Opinion ID: 1403899
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: utah law on strict liability

Text: Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1965) addresses the strict liability of sellers of products. This court adopted section 402A, of which comment k is one provision, in Ernest W. Hahn, Inc. v. Armco Steel Co., 601 P.2d 152, 158 (Utah 1979). Since then, we have adhered to section 402A and to at least one of its accompanying comments. See Mulherin v. Ingersoll-Rand Co., 628 P.2d 1301 (Utah 1981) (applying section 402A); Dowland v. Lyman Products for Shooters, 642 P.2d 380, 381 n. 2 (Utah 1982) (applying comment g). We have not addressed the application of comment k in the context of prescription drugs or otherwise. [2] Although two Utah statutes address the liability of product and drug manufacturers, they do not directly address the comment k issues. See Utah Code Ann. § 78-15-6(3) (1987) (rebuttable presumption that product was not defective if manufactured according to industry standards), § 78-18-2 (punitive damages unavailable if drug was approved by FDA). In its entirety, comment k reads: k. Unavoidably unsafe products. There are some products which, in the present state of human knowledge, are quite incapable of being made safe for their intended and ordinary use. These are especially common in the field of drugs. An outstanding example is the vaccine for the Pasteur treatment of rabies, which not uncommonly leads to very serious and damaging consequences when it is injected. Since the disease itself invariably leads to a dreadful death, both the marketing and the use of the vaccine are fully justified, notwithstanding the unavoidable high degree of risk which they involve. Such a product, properly prepared, and accompanied by proper directions and warning, is not defective, nor is it unreasonably dangerous. The same is true of many other drugs, vaccines, and the like, many of which for this very reason cannot legally be sold except to physicians, or under the prescription of a physician. It is also true in particular of many new or experimental drugs as to which, because of lack of time and opportunity for sufficient medical experience, there can be no assurance of safety, or perhaps even of purity of ingredients, but such experience as there is justifies the marketing and use of the drug notwithstanding a medically recognizable risk. The seller of such products, again with the qualification that they are properly prepared and marketed, and proper warning is given, where the situation calls for it, is not to be held to strict liability for unfortunate consequences attending their use, merely because he has undertaken to supply the public with an apparently useful and desirable product, attended with a known but apparently reasonable risk. Comment k establishes an exception to the strict products liability section 402A imposes on [o]ne who sells any product in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user or consumer or to his [or her] property... . § 402A(1). This liability applies whether or not the seller has exercised all possible care in the preparation and sale of his product... . § 402A(2)(a). Comment g defines a defective condition as a condition not contemplated by the ultimate consumer which will be unreasonably dangerous to [that consumer]. Comment k, however, defines a category of unavoidably unsafe products that when properly prepared, and accompanied by proper directions and warning, [are] not defective, nor ... unreasonably dangerous. (Emphasis in original.) We agree with comment k's basic proposition  that there are some products that have dangers associated with their use even though they are used as intended. We also agree that the seller of such products, when the products are properly prepared and marketed and distributed with appropriate warnings, should not be held strictly liable for the unfortunate consequences attending their use. Thus, we adopt comment k's basic policy as the law to be applied in this state and must now turn to the issue of how to apply that policy.