Product Liability Flashcards
Grant v Australian Knitting Mills [1936] AC 562
product liability - common law
Affirming Donoghue, manufacturers are liable in negligence for injury caused to the ultimate consumer by latent defects in their products.
In June 1931 Dr Grant purchased two pairs of woollen underwear and two singlets from John Martin & Co. There was nothing to say the underwear should be washed before wearing and Dr Grant did not do so. He suffered a skin irritation within nine hours of first wearing them. Dr Grant applied calamine lotion, but continued to wear the underwear for the rest of the week. He then wore the second pair for the next week and washed the first pair. This was in an era when changing his underwear only once a week was “the ordinary custom of ordinary people”.[9]: at p. 470 The skin irritation got worse and developed into a severe case of dermatitis. Dr Grant blamed the underwear and sued John Martin & Co. for breach of contract, being the statutory warranties that the goods were fit for the purpose and were of merchantable quality.[10] Dr Grant also sued the manufacturer, Australian Knitting Mills,[11] alleging that they had been negligent in failing to take reasonable care in the preparation of the garments. The garments in question were alleged to contain an excess of sulphur compounds, variously described as sulphur dioxide and sulphites.
Hobbs (Farms) Ltd v Baxenden Chemical Co [1992] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 54
product liabiliy - common law
Held: D was liable. Failure to warn that the foam insulation was combustible meant that the manufacturer was negligent.
Duty to warn must be noticeable when leaving manufacturer’s control. In this case, more flammable than previously thought, and so failure to warn about it.
Held: even if they did not realise it at the time of original sale, you should then take reasonable steps to warn.
Principle: Duty of care applies if manufacturer realises later that an omission to warn prior customers about a risk could result in injury, they must take reasonable steps to warn, even if there was no negligence at the time of sale.
Facts: C’s own employee started a fire which spread to neighbour’s land. C argued that the damage would have been minor if the foam insulation manufactured by D did not cause the fire to spread out of control. In fact, self-extinguishable product. Years after selling it, it was known that this was not correct.
Carroll v Fearon [1998] PIQR 416
product liability - common law
P420 ‘In what was then perceived (and is still recognised) as a dramatic development of the tort of negligence Lord Macmillan was seeking to underline that his support for this development did not extend to the creation of a tort of strict liability. In a claim based on product liability negligence had to be proved by the plaintiff’
P422 ‘once it was established that the tyre disintegrated because of an identified fault in the course of its manufacture the judge had to decide whether this fault was the result of negligence at Dunlop’s factory. He did not have identify any individual or group of employees or the acts of omissions which resulted in inadequate rubber penetration of the cords. If the manufacturing process had worked as intended this defect should not have been present.’
Held: dismissing D’s appeal but allowing that of B and F, that, in appropriate product liability cases, it was not necessary to identify the particular person responsible for the defect nor the specific act of negligence in order to attribute liability, Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] A.C. 562, [1932] 5 WLUK 41 and Grant v Australian Knitting Mills Ltd [1936] A.C. 85, [1935] 10 WLUK 28 considered. In most cases, including the present one, negligence was a question of fact to be determined after considering the available evidence. While the tyre might have failed for any one of a number of reasons, once it had been shown that it failed because of a specified defect in the manufacturing process, it was open to the judge to hold that, on a balance of probabilities, the fault was caused by D’s negligence. On the issue of contributory negligence, the judge’s finding that B and F were partly to blame for the tyre’s failure was not supported by the evidence.
A car driven by F, but owned by B, who was one of several passengers in the car, went out of control on the motorway and collided head on with a car driven by C, causing one fatality and a number of serious injuries. The accident had been caused by a sudden complete tread strip of one of the tyres on B’s car, which was manufactured by D. In the light of overwhelming evidence that the tyre’s manufacturing process had been defective, the judge held that the defect should have been prevented by D exercising due care and that D was largely to blame for the accident and therefore liable to those injured. D appealed, contending that it was not possible for the judge to hold it liable for negligence on the basis that there was a defect in the tyre without any specific acts of negligence having been identified. B and F appealed against the judge’s finding that they were 20 per cent contributorily negligent in respect of the accident.
Muirhead v. Industrial Tank Specialities [1986] QB 507 at 529:
product liability - common law
‘In order to recover, it must be a case ‘of ordinary purchase of chattels, in which the buyer, if he seeks to recover damages for purely economic loss arising from defects in the goods, must on the law as it stands look to his immediate vendor and not to the ultimate manufacturer for his remedy (= seek a contractual remedy rather than a claim with the manufacturer).’
Holding: is it purely economic loss
= a manufacturer of defective goods could be liable in negligence for economic loss suffered by an ultimate purchaser if there was a very close proximity or relationship between the parties and the ultimate purchaser had placed real reliance on the manufacturer rather than the vendor. On the facts there was no such proximity and reliance and there was nothing to distinguish P’s situation from that of an ordinary purchaser of goods who having suffered financial loss could look only to the vendor and not to the ultimate manufacturer to recover damages for purely economic loss. The manufacturer’s appeal on the issue of liability for economic loss would be allowed
Facts: C bought a tank which required pumps to oxygenate the water 24 hours a day. Within a few days the pumps cut out and continued to do so and on one occasion he lost his entire stock of lobsters. P relied heavily on the firm which installed the tank and pumps but he was at no stage aware of or had contact with the manufacturers. He brought an action, inter alios, against the manufacturers claiming damages for loss of the lobsters and economic loss of profit on intended sales. The judge found that the cause of the cutting out was the unsuitability of the pumps for the English voltage system (they were manufactured in France) and he held that the manufacturers owed P a duty of care on the basis that they ought to have been tested to ensure their suitability for use in England. Cs wanted to sue for the loss of profits.
Aswan Engineering v Lupdine Ltd [1987] 1 All ER 135, Lloyd LJ
product liability - common law
Held: due to the extreme use of the buckets, not that the buckets were defective
Lloyd LJ
‘In one sense, of course, almost anything can be foreseen. But that is not the test. The question is not whether the consequence was of a type which was foreseeable, but whether it was of a type which was reasonably foreseeable…’
Facts: Cs bought a chemical for waterproofing stored in special buckets produced for storing this kind of product. The buckets were sent to Kuwait and left there on the dock where it was 70 degrees – the buckets melted, and the compounds were damaged. Cs argued that there was a defect of the product.
The Orjula [1995] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 395
product liability - common law
Held: arguable that the claim, could proceed here on the facts.
‘it is in my view still at least arguable in law that, if property is put into circulation which remains positively dangerous unless preventive measures are taken to neutralise the danger, a person who is obliged to take such steps and does not have the option simply to abandon the property may have a claim in tort against a person who negligently put the article into circulation.’
= was possible for the to claim, for these csq
Facts: Leaking acid barrels, the boat had to be decontaminated. Could C sue for the cost of this on the basis that D had failed to properly store
Bacardi-Martini Beverages Limited v Thomas Hardy Packaging (2002) EWCA CIV 549
product liability - common law
Held: the Court concluded that the finished product (the Bacardi Breezer) did not exist until the CO2 and alcohol/water concentrate were mixed.
The Bacardi Breezer was defective because of the contamination with benzene. The Court found that there was no damage to property because until the moment the concentrate is mixed with CO2, the Bacardi Breezer did not exist.
Therefore, there was no direct physical damage for the purposes of a contractual limitation of liability clause. The result of the mixing of the concentrate and CO2 was not damaged concentrate but an entirely new defective product (i.e. damage to the product itself rather than to third party property).
Facts: In this case, Thomas Hardy Packaging supplied CO2 to Bacardi-Martini Beverages who then mixed the CO2 with an alcohol/water concentrate to produce a drink known as a Bacardi Breezer.
A batch of CO2 was contaminated with benzene which necessitated a product recall. The alcohol/water concentrate was never intended to be sold as a product in its own right.
Finesse Group v Bryson Products [2013] EWHC 3273 (TCC)
product liabiliy - common law
‘[29] ‘The fact that there is some financial loss said to be associated with putting right the alleged problems and consequences of the adhesive failure does not convert that state of affairs into damage for the purposes of a cause of action in negligence against Bostik.’
Claim dismissed. The adhesive was said to be ineffective so that the panels began to separate from the stands. It was not suggested that the panels fell off, injuring anyone or damaging anything else. There was reference to some of the panels “displaying a bubbling or bulging effect”, which seemed simply to be another manifestation of delamination. It was not arguable that there was any damage on the facts pleaded. It was not being suggested that the panels or the stands were actually damaged; indeed, it seemed to be suggested that the damage lay in the alleged unsatisfactory quality or unsuitability of the adhesive, and that of course would in any event be damage to the thing itself. Even if one could apply or extend the thought processes of Lords Keith and Jauncey in Murphy v Brentwood DC [1991] 1 A.C. 398, [1990] 7 WLUK 331 and treat the adhesive as the thing itself and the panel as a separate part of the structure, the panels were not pleaded as having been damaged, Murphy considere
The claimant (F) made exhibition stands, some of which were created by applying liquid adhesive to the structure of the stands and colour-laminated panels which were to be stuck together. The first defendant firm (X) supplied materials to the construction and retail industry. B was a manufacturer of adhesive products. On six occasions in 2012, F bought from X pressure canisters of liquid adhesive; that adhesive was said to have emanated from B. F claimed that it used those products to create display panels for exhibition stands for an exhibition in May 2012 and that during the erection of the stand for the conference it discovered that some of the coloured panels “had begun to delaminate from the structure of the stand and were displaying a bubbling or bulging effect”; F said that it had to take measures to re-fix the panels but that the visual appearance was affected. Later in 2012, it inspected another 10 stands which it had manufactured with the adhesive, finding that delamination had occurred or was beginning in the component parts. F stated that it had incurred costs and losses in rectifying those problems and that such losses included the loss of business goodwill. It had recently issued an application to re-amend its particulars of claim. F alleged, among other things, that B owed a duty to the users of its products, including F, to take care that those products were of satisfactory quality and fit for all the purposes for which adhesives were commonly supplied.
A v National Blood Authority [2001] 3 All ER 289
product liability - statutory regime - ‘product’
Reasoning:
- Unknown risksare unlikely to qualify by way of defence within Article 6. They may however qualify for Article 7(e).Known risksdo not qualify within Article 7(e), even if unavoidable in the particular product. They may qualify within Article 6 if fully known and socially acceptable.
- The blood products in this case were non-standard products, and were unsafe by virtue of the harmful characteristics which they had and which the standard products did not have.
- They were notipso factodefective (an expression used from time to time by the Claimants) but were defective because I am satisfied that the public at large was entitled to expect that the blood transfused to them would be free from infection. There were no warnings and no material publicity, certainly none officially initiated by or for the benefit of the Defendants, and the knowledge of the medical profession, not materially or at all shared with the consumer, is of no relevance. It is not material to consider whether any steps or any further steps could have been taken to avoid or palliate the risk that the blood would be infected.
- I am satisfied that my conclusions, if not all of my reasoning, are consistent with the decision of the BGH, and with the views of the majority if not all of the academic writers. Insofar as they are inconsistent with the views of Professor Stapleton as to the effect of the Directive, I rather consider that I have confounded her pessimism than disappointed her expectations.
Held:
The High Court held in favour of the claimants. It was legitimate for consumers to expect that the blood they were provided was safe of infection . The tainted blood was therefore defective. The section 4(1)(e) defence was inapplicable to the facts.
This Case is Authority For…
The level of safety which consumers are entitled to expect of a product may be the same as what consumers actually expect, or it may be higher or lower. When determining whether a product is defective, the following factors are irrelevant:
- The avoidability of the risk;
- The cost and difficulty of avoiding the risk.
In addition to the factors mentioned in section 3 of the statute, the safety of comparable products on the market is relevant to whether there is a defect.
For the purposes of section 4(1)(e), if the risk of harm is known about, it is irrelevant that current scientific/technical knowledge is unavoidable. This is true both in cases where the defendant cannot eliminate the risk and in cases where the defendant cannot identify which products pose the risk. Known but unavoidable risks do not qualify for the defence.
Other
The High Court stated that to determine if a product is defective, it is helpful to distinguish between ‘standard’ and ‘non-standard’ products.
SP: The social utility of the harm-causing feature can be relevant, so long as the public is fully-informed about it and accepts it. An example of this given by the High Court was knives being sharp.
Non-standard products are presumed to be defective unless the risk of non-conformity is well-known and socially accepted. An example given by the High Court was the risk that birth control may not be 100% effective. Social utility is irrelevant to whether or note a non-standard product is defective.
Facts:Following their infection with hepatitis C through blood transfusions, a number of claimants sought damages underCouncil Directive 85/374and theConsumer Protection Act 1987, which had been passed in order to implement the Directive in domestic law. The claimants contended that N, which had assumed responsibility for the administration of blood transfusions, was strictly liable under Art.6 of the Directive, despite the absence of fault. N, relying upon Art.7(e) of the Directive submitted that it was not liable since the extent of scientific knowledge at the time the transfusions had taken place meant that, while there was a known risk that some blood products might be infected, the absence of a screening test meant that the risk of supplying a defective blood product was unavoidable.
Computer Associates UK Ltd v Software Incubator Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 518, Gloster LJ
product liability - statutory regime
Compare Software Incubator Ltd v Computer Associates (UK) Ltd [2022] 2 CMLR 3,
[43] ‘the supply, in return for payment of a fee, of computer software to a customer by electronic means where that supply is accompanied by the grant of a perpetual licence to use that software can be covered by the concept of ‘sale of goods’ within the meaning of that provision.’
= Distinction between product and services – software is an example where difficult to draw the line
Held: can only be a good if it is tangible property.
[55] ‘However, despite the problems of principle which arise if one excludes electronically supplied software from the definition of goods, I am not persuaded that it is open to this court to impute what many might think was a common-sense meaning of “goods” to the legislators of the Directive in 1986 and the Regulations in 1993 when the Directive was implemented. To do so would be contrary to precedent. This court cannot simply ignore the weight of judicial authority that supports maintaining the tangible/intangible distinction.’
CJEU disagreed
Facts: a faulty software provided via a link. Is the software a product or a good?
Abouzaid v Mothercare, CA, 20 February 2001, :
statutory regime
Principle: Under the Consumer Protection Act 1987, the defectiveness of a product is to be judged by the expectations of the public at large, as determined by the Court, the fact that the risks of the design were not known to manufacturer at the time the accident occurred is not relevant
Held: There was liability on the facts. Not knowing previous accidents is not an ingredient necessary to find defectiveness. It is just whether the product was defective.
A 12-year-old boy (C) was injured when an elastic strap on a sleeping bag slipped from his hand and the metal buckle permanently injured his eye
C sued the manufacturer (D) for negligence and under the Consumer Protection Act 1987 (CPA 1987) for the design of the sleeping bag
D argued that it had a development risks defence under s4(1)(e) CPA 1987 as there were no reports of similar accidents at the time of the accident
Bogle v McDonald’s Restaurants [2002] EWHC 490 (QB)
Held: the court rejected that interpretation
[80] ‘Persons generally expect tea or coffee purchased to be consumed on the premises to be hot. Many prefer to consume a hot drink from an unlidded cup rather than through a spout in the lid. Persons generally know that if a hot drink is spilled onto someone, a serious scalding injury can result. They accordingly know that care must be taken to avoid such spills, especially if they are with young children. They expect precautions to be taken to guard against this risk but not to the point that they are denied the basic utility of being able to buy hot drinks to be consumed on the premises from a cup with the lid off. Given that the staff were trained to cap the drinks securely and given the capabilities of the cups and lids used, I am satisfied that the safety of the hot drinks served by McDonald’s was such as persons generally are entitled to expect. Accordingly, I hold that in serving hot drinks in the manner in which they did McDonald’s was not in breach of the CPA.’
Facts: only 15 months old, reached for a cup of coffee to which the lid was removed. Argument that the removable lid made it a defective product.
Pollard v Tesco Stores Ltd [2006] EWCA Civ 393, Laws LJ:
statutory regime - ‘defective’
Held: not a defective product
[17] Counsel’s argument is an ‘attempt to confer on purchasers and users of everyday products a right to sue the product’s producers as if there were a contractual warranty as to the safety standard to which the product had been designed. It is quite impossible to get such a result out of the terms of the 1987 Act.
= the fact that it was not done to a specific standard (which the Cs in this case expected) does not mean that it is defective –
[18] What, on the facts here, were “persons generally entitled to expect” of the safety features of this cap and bottle? In my judgment they were entitled to expect that the bottle would be more difficult to open than if it had an ordinary screwtop.’
Facts: the argument was that the washing powder cap should have been resistent to a child treeing to remove it.
O’Byrne v Sanofi Pasteur MSD Ltd [2006] 1 WLR 1606
statutory regime - ‘put into circulation’
Held: no definitive answer
[27] ‘In light of those considerations, a product must be considered as having been put into circulation, within the meaning of article 11 of the Directive, when it leaves the production process operated by the producer and enters a marketing process in the form in which it is offered to the public in order to be used or consumed
Facts: vaccine being defective. When Brought to market or when the parent company sells to the subsidiary.
=> you have to consider whether that counts as put in circulation.
.’
Wilkes v DePuy International Ltd [2016] EWHC 3096
sttautory regime
Reasoning
- The aim of the Act- Part 1 of the Act implemented[Directive 85/374] Both aimed to protect consumers’ interests. The Directive had a further dimension, namely that in the Second Recital of aiming to “solve the problem, peculiar to our age of increasing technicality, of a fair apportionment of the risks inherent in modern technological production”. It did so by imposing “liability without fault on the part of the producer”. Thus, an “injured party” did not have to prove negligence or fault, but still had to prove the damage, the defect, and the causal relationship between the two. There had been considerable academic discussion about a claimant’s proper approach to that task, but few authorities had considered the relevant issues. The proper approach wasnotthat in[*A v National Blood Authority (No.1) ?
- Defects and product safety- The Act and the Directive concern was with safety, not with fitness for purpose. Safety was a relative concept.Expected standards of safety were incapable of precise definition because no medicinal product could be absolutely safe; the potential benefits had to be balanced against the risks ⇒ the fact that matters were expected to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis indicated that the test for safety required an objective approach. Such an approach involved the court assessing the appropriate level of safety at the time that the relevant manufacturer first put the product on the market, taking into account the information and circumstances before it. It did not involve considering the safety expectations of a particular patient or of the general public (paras63-65, 69-72, 74).
- Safety assessments- There was no restriction on the considerations that the court should take into account in determining whether the safety of a product was at an acceptable level. A holistic approach was required, which involved balancing all relevant factors. In the instant case, the circumstances for particular scrutiny were (a) risk benefit and the “avoidability” of the defect (paras81-89); (b) whether the product was “standard” or “non-standard” in accordance with the distinction inNational Blood Authority,which was not followed (paras90-96;(c) compliance with appropriate standards (paras97-98); (d) compliance with any regime under which the product was regulated (paras99-101); (e) any warnings given about the product (paras102-108).
Held: in favour of defendant. The patient had failed to establish that the C-Stem suffered from a manufacturing or design defect. It did not fall below the safety that persons were generally entitled to expect at the time it was put into circulation. The loading to which the stem had been exposed, through a combination of the patient’s anatomy and gait; the extent of any arthritis and/or pre-existing conditions; surgical technique, the precise positioning and alignment of the stem in his body, and the amount of movement between it and the surrounding cement, was greater than the stem could withstand and for which it had been tested. It was uncontroversial that the manufacturer had performed tests at a higher standard that those set by the relevant British Standard. The fact that a safer design could be envisaged did not mean that a current product was defective. The fracture was a rare and unpredictable event, but it was a risk that had been expressly warned of in the instructions for use
Facts: The patient had undergone surgery to insert an artificial hip. It was made from metal components produced by the manufacturer, one of which was a steel femoral shaft (C-Stem). Three years after surgery, the C-Stem fractured, causing metal debris to be shed around the joint. The patient began a negligence claim against the manufacturer and also claimed under s.3 on the basis that when the manufacturer put the stem into circulation, there was a “defect” in it because its safety was not such as persons were generally entitled to expect.
Colin Gee v Depuy International Limited [2018] EWHC 1208 (QB)
statutory liability
Comment: Wilkes and NBA had produced very different methods for approaching CPA claims. This case reinforces the approach taken in Wilkes,and suggests a shift away from the NBA approach. However, since all these cases were in the High Court, neither approach has overruled the other. The more flexible and holistic approach being proposed by Wilkes and this case suggests that claims under the CPA should be easier to defend. The Court’s considerable care and caution in its approach to statistics also illustrates the importance of reliable data, and the way in which such data is put to use as evidence.
The products were not defective
In the late 1990s/early 2000s, MoM hip prostheses were developed with the aim of overcoming some of the limitations caused by traditional Metal-on-Polyethylene (“MoP”) designs, namely combatting the problem of polyethylene wear osteolysis; providing a greater range of motion; and reducing the incidence of dislocation. These issues were particularly problematic for younger and active patients, and the DePuy’s Pinnacle Ultamet (a large head MoM) was developed specifically with these patients in mind and with a view to improving survivorship of the prosthetic beyond 10 years. The use of large head MoM prostheses such as the Pinnacle Ultamet increased rapidly in the early part of the 2000s, peaked in 2007, before declining and sharply dropping off in 2010. The primary reason for this was the high failure rates of MoM implants, largely due to patients suffering from a soft tissue reaction around the hip known as an Adverse Reaction to Metal Debris (“ARMD”).
The claims in this litigation were brought against DePuy by 312 individuals who were implanted with one or more Pinnacle MoM prostheses. All the claimants claimed to have suffered an ARMD generated by their prostheses, necessitating revision surgery.
The Claimants’ case, brought under Part 1 of the CPA, was that the prostheses supplied to them were defective within the meaning of section 3.
Hastings v Finsbury Orthopaedics Ltd [2022] UKSC 19
product liability - statutory regime
Reasoning: The generalised expressions of professional concern do not assist the appellant in establishing that the MITCH-Accolade product was defective because they related to the performance of MoM prostheses in general [42]-[43]. The first instance judge found that the withdrawal of the MITCH-Accolade product from the market was brought about by commercial
considerations. As a result, the withdrawal does not provide any support for the appellant’s case that the product was defective [44]-[47]. Nor do the notices and alerts issued by regulators and the respondents assist the appellant. The evidence on which these notices and alerts were based appears to support a failure to meet the applicable standard of entitled expectation. However, Professor Platt’s reasons for considering that the appellant’s case of a breach of entitled expectation was not made out on a statistical basis apply equally to this category of prima facie evidence. Professor Platt’s evidence contradicts the information which formed the basis of the alerts and safety notices [48]-[62]. The appellant submits that because there is limited available data on revisions in respect of the MITCH-Accolade product the true revision rate could be considerably different from the estimates based on the available data. However, the first instance judge rejected the appellant’s arguments regarding the limited available data. The judge held that the appellant had failed to prove the existence of a defect. Ultimately, this appeal is no more than an attempt to appeal against the judge’s findings of fact which supported that conclusion. The appellant has failed to provide any basis for the Supreme Court to interfere with those findings.
Held: The Supreme Court unanimously dismisses the appeal.
Principle: The test of whether a product is defective is whether the safety of the product is not such as persons generally are entitled to expect. The burden of proof is on the consumer to establish a defect and a causal link to the injury. The nature of the MITCH-Accolade product is such that there can be no entitlement to an absolute level of safety. The test of entitled expectation is whether the level of safety of the MITCH-Accolade product would not be worse, when measured by appropriate criteria, than existing non-MoM products that would otherwise have been used. On appeal, the sole criterion of entitled expectation relied upon is the revision rate.
Facts: The appellant, Mr Hastings, underwent a total hip replacement using the MITCH-Accolade product in 2009. The appellant claims that the replacement hip used in that operation was defective. He seeks damages under the Consumer Protection Act 1989 (the “CPA”). It was common ground at proof that the statistical evidence presented to the court was not sufficient of itself to establish that the MITCH-Accolade product was defective. As a result, the appellant presented his case on two main bases. First, he sought to prove that the MITCHAccolade product was defective by demonstrating certain design flaws. Secondly, he relied on matters which were said to constitute prima facie evidence that the MITCH-Accolade product was defective. In particular, the appellant relied on three matters: (1) expressions of professional concern by the orthopaedic community, (2) the conduct of the respondents in
withdrawing the MITCH-Accolade product from the market and (3) certain notices and alerts issued by regulators and by the respondents
McGlinchey v General Motors (UK) Ltd [2012] CSIH 91
PL - causation - common law
The defect in the product must cause the damage, and the normal causation rules apply, so that the action will fail if the defect cannot be shown, on the balance of probabilities, to have caused the damage
Capfi SA v Enedis SA [2023] ECC 27
VI v KRONE - Verlag Gesellschaft mbH & Co KG (C-65/20) [2021] 6 WLUK 123
electricity is a product
a journal article is NOT a product
