Opinion ID: 1748904
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Empirical Elements

Text: Strict products liability and accident law in general pursue four primary goals: (1) reduction of the total cost of accidents by deterring activity causing accidents, (2) reduction of the societal cost of accidents by spreading the loss among large numbers, (3) reducing the cost of administering accident cases, and (4) achieving these goals by methods consistent with justice. Since these goals are not fully consistent with one another, the overall aim is to strive for the best combination of cost reduction in all these categories in a just way. See Bell v. Jet Wheel Blast, supra ; DeBattista v. Argonaut-Southwest Ins. Co., supra ; Turner v. NOPSI, 476 So.2d 800, 806 (La.1985) (Concurring opinion); G. Calabresi, The Costs of Accidents, (Yale University 1979). To further these goals within the framework of our civil code, we have concluded that as between an innocent consumer injured by a product which is unreasonably dangerous per se, i.e., too dangerous to be placed on the market, and the manufacturer who puts the product into commerce without being aware or able to know of its danger, the manufacturer must bear the cost of the damage caused by its product. On the other hand, if the consumer fails to prove that the product is unreasonably dangerous per se and seeks to prove his case by impugning the manufacturer's conduct, e.g., by contending that the manufacturer failed to warn or to adopt feasible alternative designs, in fairness the manufacturer should be permitted to introduce evidence and present argument as to the standard of knowledge and conduct by which its conduct is to be judged. The scientific inability to avoid occasional flaws in products due to miscarriages in the construction process has never altered the fact that an impure or flawed product is defective if the product proves to be more dangerous than it was intended to be. Prosser & Keeton on Torts, p. 700 (5th ed. 1984); 1A Frumer & Friedman § 12.07[4][6][i]. Similarly, when a plaintiff proves that a product is bad and defective because its utility is outweighed by its danger-in-fact, i.e., unreasonably dangerous per se, and the plaintiff proves this theory of recovery without impugning the conduct of the manufacturer, the producer should be held strictly liable regardless of scientific inability to know or to avoid the danger. On balance, a rule of law requiring the manufacturer to assume the cost of accidents caused by products which are unreasonably dangerous per se, regardless of whether the danger was foreseeable, will provide an effective incentive to eliminate all possible dangers before putting products on the market. Cf. Bell v. Jet Wheel Blast, supra ; Beshada v. Johns-Manville, 90 N.J. 191, 447 A.2d 539, 547-8 (1982). Moreover, any discouragement to produce new products or to discover safety improvements will be mitigated by the manufacturer's ability to defend failure to warn cases, alternative design cases and alternative product cases on the basis of scientific unknowability and inability. We conclude that recognizing an unreasonably dangerous per se category as a form of pure strict liability along with construction or manufacturing defects will provide even greater incentives to produce safe products. Reducing the societal cost of accidents by spreading the loss among large groups would not be promoted by leaving part of the cost of accidents, diseases and deaths caused by unreasonably dangerous products on consumers. Insurance specifically designed to cover such losses would be unavailable to consumers as a practical matter. Of course, some losses from scientifically unknowable dangers may prove to be uninsurable for producers also. Manufacturers as a class, however, are still in a better position than consumers to analyze and take action to avoid the risk, to negotiate for broader insurance coverage, and to pass losses on in the form of price increases. Furthermore, the rule we have adopted does not prevent the manufacturer from introducing evidence of scientific knowledge, or the lack thereof, in cases where such knowledge is material, such as in duty-to-warn cases. If the cost of accidents caused by products which are unreasonably dangerous per se and are defective because of construction flaws is placed on manufacturers, a much greater portion of the cost of such accidents may be spread among consumers and manufacturers rather than placed on individual accident victims. The costs of administering the unreasonably dangerous per se category of products liability cases will be reduced by eliminating litigation over the date when a product's danger became scientifically knowable. In unreasonably dangerous per se cases, as in construction defect cases now, the parties should not be forced to produce experts in the history of science and technology to speculate, and possibly confuse jurors, as to what knowledge was available and what improvements were feasible in a given year. Beshada, 90 N.J. at 207-8, 447 A.2d at 548; Keeton, Products Liability-Inadequacy of Information, 481 Tex.L.Rev. 398, 408-09 (1920); See Wade, On the Effect in Product Liability of Knowledge Unavailable Prior to Marketing, 58 N.Y.U.L. Rev. 734, 754 (1983). Further, a sense of justice also requires that a manufacturer not be permitted to subsidize its production of a product which is unreasonably dangerous per se at the expense of innocent accident victims. Just as our civil code requires that a custodian of a dangerous thing compensate a victim for the unforeseen harm it causes, so should a manufacturer bear the unforeseen costs that its product inflicts on the helpless user. Moreover, great injustice will result if a manufacturer who knew that a product was unreasonably dangerous per se before it was marketed escapes liability because the plaintiff cannot carry the difficult burden of proving when scientific knowledge was available to the manufacturer. See Wade, supra at 756. Finally, equality in treatment of like cases which is at the heart of our received notions of justice demands that the manufacturer of a product which is unreasonably dangerous per se should not be allowed a defense which is unavailable to the maker of a product that happens to have a construction flaw, or to the custodian of an animal, child or thing. Each of these defendants is strictly liable in tort for injuries caused by the product, person or thing for which he is responsible, even though the defect or dangerous characteristic was not discoverable prior to the time of the injury. Justice and consistency dictate that the manufacturer of a product that is unreasonably dangerous per se be treated in the same manner.