Importance of Strict Liability in Defective Product Accidents

The strict liability doctrine is a very important doctrine in tort law especially in dealing with defective product accidents.
Strict liability holds a person or an organization liable for the damages caused by a defective product accident regardless of culpability or fault.
It separates product liability cases from other personal injury lawsuits that usually use the negligence doctrine to prove the defendant’s liability.
Before the doctrine of strict liability, plaintiffs have to use the negligence doctrine to prove the manufacturing company’s liability for the accident.
However, investigating the manufacturing company’s negligence proved to be difficult and expensive.
Most manufacturing companies keep their production operations from outsiders and would not let just anybody, especially a person who plans to sue the company, see it.
So the strict liability doctrine was added into tort law specifically for product liability cases.
This is done in recognition that:
• The consumer or buyer cannot be expected to prove whether the manufacturer, seller or renter had the proper system to check for defects
• The consumer or buyer cannot be expected to prove that the seller caused the defect after receiving the product from the manufacturing company.
• The consumer or buyer cannot be expected to check every product for defects before using it.
So under the strict liability doctrine, regardless of the manufacturer’s claims that they took all the care in producing and handling the product, the person who got injured by the defective or unexpectedly dangerous product may recover compensation from the company.
However, like all personal injury cases, there are certain factors that have to be proven to make a successful claim.
Here are the factors for strict liability cases:
• The product had an “unreasonably dangerous” defect that caused injury to the plaintiff. There are three types of defects:
o Design Defect – defects that was inherent in the design
o Manufacturing defect - - defects that occurred in the production line
o Selling/Distribution defect – defects that occurred during handling, shipment or on the store itself
• The defect caused the injury of the plaintiff while the product was being used in the way that it was intended to be used.
• The product had not been substantially altered from the condition in which it was originally sold.
Victims of defective products are recommended to stop using the product after discovering the defect and report it to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Plaintiffs may not be able to claim strict liability if he or she knew about the defect but still continued to use the product.