Product liability

Product liability is the area of law in which manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, retailers, and others who make products available to the public are held responsible for the injuries those products cause. Although the word "product" has broad connotations, product liability as an area of law is traditionally limited to products in the form of tangible personal property. The overwhelming majority of countries have strongly preferred to address product liability through legislative means. In most countries, this occurred either by enacting a separate product liability act, adding product liability rules to an existing civil code, or including strict liability within a comprehensive Consumer Protection Act. In the United States, product liability law was developed primarily through case law from state courts as well as the Restatements of the Law produced by the American Law Institute (ALI). The United States and the European Union's product liability regimes are the two leading models for how to impose strict liability for defective products, meaning that "[v]irtually every product liability regime in the world follows one of these two models." The United States was the birthplace of modern product liability law during the 20th century, due to the 1963 Greenman decision which led to the emergence of product liability as a distinct field of private law. In 1993, it was reported that "[n]o other country can match the United States for the number and diversity of its product liability cases, nor for the prominence of the subject in the eyes of the general public and legal practitioners." This was still true as of 2015: "In the United States, product liability continues to play a big role: litigation is much more frequent there than anywhere else in the world, awards are higher, and publicity is significant." In the United States, the majority of product liability laws are determined at the state level and vary widely from state to state. Each type of product liability claim requires proof of different elements in order to present a valid claim.