Opinion ID: 1927554
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: punitive damages are inappropriate in ordinary strict products-liability cases

Text: The history of punitive damages demonstrates that there is a strong doctrinal inconsistency in permitting a punitive-damages claim in an action based upon strict products liability. See Tozer, Punitive Damages and Products Liability, 39 Ins. Couns.J. 300, 301 (1972). In a long series of cases, summarized in O'Brien v. Muskin Corp., 94 N.J. 169 (1983), this Court outlined its view of the purposes of strict products-liability law. First, the underlying purpose is a shared concern about the proper allocation of the risk of loss upon all parties in the stream of commerce, id. at 181-84; second, strict liability is imposed in part to relieve plaintiff's sometimes overwhelming burdens of proof, id. at 179; and third, central to our analysis of strict tort liability is the premise that it is the condition of the product that determines liability, not the conduct of the manufacturer, id. at 180; see also Feldman v. Lederle Laboratories, 97 N.J. 429, 450 (1984) ([E]mphasis of the strict liability doctrine is upon the safety of the product, rather than the reasonableness of the manufacturer's conduct. It is a product-oriented approach to responsibility). In Freund v. Cellofilm Properties, Inc., 87 N.J. 229 (1981), the Court emphasized that even in failure-to-warn cases, the manufacturer's liability is predicated not on the manufacturer's conduct but on the safety of the product: [O]nly safe products should be marketed  a safe product being one whose utility outweighs its inherent risk, provided that risk has been reduced to the greatest extent possible consistent with the product's continued utility. [ Id. at 238 n. 1.] One of the judicial benefits of strict liability is the simplification of proof in complex tort litigation. See, e.g., Beshada v. Johns-Manville Prods. Corp., 90 N.J. 191, 209 (1982) (salutary goals of [imposing strict liability include] increasing product safety research and simplifying tort trials). Hence, in the asbestos context a central goal of Beshada is undermined if not lost entirely when each trial invites reexamination of what the asbestos industry knew about the product and when, rather than the safety of the product. See Brodeur, Annals of Law  the Asbestos Industry on Trial, The New Yorker (June 10, 1985-July 1, 1985). As noted, one of our goals in adopting strict liability was to meet the changing needs of society and to eas[e] the burden of proof for a plaintiff injured by a defective product, a policy that is achieved by eliminating the requirement that the plaintiff prove the manufacturer's negligence. O'Brien v. Muskin Corp., supra, 94 N.J. at 179 (citing Keeton, Product Liability and the Meaning of Defect, 5 St. Mary's L.J. 30, 34-35 (1973)). In a cause of action based upon a theory of strict liability we focus upon the product itself and not whether defendant knew or should have known of the harmful attributes of its product while the product was under its control in order to charge it with that knowledge   . Once the product is deemed dangerous, the defendant's lack of fault is irrelevant. Michalko v. Cooke Color & Chem. Corp., 91 N.J. 386, 394-95 (1982) (citations omitted). Since the conduct of the manufacturer is largely irrelevant, in the ordinary strict liability case punitive damages are inappropriate.