Opinion ID: 1232223
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Heading: General Principles of Strict Liability.

Text: (1) Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc., supra, 59 Cal.2d 57, established the doctrine of strict liability in California: [a] manufacturer is strictly liable in tort when an article he places on the market, knowing that it is to be used without inspection for defects, proves to have a defect that causes injury to a human being. ( Id. at p. 62.) The purpose of such liability is to insure that the costs of injuries resulting from defective products are borne by the manufacturers that put such products on the market rather than by the injured persons who are powerless to protect themselves. ( Id. at p. 63; Cronin v. J.B.E. Olson Corp. (1972) 8 Cal.3d 121, 133 [104 Cal. Rptr. 433, 501 P.2d 1153] (hereafter Cronin ).) The strict liability doctrine achieves its goals by reliev[ing] an injured plaintiff of many of the onerous evidentiary burdens inherent in a negligence cause of action. ( Barker, supra, 20 Cal.3d 413, 431; Campbell v. General Motors Corp. (1982) 32 Cal.3d 112, 119 [184 Cal. Rptr. 891, 649 P.2d 224, 35 A.L.R.4th 1036]; Cronin, supra, at p. 133.) In Vandermark v. Ford Motor Co. (1964) 61 Cal.2d 256 [37 Cal. Rptr. 896, 391 P.2d 168], we extended the doctrine to distributors of defective products. (2) Strict liability, however, was never intended to make the manufacturer or distributor of a product its insurer. From its inception, ... strict liability has never been, and is not now, absolute liability.... [U]nder strict liability the manufacturer does not thereby become the insurer of the safety of the product's user. [Citations.] ( Daly v. General Motors Corp. (1978) 20 Cal.3d 725, 733 [144 Cal. Rptr. 380, 575 P.2d 1162], italics in original.) We expressed the same concern in Barker, noting that Barker 's test for defective design subjected a manufacturer to liability while stopping short of making the manufacturer an insurer for all injuries which may result from the use of its product. ( Barker, supra, 20 Cal.3d at p. 432; see also Brown v. Superior Court, supra, 44 Cal.3d 1049, 1066; Vermeulen v. Superior Court, supra, 204 Cal. App.3d 1192, 1206; Oakes v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., Inc. (1969) 272 Cal. App.2d 645, 650-651 [77 Cal. Rptr. 709].) Strict liability has been invoked for three types of defects  manufacturing defects, design defects, and warning defects, i.e., inadequate warnings or failures to warn. (3) In Barker, supra, 20 Cal.3d 413, we set out two alternative tests for identifying a design defect: first, whether the product performed as safely as an ordinary consumer would expect when used in an intended and reasonably foreseeable manner and, second, whether on balance the benefits of the challenged design outweighed the risk of danger inherent in the design. In Barker we also noted the third type of defect, inadequacy of warning, but did not address the issue since it was not relevant to the issues on appeal. (4) We recently reviewed and further refined the principles of strict liability in Brown v. Superior Court, supra, 44 Cal.3d 1049, 1069, where we concluded that a manufacturer of prescription drugs is exempt from strict liability for defects in design and is not strictly liable for injuries caused by scientifically unknowable dangerous propensities in prescription drugs. Our cases to date have focused principally on the concept of design defect, concededly one of the most difficult areas for precise definition. ( Barker, supra, 20 Cal.3d at p. 429; see also Traynor, The Ways and Meanings of Defective Products and Strict Liability (1965) 32 Tenn. L.Rev. 363; Wade, On the Nature of Strict Tort Liability for Products (1973) 44 Miss. L.J. 825, 838-839; Prosser & Keeton on Torts (5th ed. 1984) § 99, pp. 700-702.) In California, as elsewhere, when not compelled by statute, the doctrine's acceptance and the terms of its applicability have been determined to a large extent by the fundamental policies which underlie it, as set out in Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc., supra, 59 Cal.2d 57, and its progeny. Our task in the case before us is to shape the doctrine insofar as it is applicable to a product whose only defect may be that the manufacturer or distributor failed to warn of inherent dangers. [7]