Strict liability shifts jurors’ focus from producer care to product defect itself.

Evidence

Under a system of strict liability, jurors focus on the defects in products rather than on the care taken in design and production to reduce risks for consumers. The jurors, critics claim, tend to sympathize with accident victims and are predisposed to assume that the new is more dangerous than the familiar. Therefore, they tend to award damages whenever a plaintiff using a new product is injured, even in the face of strong scientific evidence against the plaintiff’s claim. And even when defendants ultimately prevail, the costs of defending liability suits can be ruinous. For example, although manufacturers of light aircraft won more than 80 percent of product liability cases brought to trial, liability costs have added an estimated $70,000 to the price of each light airplane. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 3492

Categorization

• DEFINE: States the operative doctrinal core of strict product liability: defect, not care in design or production, is the legal question.
• XREF: Links to the course’s foundational-values thread — fairness and compensation for injured consumers versus burden on producers.