Teacher:In this task, you will be shown a prompt from a judicial decision and multiple holding statements derived from citations following text in a legal decision. Holdings represent the governing legal rule when the law is applied to a particular set of facts. There are five answer choices for each citing text. The correct answer is the holding statement that corresponds to the citing text. The four incorrect answers are other holding statements. You should find the correct option. There is a <HOLDING> token in the position of the citing text prompt where the holding statement was extracted.
Teacher: Now, understand the problem? Solve this instance: an employer based on its status as successor to corporations that had designed and manufactured allegedly defective equipment for their own use. The equipment passed to the successor corporation through a series of mergers. The court held that, but for the merger, plaintiff could have sued the predecessor corporations based on their design and manufacture of the defective equipment. The court concluded that this potential liability survived the merger, "since the obligation upon which [the successor] is being sued arose not out of the employment relation, but rather out of [the] independent business transaction" of the merger itself. Id. at 161, 432 N.Y.S.2d at 885, 412 N.E.2d at 940; see also Schweiner v. Hartford Accident & Indem. Co., 120 Wis.2d 344, 354 N.W.2d 767, 772-73 (1984) (<HOLDING>). A strong dissent in Billy exposed the flaws
Holding statements: (A) holding that a third party holding legal title to property is a necessary party in an action for equitable distribution (B) holding the family court has jurisdiction to join third parties when property is alleged to be marital but is owned by a third party (C) holding that a third party has authority to consent to a search if the third party is a coinhabitant (D) holding that plaintiff could recover royalties only for products manufactured by defendant after disclosure of secret but before issuance of patent (E) holding that but for merger plaintiff could have sued predecessor that manufactured defective equipment as third party but not analyzing basis for such a suit
Student:
(E)