Opinion ID: 2293263
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Product and Conduct

Text: As previously noted, the courts' attempts to distinguish product from conduct in design and warning cases have been problematic. Since the object of the distinction is to preserve an uncompromising boundary between negligence and strict liability, see Azzarello, 480 Pa. at 555-56, 391 A.2d at 1025-26, the justification for maintaining the difference would carry less force if such boundary were removed. Nevertheless, there are arguments to be made that, although Azzarello would be no more, strict liability for design-defect claims, like manufacturing-defect ones, should maintain some evidentiary advantage for plaintiffs, perhaps along the line of the Wade-Keeton test. See supra (main text) note 16. [4] On a similar score, Appellee's amicus, United Steelworkers, presents the following argument refuting the Phillips concurrence's acceptance of the notion that product design and conduct (the design process) should be treated as one in the same, in design cases, for purposes of the liability determination: It is perhaps true that usually an unreasonably dangerous design will result from unreasonable conduct on the part of the designer. However, to state this relationship as being inescapable is to ignore the scenario in which a designer might be excusably unaware of the circumstances that make a product dangerous, but nonetheless allowed the dangers to exist in the product. Furthermore, the passage of time attendant to many products liability cases means that evidence cannot be obtained through normal discovery procedures, and therefore evidentiary standards preclude even an inexcusably unaware designer from being found liable for defects. The rule embodied in 402A therefore imposes a standard that allows a product to be considered defective in a situation where a product would have been altered or withdrawn from the market if only the designer had known of its dangerous propensities.    It is inevitable that cases will arise involving defective products that have caused an injury, but where no fault can be proved on the part of a defendant. Such cases highlight the need for a regime which properly places the risk of lost evidence on the part of the party in the best position to both realize the utility of the product (through the prices of the products and the income generated thereby) and to know of the product[']s dangerous propensities. The manufacturer and seller have more reason to know of dangers than the consumer, whose primary sources of information on the product are manufacturers and sellers. For these reasons, strict liability embodied in 402A is the optimal regime and should be retained. Brief of Amicus United Steelworkers at 10-11. It appears that a fair number, if not most, courts considering the unknowable danger paradigm have refused to allocate the risk of loss to the manufacturer, based upon the conclusion that doing so would render the manufacturer an insurer. Cf. Anderson v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp., 53 Cal.3d 987, 281 Cal.Rptr. 528, 810 P.2d 549, 559 (1991) (authorizing the admission of state-of-the-art evidence in product liability warnings cases). [5] Nevertheless, the Court could reserve decision on the matter for an appropriate case, upon more targeted advocacy by the parties at large.