LGS Chapter 7 Flashcards
define the term-activities that involve a high risk of serious harm to persons or property that cannot be completely guarded against by the exercise of reasonable care.
Abnormally Dangerous Activites
liability regardless of fault is known as?
strict liability
T/F- Under the doctrine of strict liability, a person who engages in certain activities can be held responsible for any harm that results to others, even if the person used the utmost care
True
Strict Liability may be imposed on cases involving what 3 things?
Abnormally Dangerous Activities
Dangerous Animals
Defective Products
What is the basis for dangerous animals being under strict liabilty?
• The basis for applying strict liability is that wild animals, should they escape from
confinement, pose a serious risk of harm to people in the vicinity
—liability of manufacturers and sellers for
harmful or defective products
Product Liability
y
d
What exists when goods are transferred temporarily into the care of another
Bailment
Those who make, sell, or lease goods can be held liable for physical harm or property damage caused by those goods to a consumer, user, or bystander. Is known as?
Product Liability
T/F-If a manufacturer fails to exercise “due care” to make a product safe, a person who is injured by the product may sue the manufacturer for punitive damages.
Negligence
Manufacturers must use what kind of precautions in all of the following areas:
Designing the product.
Selecting the materials.
Using the appropriate production process.
Assembling and testing the product.
Placing adequate warnings on the label to inform the user of dangers of which an ordinary person might not be aware.
Inspecting and testing any purchased components used in the product.
Due Care
T/F- A product liability action based on negligence does require privity of contract between the injured plaintiff and the defendant-manufacturer.
False, it does NOT require privity of contract
Define the term-The relationship that exists between the promisor and the promisee of a contract.
Privity of Contract
Siblings on snowmobile that is toggled from forward to reverse. A back-up beeper occurs
when in reverse but may not occur as gears are changing. Accident occurs and both
siblings die.
• Court held that based upon plaintiff’s evidence, case should be submitted to a jury to
determine whether the reverse alarm was defective and whether the defect caused the
deaths
This case is an example of?
“Cause in Fact” and Proximate Cause
In this situation, the misrepresentation must have been made knowingly or with reckless disregard for the facts. The intentional mislabeling of packaged cosmetics, for instance, or the intentional concealment of a product’s defects constitute what?
Fraudulent Misrepresentation
What are the following 6 things known as?
The defendant must normally be engaged in the business of selling (or otherwise distributing) that product.
The product must be unreasonably dangerous to the user or consumer because of its defective condition (in most states).
The plaintiff must incur physical harm to self or property by use or consumption of the product.
The defective condition must be the proximate cause of the injury or damage.
The goods must not have been substantially changed from the time the product was sold to the time the injury was sustained.
Requirement of Strict Liabilty
T/F- Depending on the jurisdiction, if the 6 requirements of strict liability are met, a manufacturer’s liability to an injured party can be almost unlimited
True
T/F- Unless evidence can be presented to support the conclusion that the product was defective when it was sold or leased, the plaintiff will not succeed.
True
In product liability, a product that is defective to the point of threatening a consumer’s health and safety. A product will be considered unreasonably dangerous if it is dangerous beyond the expectation of the ordinary consumer or if a less dangerous alternative was economically feasible for the manufacturer, but the manufacturer failed to produce it.
Unreasonably Dangerous Product
The Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability defines three types of product defects that have traditionally been recognized in product liability law- What are they?
Manufacturing Defects
Design
Product
a departure from a product unit’s design specifications that
results in products that are physically flawed, damaged, or incorrectly assembled.
• Usually, this type of defects occur when a manufacturer fails to assemble, test, or check the quality of a product adequately
Manufacturing Defects
Cases involving allegations of a manufacturing defect are often decided based on the opinions and testimony of consumers
False, testimony of experts
A product with this defect is made in conformity with the manufacturer’s design specifications, but the product results in injury to the user because the design itself was faulty
Design Defect
Benjamin Riley, the county sheriff, was driving his Ford F-150 pickup truck near Ehrhardt, South Carolina, when it collided with another vehicle. The impact caused Riley’s truck to leave the road and roll over. The driver’s door of the truck opened in the collision, and Riley was ejected and killed.
Riley’s widow, Laura, as the representative of his estate, filed a product liability suit against Ford Motor Company.
What kind of defect does this represent?
Design
A product will be considered defective “when the foreseeable risks of harm posed by the product could have been reduced or avoided by the provision of reasonable instructions or warnings by the seller or other distributor . . . and the omission of the instructions or warnings renders the product not reasonably safe.”
Inadequate Warnings
A theory under which liability is shared
among all firms that manufactured and distributed a particular
product during a certain period of time.
• This theory of liability is used only when the specific source of the
harmful product is unidentifiable.
Market Share Liability
Many jurisdictions do not recognize the market-share theory of liability because they believe that it deviates too significantly from traditional legal principles. Jurisdictions that do recognize market-share liability apply it only when it is difficult to determine which company made a particular product.
True
If the product is subject to comprehensive federal safety
regulations the defense wold be?
Preemption
When the user or consumer knew the risk and voluntarily
assumed it
Assumption of Risk
A defense against product liability that may be
raised when the plaintiff used a product in a manner not
intended by the manufacturer.
If the misuse is reasonably foreseeable, the seller will not escape liability unless measures were taken to guard against the harm that could result from the misuse.
Product Misuse
A defendant may be able to limit some of its liability if it can show that the plaintiff’s misuse of the product contributed to his or her injuries
It can reduce the total amount of damages that will be awarded to the plaintiff.
Comparative Negligence
If a particular danger (such as electrical shock) is or should be
commonly known by particular users of a product (such as
electricians), the manufacturer need not warn these
knowledgeable users of the danger.
Knowledgeable User
If the statute of limitations or statute of repose period has expired
Statutory Time Period
If the particular danger is commonly known by particular users of the product
Knowledgeable User
Temporary suspension of the running of a prescribed period (such as a
statute of limitations).
Tolling
To ensure that sellers and manufacturers will not be left vulnerable to
lawsuits indefinitely, many states have passed statutes of what?
Repose
Basically, a statute of limitations that is not dependent on the
happening of a cause of action.
Statute of Repose
T/F-Statutes of repose generally begin to run at a later date and run for a shorter period of time than statutes of limitations.
False, Statutes of repose generally begin to run at an earlier date and run for a longer period of time than statutes of limitations.
