Strict liability most often shows up in the field of products liability. In a product liability claim, a seller, distributor, or manufacturer of a product is liable for injuries caused by the product, and it does not matter what steps they took to make sure the product was safe. In these claims, the product itself is dangerous.
Anyone who was injured by a product can sue to recover damages, not just the person who purchased the product. Liability can also be assigned to anyone along the chain of distribution for the product. The at-fault party could be the manufacturer or a manufacturer of a certain part of the product, whoever was responsible for assembling the product, whoever installed the product, the wholesaler of the product, or even the store that sold the product.
Different types of product defects can lead to a product liability claim. In Washington, DC, defective products fall into one of the following categories:
Design defect. Sometimes the design of the product itself is a danger to users. Manufacturers can be liable for design defects if they knew, before manufacturing the product, that that design was dangerous but they did not change the design defect. A common example would be a problem with motor vehicle design.
Manufacturing defect. Defects that unintentionally happen in the manufacturing process and change the product from its original design are manufacturing defects. These types of defects can occur when using poor quality materials in production or from a lack of other quality control. This often happens in food packaging, where low health standards can contaminate the food and cause health problems or unintentional poisoning.
Labeling defect. The final type of product liability happens when using a product in a manner that it was not intended for. Products like this must have clear instructions for the consumer on usage and warning labels to alert users to potential hazards. If these labels aren’t attached, the user could be seriously injured. The most common field where this is seen is in medication and pharmaceutical drugs. If drugs could cause side effects or have a negative reaction with another medication, there must be a warning label explaining this hazard.