect. Jimenez did extend strict liability to products installed as fixtures on real property. --Coolcaesar 17:02, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This article is a mess

The biggest problem is that design defect, manufacturing defect, and failure to warn are discussed under negligence. The Restatement (Third) of Torts, Products Liability, does mention those categories, but focuses on them separately and apart from the labels of strict liability and negligence. The confusing relationship between strict liability/negligence (that is, the underlying traditional causes of action) versus the more recent development of these three types of product defects as developed in the case law (particularly in California) needs to be better explained in this article. I would do it myself but I'm way too busy with depositions and motion practice. I'm sure there must be some other Wikipedia editor out there in law school who can get a hold of the Restatement Third and straighten this article out! --Coolcaesar 23:36, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History section is weak

Why is there no mention of Cardozo and his contributions to product liability theory (such as in MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co.)? This article could use some revision in that regard. --Eastlaw (talk) 10:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rationale for and debate over strict liability - weasel words

Starting to think about a cleanup of this article. What is the problem with this section? It could do with a copyedit but it looks balanced to me. Couldn't see any weasel words. Can somebody be more explicit? Cutler (talk) 08:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

I think the best structure for a cleaned up article would be:

  • Head para
  • Theory (Taschner is a good ref here [1])
    • Allocation of costs
    • Strict v. fault-based
    • Development risks defence/ State of the art defense
  • History
    • Winterbottom v. Wright
    • MacPherson v. Buick
    • Donaghue v. Stevenson
    • Grant v. Australian Knitting
    • US developments up to 2nd Restatement of Torts
    • Pearson commission
    • EU Directive 85/374/EC
    • Further US developments
    • Sytems derived from US and EU: Switzerland, Australia, Japan (hemispheric bias solved!)
    • ...
  • US law
  • EU law
  • Australian law
  • Japanese law
  • References
  • Bibliography

— er that's it. Cutler (talk) 23:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)