ENGLISH LAW

English Law



English Law

Introduction

Unquestionably, products liability ranks as one of the most conspicuous legal phenomena of the last twenty years,' and the California Supreme Court has played a leading role in the elucidation of products liability doctrine. In Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc., decided in 1963, the court first ruled that manufacturers are subject to strict liability for injuries resulting from defective products. In its Cronin decision nine years later, the court reemphasized the defect prerequisite for strict liability, but rejected the Restatement's unreasonably dangerous gloss on defect, thereby leaving the defect concept in a rather barren state. In Barker v. Lull Engineering Co., decided in January 1978, a unanimous court finally attempted an explication of defect (Alexander 1987, 21). The court noted (as have others) that product defects can be classed under three headings: manufacturing defects, design defects, and defects involving inadequate warnings or instructions accompanying the product. For manufacturing defects, the court specified in dictum the appropriateness of a deviation-from-the-normal-product standard. But it is design defects that have engendered the most serious confusion, both in actual litigation and in the products literature (Coleman 1994, 35). Noting this confusion, Barker established a two-pronged test for identifying design defects. First, a product's design is defective if the product fails to perform as safely as an ordinary consumer would expect when used in an intended or reasonably foreseeable manner. Second, the design is defective if the risks inherent in that design are not justified by the design's intrinsic benefits—whether measured in terms of cost savings, improved performance, or other factors (Corridor 2001, 57). In endorsing this risk- benefit prong, Barker also announced a seemingly dramatic allocation of the burden of proof: once the plaintiff shows that the product's design proximately caused [the plaintiff's] injury, the design is deemed defective unless the manufacturer can persuade the jury that the design's benefits exceed its associated risks. Moreover, the Barker opinion twice indicates that the jury is to render its risk-benefit judgments upon the basis of hindsight. And in a provocative footnote, the Barker opinion raises the possibility of strict liability, without proof of ordinary defect, for injuries caused by products whose norm is danger.

May's Case

Twelve-year-old May was a pupil at Hogwits School. She was climbing a rope in the gym when it came away from the fixture in the ceiling. The rope had only recently been installed by Neville, a local contractor.

The case of twelve year old May seems to bear an amazing resemblance to the case of Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc. In this case, the consumer was exposed to injuries as a result of a manufacturing fault in a defective power tool. The court proceedings came to a conclusion when the Supreme Court assigned strict liability to the manufacturer (Cranor 2005, 89). It is essential to note at this point that the defective product was prove of contract and the warranty of the product was also inapplicable. The case assigned strict liability to the manufacturer ...