Products liability, which is primarily governed by state law, concerns the civil liability of a manufacturer, seller, or other party along a product's manufacturing or distribution chain for personal or property damages caused by a product to a consumer or third-party user of that product. In a typical products liability lawsuit, a plaintiff brings a claim for damages against a manufacturer for injuries sustained while using the product. Damages that a plaintiff typically seeks are for the recovery of medical expenses, disability, pain and suffering, lost earnings and earning capacity, property damage, emotional harm, and even punitive damages, which are intended to punish a defendant's particularly outrageous conduct. To obtain relief from the courts, the plaintiff bears the burden of proving that she used the product in a reasonable or foreseeable manner, and that the product either contained an unnecessary or unreasonable hazard or was improperly marketed, resulting in the harm. Over time, product defects have been generally grouped into three categories—manufacturing defects, design defects, and warning defects, which are described in more detail below. Various causes of action may be relied upon by a plaintiff who seeks to recover against a manufacturer, seller, or other third-party defendant. The causes of action reviewed in this report include strict liability, negligence, breach of warranty, and tortious misrepresentation. A manufacturing defect is a mistake that occurs in the manufacturing process such that the product fails to meet the manufacturer's design specifications, resulting in an error that causes an injury to a consumer or other third party. As demonstrated by the case below, products that are physically flawed, damaged, or incorrectly assembled are common examples of manufacturing defects. There are two key characteristics to a manufacturing defect claim that tend to benefit a plaintiff's case. First, as this type of lawsuit only contests the correct manufacturing of a single unit out of the entire product line, it is commonly less costly to litigate than a design or warning defect claim, where an entire product line may need to be challenged. Second, as most jurisdictions closely adhere to a "strict liability" standard when evaluating a manufacturing defect case, it may be easier for a plaintiff to prevail on her claim because she may likely face a lower burden of proof. The "strict liability" standard is discussed in more detail below (see " Strict Liability "). Because consumers generally expect that the products they purchase will be free of dangerous defects, a manufacturer may be more amenable to settling a case if it is persuaded that a physical flaw in its product injured a claimant. On the other hand, a manufacturer may be more apt to litigate if it believes that the product was not defective; if the plaintiff's harm was caused by something else; or, even if the product did cause the harm, something other than the manufacturer caused the product's defectiveness after it left the manufacturer's control; or the plaintiff's damage claim is unreasonable. Colon ex rel. Molina v. BIC USA, Inc. , provides an example of a plaintiff, acting on behalf of herself and her injured child, who proceeded against the defendant on a manufacturing defect claim, after her child suffered severe burns on his body from playing with a disposable lighter that was manufactured with a "child guard" safety latch. The lighter at issue no longer had the child-resistant safety latch when the police retrieved it. In pursuing her manufacturing defect claim, the court stated that under the applicable state law, a plaintiff must "show that a specific product unit was defective as a result of 'some mishap in the manufacturing process itself, improper workmanship, or because defective materials were used in construction,' and that the defect was the cause of the plaintiff's injury." The court did not dismiss the plaintiff's manufacturing defect claim, finding there was sufficient evidence from which a jury might "reasonably conclude that the subject lighter was a lemon and the safety latch just fell out or was otherwise removable with the slightest tug." A design defect is a mistake in a product's design that results in undue risk to a consumer or other third party that could have been reasonably prevented by a safety device or other design alternatives. Design defect claims are the most commonly asserted type of products liability claim against a manufacturer. For example, much of automotive products liability litigation challenges the design of motor vehicles. Unlike a manufacturing defect claim, which examines an individual product, a design defect claim may be more problematic for a manufacturer because it examines the safety of an entire product line, which may need to be modified or removed from the market should the court make a declaration against the manufacturer. As even the best-designed product can be dangerous if used incorrectly, an ongoing challenge for courts has been how to best determine what constitutes a design defect. Courts generally evaluate the adequacy of a product's design upon one of two standards, or a combination thereof. The first is a "consumer expectations" test, which asks whether the design meets the safety expectations of users or consumers. The second is a "risk-utility" test, which asks whether the safety benefits of designing away foreseeable danger exceed the resulting costs. Today, most jurisdictions have moved away from the consumer expectations test and, instead, employ some form of the risk-utility or cost-benefit standard. The Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability reflects this shift, as it has primarily adopted a cost-benefit liability standard for design defectiveness. Young v. Pollock Engineering Group Inc. , serves as an example of a design defect case. In Young , the plaintiff worked as a "die man," whereby he loaded die into a die changer. The plaintiff's coworker accidentally activated the die changer while the plaintiff was loading the die, from which he sustained severe injuries to his left hand. The plaintiff sued the manufacturer of the die changer for design defectiveness, as the plaintiff's employer was able to install a "barrier guard" around the die changer subsequent to the accident. The court stated that under the applicable state law, a plaintiff asserting a design defect claim must establish that the product "was in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous for its intended use." For a court to determine whether there is enough evidence to submit the claim to a jury, the court is required to "balance the likelihood of harm, and the gravity of harm if it happens, against the burden of the precaution which would be effective to avoid the harm." On appeal, the court reversed the lower court's dismissal of the plaintiff's design defect claim, finding that the plaintiff had presented sufficient evidence of a defective design of the product at issue. A warning defect is one where a manufacturer fails to provide appropriate information about a product's known hazards and how to avoid them, resulting in undue risks to a consumer that could have been reasonably prevented. A manufacturer's general "duty to warn" can be viewed as encompassing two distinct obligations. One is the "duty to warn," where a manufacturer must inform buyers and users of hidden dangers in a product; the second obligation is the "duty to instruct," where a manufacturer must inform buyers on how to avoid a product's dangers in order to use it safely. Warnings are generally regarded by manufacturers as a relatively inexpensive means through which to improve product safety; this view is perhaps reinforced by plaintiffs, who often raise warning defect claims, viewing them as both less expensive and easier to prove in court than a design defect. However, despite the apparent cost benefits that warning defect claims bring to both manufacturers and plaintiffs, courts do not readily require that manufacturers warn of all product dangers. Rather, a central issue posed by a warning defect claim is "adequacy." Although courts will generally not require a manufacturer to warn about obvious defects that would be apparent to ordinary consumers, whether a warning is adequate may depend on a variety of factors. These may include "the severity of the danger; the likelihood that the warning will catch the attention of those who will foreseeably use the product and convey the nature of the danger to them; the intensity and form of the warning; and the cost of improving the strength or mode of the warning." In Carruth v. Pittway Corporation , for example, the plaintiffs, who were estate administrators for the decedents, brought a warning defect claim against the manufacturer of a smoke detector. In Carruth , the plaintiffs had installed a smoke detector in their home two days prior to a fire that led to the decedents' death. The plaintiffs alleged that the literature accompanying the smoke detector did not properly warn users about the dangers of installing the smoke detector in "dead air space," an area near the top of the wall and corners of a room where smoke will not easily circulate. As a result, the smoke detector was improperly installed and did not properly function during the fire. In addressing the failure-to-warn claim, the court stated that "the law does not require that necessary warnings be conveyed in the best way possible, ... but does require that they not be conveyed in a manner that effectively 'prevents a consumer from reading them and being warned.'" In this instance, the court noted that while the manufacturer's pamphlet referenced the dangers of "dead air space," it did so within a seven-page pamphlet with small and tight print, which included a significant number of warnings but gave little emphasis to specific dangers. The court concluded that the plaintiffs had presented enough substantial evidence from which a jury could find that the warning was inappropriately given, as it was not adequately designed to attract the user's attention. A plaintiff may assert a number of causes of action in her products liability lawsuit to support her product defect claim, regardless of whether she is asserting a manufacturing, design, or warning defect claim. Each of these causes of action has a unique set of factors that a plaintiff must prove in order to obtain relief, as well as defenses that may protect a manufacturer from liability. When bringing a products liability lawsuit, a plaintiff must take these factors and defenses into consideration in determining the appropriate claim(s) to assert and the likelihood of success.