Product liability law is based on the doctrine that consumers should be protected against unsafe products. Manufacturers and those who sell their products are held liable when consumers, users or bystanders receive injuries or property damage due to an unsafe product (Miller, 2014). A consumer can sue if a manufacturer does not exercise due care to make a product safe (Miller, 2014). The duty of care applies to the product being designed to function properly and safely for the user, that the consumer receives warning and safety information on the product, and that the materials used in producing the product are safe for the consumer (Product liability, 2015). Duty of care also applies to product testing and inspection after the product is manufactured (Miller, 2014). Manufacturers and sellers who do not exercise due care can be sued for negligence, even if the person who was injured by the product wasn’t the one who originally purchased it (Miller, 2014). Strict liability is another legal doctrine that can hold a manufacturer liable even if the defective product was not a result of negligence in the manufacturing process (Product liability, 2015). When product liability affects multiple individuals with similar experiences, the lawsuit will often become a class action lawsuit in which multiple people sue as a group (Class action, n.d.). Toyota Motor Corporation was faced with a class action suit and hundreds of lawsuits due to a faulty accelerator pedal and brake problems
In first Place, I´m going to introduce some concepts about products liability law and products liability; which refers to the liability of any or all parties along the chain of manufacture of any product for any damage or harm caused by that product. This includes the manufacturer of component parts
Businesses could be held liable for negligent tort if their product injury, harms consumers or is falsely represented. Nonetheless, when the circumstances warrant, parties that are not guilty of negligence or an unintentional tort can still be subjected to compensations when their products injure customers (Seaquist, 2012) Recall Negligence is an unintentional tort wherein one party is injured result to some actions of another. There are certain factors that must be considered to determines whether a corporation acted negligently. The elements are the following: a breach of that duty, legal duty to use due care, a reasonable close causal connection between the breach and the plaintiffs resulting in injury, and the actual loss or damage to the plaintiff. This paper is going to discuss a negligent tort due to a company’s recall of its product. The company may be considered liable for negligence if there was no recall on their product and the product caused bodily harm to a consumer (Benjamin, 2015). Throughout the paper will discuss the reason of Toshiba recalling their laptop computer battery packs due to burn and because of its potential to catch fire on March 30, 2016 and the recall number is 16-131. If the company did not make the decision to recall their laptop computer battery could have been diligent. To prove the negligent tort the consumer must prove factors such duty to care and defenses of negligence (Seaquist, 2012).
It is known that Toyota has various other legal actions, other governmental proceedings and other claims pending against it, including
Product liability law is noteworthy given the variety of defects covered, i.e. defects in design, manufacture, or warning, as well as the variety of types of liability ranging from strict liability to breach of warranty, negligence, or the battery type. given that the different theories of product liability provide or allow different types of defenses as well as damages, plaintiffs have flexibility when determining how to proceed with a
The Product safety Act will request the manufactured cease and decease tight away from making them. The court will issue large fines if the manufacture will not stop making the faulty products(www.cpsc.gov).The U.s Consumer product safety commission is in charge of protecting the public, because there has been thousands of lives loss because unsafely of products (www.cpsc.gov). Not only death and injury has been caused, it has also been property damage from consumer’s products. The CPSC has prided themselves on protecting consumers and families from safety issues(http://www.cpsc.gov/index.html). Many recalled are voluntary, but some are involuntary, but if any products are suspected to be dangerous of. The consumer commission protects thousand of consumer (Food, Drug and Consumer Product Act of 1972)
Consumers use a variety of products on a daily basis to assist them in accomplishing a task or completing a project and they expect the product to be properly designed and safe to use. However, in the event that a product is defective and causes injury to the person using it, the manufacturer may be liable for the injury and have to compensate the injured person (s). Companies that manufacture products need to be sure they are doing all within their power to assemble products that are free of defects that could accidentally cause harm and cost the company. Product liability is the
When something is negligence it is, “ The failure to exercise necessary care to protect others from unreasonable risk of harm” (2016, p57) An example might be negligence if a store owner was mopping the floor in his shop and someone slipped because the owner did not protect his customer from unreasonable risk of harm. In this example a cone, a wet floor sign, and a guy standing guard, would have stopped anyone from walking over the wet area. The term strict liability has to do with liability of someone even if no negligence was found. Someone suing for damages under strict liability, must only prove they were using a defective product, the harm was caused by the defective produce, and that defect caused the product to be very dangerous.(2016, p62) The difference between negligence and strict liability is that in strict liability a plaintiff does not have to prove gross negligence.
In order to completely understand the liability in negligence, there must be reasonable foreseeability present which includes three main “elements of negligence” They are Duty of Care, Breach of Duty and Remoteness of Damage (pg436-437 (8.220) Terry and Giugni) In addition the plaintiff must also satisfy the four traditional elements of negligence in order to have a claim; (pg 431 (8.140) Terry and Giugni)
This includes design, manufacturing and marketing defects. For example, car defects which result in injury or death are a design and manufacturing defect. Improperly labeling or inadequate safety warnings are marketing defects. While there is no federal product liability law, every state has their own version. Having high safety and quality standards is simply inadequate to protect your company. Keep in mind that there are countless opportunities for liability lawsuits when it comes to products. The most infamous lawsuit, involving an elderly women who spilled hot McDonald’s coffee in her lap, resulted in a 2.7 million dollar settlement. Always promptly respond to any defect concerns with the help of an experienced
According to Stewart (2016), a manufacturer is liable for injuries when the product is proven defective and is unreasonably dangerous. For example, in West v. Caterpillar Tractor Co., Inc., West, who was a dealer of Caterpillar’s products, claimed that because manufacturers imply their products are safe, the manufacturer holds the burden of liability. Moreover, the plaintiff must prove the manufacturer’s relationship to the defective product, the dangerous condition, and proximate cause of related injuries. In the case of the driver suing the manufacturer of the steering mechanism, the plaintiff must prove the manufacturer produced the defective mechanism, the reason the mechanism caused the injury, and proximate cause. A likely defense from the manufacturer will be the cause of the motorist’s accident. However, vehicle accidents are not outside the scope of a likely event; therefore, the plaintiff will have a strong case.
This week's question concerns liability and moral responsibility in consumer products. As the question is multi-part, the answer will be likewise. To begin, the first question addresses who should be liable for the voluntary actions of others. Specifically, if substantial information concerning the hazards of a product or service has been offered to the consumer, who is to blame if someone is injured? Similar to most questions derived from this course, the answer is "it depends."
Perhaps the most obvious type of product liability claim is when the injury-causing product was defectively manufactured. A defectively manufactured product is flawed because of some error in making it, such as a problem at the factory where it was fabricated. As a result, the injury-causing product is somehow different from all the other ones on the shelf. An example of a manufacturing defect is: a swing set with a cracked chain. If they are claiming that the product was flawed because of an error in making it, proving that it's defective may be very hard. This product has been functioning for a long time and the inspection clearly said that it did not have any manufacturing defect, so manufacturing error cannot be plaintiff’s
The main idea of the law of negligence is to ensure that people exercise reasonable care when they act by measuring the potential harm that may foreseeably cause harm to other people. Negligence is the principal trigger for liability to ascend in matters that deal with the loss of property of personal injury. Therefore, a person cannot be liable for something unless they have been found negligent or have contributed to the loss of property or injury to the plaintiff (Stuhmcke, 2005). There is more to
Due to Toyota’s financial greed and unethical practice, vehicles were wrongly equipped with faulty brakes, sticking pedals and poor quality door looks, which caused death of many Toyota customers and hundreds of dollars in damages. When a company like Toyota acts in an ethically questionable manner, it causes the company to lose customers and develop a negative reputation. Customer tend to lose faith in the company and have to look for better service
In tort law, three elements need to be proven so as to establish a claim in negligence. A duty of care owed to the claimant and a breach of that duty by the defendant are the first two elements of negligence claims respectively. In addition to these, on the balance of probabilities, the defendant’s action must be the fact that caused the claimant to be harmed. In other words, there needs to be a proof of factual causation. Factual causation which is sometimes referred to as causation in fact is determined by using the ‘but for’ test. The question related to the test is: ‘But for the actions of the defendant, would the claimant have injured?’ If the answer to this question is no, factual causation is established and it can be concluded that the claimant would not be harmed without the action of the defendant. Therefore, the defendant is held liable for negligence. For example,