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99-481: Tax law is part of public law. It covers the application of existing tax laws on individuals, entities and corporations, in areas where tax revenue is derived or levied, e.g. income tax, estate tax, business tax, employment/payroll tax, property tax, gift tax and exports/imports tax. There have been some arguments that consumer law is a better way to engage in large-scale redistribution than tax law because it does not necessitate legislation and can be more efficient, given

198-762: A de facto fault-based regime all along, and the American Law Institute expressly backed a return to tests associated with negligence for design and warning defects with the 1998 publication of the Restatement of Torts, Third: Products Liability . This attempt to resurrect negligence and to limit strict liability to its original home in manufacturing defects "has been highly controversial among courts and scholars." In arguing in 2018 that U.S. product liability law as restated in 1998 had come full circle back to where it started in 1964, two law professors also conceded that "some courts" continue to "tenaciously cling[] to

297-412: A jury trial in the world, the highest awards of monetary damages in the world (frequently in the millions of dollars for pain and suffering noneconomic damages and in rare cases soaring into the billions for punitive damages ), and the most extensive right to discovery in the world. No other country has adopted the U.S. standard of disclosure of information that is "reasonably calculated to lead to

396-450: A Chapter 93A violation would be when: The laws under MGL 93A prohibit activities that relate to overpricing to a consumer and the use of " Bait and Switch " techniques. A court will award the plaintiff the damages if they can prove the (1) defendant knowingly and intentionally violated the MGL 93A agreement or (2) the defendant would not "grant relief in bad faith" knowing that the actions violated

495-595: A consensus in favor of consumer protection , which would eventually cause Congress to enact several landmark federal product safety and vehicle safety statutes. Between 1960 and 1977, Congress passed at least forty-two laws dealing with consumer and worker safety. Second, American academic experts in the field of law and economics developed new theories that helped to justify strict liability, such as those articulated by Guido Calabresi in The Costs of Accidents (1970). To this, Kyle Graham adds three more factors: (3)

594-421: A duty and a breach) and res ipsa loquitur (an inference of negligence under certain conditions). Rather than focus on the behavior of the manufacturer (as in negligence), strict liability claims focus on the product itself. Under strict liability, the manufacturer is liable if the product is defective, even if the manufacturer was not negligent in making that product defective. Under a strict liability theory,

693-520: A fair apportionment of the risks inherent in modern technological production." The Directive gave each member state the option of imposing a liability cap of 70 million euros per defect. Unlike the United States, the Directive only imposed strict liability upon "producers"—that is, manufacturers of raw materials, component parts, and finished products, as well as importers—and deviated significantly from

792-485: A few state legislatures ) embraced this "bold new doctrine" during the late 1960s and 1970s. As of 2018, the five exceptions who have rejected strict liability are Delaware, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, and Virginia. In four of those states, warranty law has been so broadly construed in favor of plaintiffs that only North Carolina truly lacks anything resembling strict liability in tort for defective products. (North Carolina's judiciary never attempted to adopt

891-593: A few universities have promulgated a law degree as a graduate program "akin to [that] … in the United States, Canada, and India." In most African countries, a law degree does not necessarily qualify one to practice as a lawyer. Further post-graduate practical training is required. Graduates earn an undergraduate law degree, viz. the Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.), via a four-year program (as in Malawi, Kenya, Zambia, and most of South African law universities). Subsequently, graduates with

990-470: A hybrid test in which the first does not apply to defects that are too complex). Risk-benefit analysis, of course, can be seen as a way of measuring the reasonableness of the defendant's conduct—or in other words, negligence. A neo-conservative turn among many American courts and tort scholars during the 1980s led to a recognition that liability in design defect and failure-to-warn cases had never been entirely strict, or had been operating in some respects as

1089-420: A landmark case, Justice Traynor laid the foundation for Greenman with these words: Even if there is no negligence, however, public policy demands that responsibility be fixed wherever it will most effectively reduce the hazards to life and health inherent in defective products that reach the market. It is evident that the manufacturer can anticipate some hazards and guard against the recurrence of others, as

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1188-536: A large proportion of contracts cannot be understood by most consumers who sign them. Considering the state of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Law, MGL 93A, clearly highlights the rights and violations of consumer protection law in the state. The chapter explains what actions are considered illegal under the law for which a party can seek monetary damages from the other party at fault. Some examples of practices that constitute

1287-412: A no-liability regime for products (except for cases of fraud or breach of express warranty) by developing the doctrine of caveat emptor (buyer beware) in the early 1600s. As personal injury and product liability claims began to slowly increase during the early First Industrial Revolution (due to increased mobility of both people and products), common law courts in both England and the United States in

1386-695: A private attorney to bring an action seeking their actual damages, punitive damages, and attorney's fees. Also, the majority of states have a Department of Consumer Affairs devoted to regulating certain industries and protecting consumers who use goods and services from those industries. For example, in California, the California Department of Consumer Affairs regulates about 2.3 million professionals in over 230 different professions, through its forty regulatory entities. In addition, California encourages its consumers to act as private attorneys general through

1485-573: A private remedy with attorneys fees for prevailing parties where the losing party "willfully engaged in the trade practice knowing it to be deceptive". Uniform Act §3(b). Missouri has a similar statute called the Merchandising Practices Act. This statute allows local prosecutors or the Attorney General to press charges against people who knowingly use deceptive business practices in a consumer transaction and authorizes consumers to hire

1584-473: A product (or its production) even when they are not the direct purchaser or consumer of that product. For example, government regulations may require businesses to disclose detailed information about their products—particularly in areas where public health or safety is an issue, such as with food or automobiles. Consumer protection is linked to the idea of consumer rights and to the formation of consumer organizations , which help consumers make better choices in

1683-619: A reasonable drug manufacturer that as of late 1993, none had ever been held liable in an English court under a negligence theory (although there had been a number of out-of-court settlements). The first international effort in Europe to harmonize product liability resulted in the Council of Europe Convention on Products Liability in regard to Personal Injury and Death (the Strasbourg Convention ) in 1977, which never entered into force: while it

1782-603: A result of the thalidomide scandal and the victims' ensuing struggle during the 1960s to obtain adequate compensation, especially in the UK and West Germany. The thalidomide scandal highlighted the need for a strict product liability claim sounding in tort because the affected infants were mere bystander victims, as distinguished from product buyers or users. After the UK formed the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948, 80% of pharmaceuticals were provided to patients through

1881-664: 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

1980-598: A small number of states, used vehicles. In the United States, "cars are typically the second most valuable asset most people own, outranked only by their home." Although European observers followed Greenman and Section 402A "with great interest", European countries did not initially adopt such a doctrine. For example, after the landmark case of Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] (which followed MacPherson ), UK product liability law did not change any further for many decades, despite "trenchant academic criticism". Strict liability for defective products finally came to Europe as

2079-584: A tax agent with the Tax Practitioner's Board. Law students are not typically required to complete a unit in tax law, but may opt to take it as an elective in Australian universities. Most African countries use the British legal education curriculum in their law educational system to train lawyers. Overall, legal education, across African countries, starts at the university level as an undergraduate course although

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2178-449: A theory of enterprise liability—instead of basing liability on the defendant's "fault" or "warranty", the defendant's liability should be predicated, as a matter of public policy, on the simple question of whether it was part of a business enterprise responsible for inflicting injuries on human beings. The theoretical foundation for enterprise liability had been laid by James as well as another law professor, Leon Green . As noted above, it

2277-417: A total of 301,766 civil cases. Product liability was the dominant category both in terms of percentage of total active MDLs (32.9%) and percentage of total civil cases centralized into MDLs (91%). Among the factors which led to the large numbers of product liability cases seen today in the United States are relatively low fees for filing lawsuits, the availability of class actions , the strongest right to

2376-484: A total of only 798 product liability claims had been filed in the national courts of EU member states. As of 2020, the much smaller number of cases in the UK meant that "English case law ha[d] barely begun to consider" many of the product liability issues already explored thoroughly by American courts, which therefore required an English legal treatise to cite to a "significant proportion" of American cases in order to illustrate where English product liability law could go in

2475-811: A variety of laws at both the federal and state levels regulate consumer affairs. Among them are the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act , Fair Debt Collection Practices Act , the Fair Credit Reporting Act , Truth in Lending Act , Fair Credit Billing Act , and the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act . Federal consumer protection laws are mainly enforced by the Federal Trade Commission , the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ,

2574-408: Is a way of preventing frauds and scams from service and sales contracts, eligible fraud, bill collector regulation, pricing, utility turnoffs, consolidation, personal loans that may lead to bankruptcy . There have been some arguments that consumer law is also a better way to engage in large-scale redistribution than tax law because it does not necessitate legislation and can be more efficient, given

2673-404: Is defined as someone who acquires goods or services for direct use or ownership rather than for resale or use in production and manufacturing. Consumer interests can also serve consumers, consistent with economic efficiency, but this topic is treated in competition law. Consumer protection can also be asserted via non-government organizations and individuals as consumer activism. Efforts made for

2772-494: Is not unreasonably dangerous when used for its proper purpose), unless specifically disclaimed by the manufacturer or the seller. They are implied by operation of law from the act of manufacturing, distributing, or selling the product. Claims involving real estate (especially mass-produced tract housing ) may also be brought under a theory of implied warranty of habitability. A basic negligence claim consists of proof of As demonstrated in cases such as Winterbottom v. Wright ,

2871-461: Is responsible for consumer rights and protection ( Verbraucherschutzminister ). In the current cabinet of Olaf Scholz , this is Steffi Lemke . When issuing public warnings about products and services, the issuing authority has to take into account that this affects the supplier's constitutionally protected economic liberty, see Bundesverwaltungsgericht (Federal Administrative Court) Case 3 C 34.84, 71 BVerwGE 183. In India , consumer protection

2970-431: 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. For a variety of complex historical reasons beyond the scope of this article, personal injury lawsuits in tort for monetary damages were virtually nonexistent before

3069-593: Is specified in The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 . Under this law, Separate Consumer Dispute Redress Forums have been set up throughout India in every district in which a consumer can file their complaint on a simple paper with nominal court fees and their complaint will be decided by the Presiding Officer of the District Level. The complaint can be filed by both the consumer of a goods as well as of

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3168-442: Is the practice of safeguarding buyers of goods and services, and the public, against unfair practices in the marketplace . Consumer protection measures are often established by law. Such laws are intended to prevent businesses from engaging in fraud or specified unfair practices to gain an advantage over competitors or to mislead consumers. They may also provide additional protection for the general public which may be impacted by

3267-451: Is to protect and enhance consumers' interest through information, education, and enforcement of the rights of consumers was established by an Act of Parliament o promote and protect the interest of consumers over all products and services. In a nutshell, it is empowered to eliminate hazardous & substandard goods from the market. Provide speedy redress to consumer complaints and petition arisen from fraud, unfair practice, and exploitation of

3366-566: Is unavailable for defects that merely render the product unusable (or less useful), and hence cause only economic injury, but do not cause personal injury or damage to other property. Breach of warranty actions governed by Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code also often fail to provide adequate remedies in such situations. The best-known examples of consumer protection statutes for product defects are lemon laws , which provide protection to purchasers of defective new vehicles and, in

3465-697: The Australian Financial Complaints Authority . In Brazil, consumer protection is regulated by the Consumer's Defense Code ( Código de Defesa do Consumidor ), as mandated by the 1988 Constitution of Brazil . Brazilian law mandates "The offer and presentation of products or services must ensure correct, clear, accurate and conspicuous information in the Portuguese language about their characteristics, qualities, quantity, composition, price, guarantee, validity and origin, among other data, as well as

3564-532: The Bachelor of Laws seek to earn the Master of Laws or greater in order to become practitioners of the law. Some law institutions offer tracks to a Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.), a Doctor of Philosophy degree (Ph.D.), or a Doctor of Laws degree (LL.D.) with emphasis on tax law. A list of tax faculty ranked by publication downloads is maintained by Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog. Consumer Law Consumer protection

3663-629: The Consumer Protection Act 1987 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015 . The United Kingdom has left the European Union , but during the transition period (until end of 2020) the UK was still bound by directives of the European Union. Specifics of the division of roles between the EU and the UK are detailed here. Domestic (UK) laws originated within the ambit of contract and tort but, with

3762-508: The European Union are concerned with consumer protection, including the Regulation on general product safety (GPSR) and the Directive (EU) 2024/2853 on liability for defective products. Germany , as a member state of the European Union , is bound by the consumer protection directives of the European Union; residents may be directly bound by EU regulations. A minister of the federal cabinet

3861-644: The Food and Drug Administration , and the U.S. Department of Justice . At the state level, many states have adopted the Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act including, but not limited to, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, and Nebraska. The deceptive trade practices prohibited by the Uniform Act can be roughly subdivided into conduct involving either a) unfair or fraudulent business practices and b) untrue or misleading advertising. The Uniform Act contains

3960-612: The Greenman holding to a nationwide audience because the American Law Institute had appointed him as the official reporter of the Restatement of Torts, Second . The Institute approved the Restatement's final draft in 1964 and published it in 1965; the Restatement codified the Greenman doctrine in Section 402A. Greenman and Section 402A "spread like wildfire across America". The highest courts of nearly all U.S. states and territories (and

4059-499: The Second Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. As a subset of personal injury cases, product liability cases were extraordinarily rare, but it appears that in the few that were brought, the general rule at early common law was probably what modern observers would call no-fault or strict liability. In other words, the plaintiff only needed to prove causation and damages. Common law courts began to shift towards

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4158-489: The "unreasonably dangerous" qualifier implicitly connotes some sense of the idea of "fault" which Traynor was trying to exorcise from product liability, it was subsequently rejected as incompatible with strict liability for defective products by Alaska, California, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico and West Virginia. Early proponents of strict liability believed its economic impact would be minor because they were focused on manufacturing defects. They failed to foresee

4257-451: The 1840s erected further barriers to plaintiffs by requiring them to prove negligence on the part of the defendant (i.e., that the defendant was at fault because its conduct had failed to meet the standard of care expected of a reasonable person), and to overcome the defense of lack of privity of contract in cases where the plaintiff had not dealt directly with the manufacturer (as exemplified by Winterbottom v. Wright (1842)). During

4356-496: The 1970s; and (5) the resistance of the Uniform Commercial Code 's editorial board to extending warranties to bystander victims before 1966—in states whose legislatures had not already acted, state courts were more receptive to extending the common law to grant bystanders a strict liability tort claim. Prosser inexplicably imposed in Section 402A a requirement that a product defect must be "unreasonably dangerous." Since

4455-534: The 1980s explosion in product liability cases; the vast majority of American lawsuits are heard in state courts and not federal courts. In subsequent decades, American federal judges began to heavily rely upon the multidistrict litigation (MDL) statute ( 28 U.S.C.   § 1407 ) to manage an ever-increasing number of complex civil cases. For the first time, by the end of 2018 more than half (51.9%) of all pending American federal civil cases had been centralized into MDLs, with 156,511 cases in 248 MDLs out of

4554-497: The American model by deciding not to impose strict liability on purely domestic distributors or retailers. By using the 20-year-old Section 402A as their model, the Directive's drafters decided not to include a number of changes such as the subsequent differentiation between three major types of product defects used in the US. As of 2003, on the one hand, product liability had expanded around

4653-549: The Competition and Consumer Protection Tribunal for the promotion of competition in the Nigerian market at all levels by eliminating monopolies, prohibiting abuse of dominant market position and penalizing other restrictive trade and business practices." The Act further repealed the hitherto Nigerian Consumer Protection Council Act and transferred its core mandate to the new Commission. Modern Taiwanese law has been heavily influenced by

4752-505: The Directive), Brazil (September 1990), Peru (November 1991), Australia (July 1992), Russia (February 1992), Switzerland (December 1992), Argentina (October 1993), Japan (June 1994), Taiwan (June 1994), Malaysia (August 1999), South Korea (January 2000), Thailand (December 2007), and South Africa (April 2009). As of 2015, in most countries outside of the United States and European Union, "product liability remains largely

4851-786: The European civil law systems, particularly German and Swiss law. The Civil Code in Taiwan contains five books: General Principles, Obligations, Rights over Things, Family, and Succession. The second book of the Code, the Book of Obligations, provided the basis from which consumers could bring product liability actions prior to the enactment of the CPL. The Consumer Protection Law (CPL) in Taiwan , as promulgated on 11 January 1994, and effective on 13 January 1993, specifically protects

4950-495: The MGL 93A agreement. Additionally, failure to disclose refund/ return policy, warranties, and critical information about the product/service are all in violation of the legislation, and can result in triple damages and lawyer fees. - [REDACTED] Media related to Consumer protection at Wikimedia Commons Product liability Product liability is the area of law in which manufacturers , distributors , suppliers, retailers , and others who make products available to

5049-447: The NHS. By assuming financial responsibility for the provision of drugs, the government had thereby barred the majority of mothers (the actual product users) and their infants from bringing breach of warranty claims sounding in contract. For such victims, their only possible claim was a negligence claim sounding in tort, but it is so difficult under English law to prove the standard of care of

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5148-538: The Second Industrial Revolution of the mid-to-late 19th century, consumers increasingly became several steps removed from the original manufacturers of products and the unjust effects of all these doctrines became widely evident. State courts in the United States began to look for ways to ameliorate the harsh effects of such legal doctrines, as did the British Parliament . For example, one method

5247-464: The Supreme Court of California proceeded to extend strict liability to all parties involved in the manufacturing, distribution, and sale of defective products (including retailers). In 1969, the court then held that such defendants were liable not only to direct customers and users, but also to any innocent bystanders randomly injured by defective products. In turn, Prosser was able to propagate

5346-547: The United States, the claims most commonly associated with product liability are negligence , strict liability , breach of warranty , and various consumer protection claims. Warranties are statements by a manufacturer or seller concerning a product during a commercial transaction. Warranty claims historically required privity between the injured party and the manufacturer or seller; in plain English , they must be dealing directly with one another. As noted above, this requirement

5445-463: The complexities of tax law. In Australia , the corresponding agency is the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission or the individual State Consumer Affairs agencies. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has responsibility for consumer protection regulation of financial services and products. However, in practice, it does so through privately run EDR schemes such as

5544-414: The complexities of tax law. Primary taxation issues differ among various countries, although similarities might exist. Tax law education is a specialisation of accountants, tax agents, and lawyers. Accountants are required by either CPA Australia to complete a course in law of taxation and law of financial services. There is a legal obligation to complete taxation law and commercial law for registration as

5643-507: The conditions in which promises made by parties to a contract will be legally binding on each other. It also lays down the remedies available to the aggregate party if the other party fails to honor their promise. The Sale of Goods Act of 1930 provides some safeguards to buyers of goods if goods purchased do not fulfill the express or implied conditions and warranties. The Agriculture Produce Act of 1937 act provides grade standards for agricultural commodities and livestock products. It specifies

5742-527: The conditions which govern the use of standards and lays down the procedure for grading, marking, and packaging of agricultural produce. The quality mark provided under the act is known as AGMARK -Agriculture Marketing. The Nigerian government must protect its people from any form of harm to human health through the use and purchase of items to meet daily needs. In light of this, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) , whose aim

5841-635: The consumer. On 5 February 2019, the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, assented to the new Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission Bill, 2018. Thus, the bill became a law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and binding on entities and organizations so specified in the Act. The long title of the Act reads: "This Act establishes the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and

5940-403: The defendant usually possesses most of the extant evidence of a product defect, in most European countries it is "very difficult, if not impossible, for a victim or her lawyer to investigate a product liability case." Other obstacles—especially in civil law countries—include high filing fees, no right to a jury trial, low damages for pain and suffering, the unavailability of punitive damages, and

6039-509: The discovery of admissible evidence." American reported cases are replete with plaintiffs whose counsel artfully exploited this standard to obtain so-called " smoking gun " evidence of product defects and made defendants pay "a tremendous price" for their callous disregard for product safety. In response to these developments, a tort reform movement appeared in the 1980s which persuaded many state legislatures to enact various limitations like damage caps and statutes of repose . However,

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6138-474: The doctrine, and the state legislature enacted a statute expressly banning strict liability for defective products in 1995. ) In a landmark 1986 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court also embraced strict liability for defective products by adopting it as part of federal admiralty law . In the conventional narrative, there are two main factors that explain the rapid embrace of Greenman and Section 402A. First, they came along just as Americans were coalescing around

6237-516: The dominant theory in product liability cases, but did not actually impose strict liability for defective products. The third step was the landmark California case of Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc. (1963), in which the Supreme Court of California openly articulated and adopted the doctrine of strict liability in tort for defective products. Greenman heralded a fundamental shift in how Americans thought about product liability towards

6336-405: The explosion of mass tort product liability cases during the 1980s throughout the United States. In the federal judicial system , the number of product liability civil actions filed per year increased from 2,393 in 1975 to 13,408 in 1989, and product liability's percentage of all federal civil cases increased from 2.0% to 5.7% during the same period. These numbers reflect only a small portion of

6435-457: The future of the nascent field of product liability. James acknowledged that traditional negligence and warranty law were inadequate solutions for the problems presented by defective products, but argued in 1955 those issues could be resolved by a modification of warranty law "tailored to meet modern needs," while Prosser argued in 1960 that strict liability in tort ought to be "declared outright" without "an illusory contract mask." Ultimately, it

6534-598: The future. During the late 2010s, the comparative outcomes for consumers affected by the Volkswagen emissions scandal vividly highlighted the deficiencies of European civil procedure as applied to a defendant who had already publicly admitted to violations of U.S. environmental laws . In the United States, Volkswagen quickly settled the consolidated consumer class action and agreed to pay US$ 11.2 billion directly to consumers affected by its allegedly defective diesel vehicles. In contrast, consumers in Europe and elsewhere around

6633-572: The influence of EU law , it is emerging as an independent area of law. In many circumstances, where domestic law is in question, the matter is judicially treated as tort , contract , restitution or even criminal law . Consumer protection issues were dealt with by the Office of Fair Trading before 2014. Since then, the Competition and Markets Authority has taken on this role. In the United States

6732-528: The interests and safety of customers using the products or services provided by business operators. The Consumer Protection Commission of Executive Yuan serves as an ombudsman supervising, coordinating, reporting any unsafe products/services, and periodically reviewing the legislation. According to the Pacific Rim Law & Policy Association and the American Chamber of Commerce, in a 1997 critical study,

6831-406: The law has been criticized by stating that "although many agree that the intent of the CPL is fair, the CPL's various problems, such as ambiguous terminology, favoritism towards consumer protection groups, and the compensation liability defense, must be addressed before the CPL becomes a truly effective piece of legislation that will protect consumers" The main consumer protection laws in the UK are

6930-466: The liability for defective products repealed Council Directive 85/374/EEC and provided an expanded scope on product liability, now including components of products as well as software . The legislatures of many other countries outside the EU (then: EEC) subsequently enacted strict liability regimes based on the European model (that is, generally applying only to manufacturers and importers), including Israel (March 1980, based on an early proposed draft of

7029-562: The liberal provisions of its Consumers Legal Remedies Act . State and federal laws provide for "cooling off" periods giving consumers the right to cancel contracts within a certain time period for several specified types of transactions, potentially including transactions entered into at home, and warranty and repair services contracts. Other states have been the leaders in specific aspects of consumer protection. For example, Florida, Delaware, and Minnesota have legislated requirements that contracts be written at reasonable readability levels as

7128-429: The logical implications of applying the rule to other types of product defects. Only in the late 1960s did Americans begin to draw a clear analytical distinction between manufacturing and design defects, and since the early 1980s, defective design claims "have formed the overwhelming bulk" of American product liability lawsuits. It was "the unintended application of [Section] 402A to the design context" which resulted in

7227-425: The majority of states left untouched the basic rule of strict liability for defective products, and all efforts at the federal level to enact a uniform federal product liability regime were unsuccessful. From the mid-1960s onward, state courts struggled for over four decades to develop a coherent test for design defects, either phrased in terms of consumer expectations or whether risks outweigh benefits or both (i.e.,

7326-449: The marketing of products having defects that are a menace to the public. If such products nevertheless find their way into the market it is to the public interest to place the responsibility for whatever injury they may cause upon the manufacturer, who, even if he is not negligent in the manufacture of the product, is responsible for its reaching the market. However intermittently such injuries may occur and however haphazardly they may strike,

7425-570: The marketplace and pursue complaints against businesses. Entities that promote consumer protection include government organizations (such as the Federal Trade Commission in the United States ), self-regulating business organizations (such as the Better Business Bureaus in the US, Canada , England , etc.), and non-governmental organizations that advocate for consumer protection laws and help to ensure their enforcement (such as consumer protection agencies and watchdog groups). A consumer

7524-420: The plaintiff merely needs to prove: In addition to common law remedies, many states have enacted consumer protection statutes that provide specific remedies for certain specific types of product defects. One reason for the appearance of such statutes is that under the "economic loss rule", strict liability in tort is unavailable for products that cause damage only to themselves. In other words, strict liability

7623-461: The plaintiff obtains a court order. Civil law countries strongly dislike and oppose the American principle of broad discovery in civil litigation. For example, since 1968, it has been a crime for a French company to produce commercial information in foreign legal proceedings without express authorization from a French court, and in turn, this has been raised as a defense to discovery by French defendants in American product liability cases. Since

7722-423: The procedural law of the forum state is actually able to facilitate access to justice. Traditionally, European courts have provided no discovery or rather minimal discovery (by American standards). Where available, European discovery is rarely self-executing (that is, automatically effective by operation of law), meaning that the defendant and third parties have no obligation to disclose anything unless and until

7821-490: The protection of consumer's rights and interests are: Consumer protection law or consumer law is considered as an area of law that regulates private law relationships between individual consumers and the businesses that sell those goods and services. Consumer protection covers a wide range of topics, including but not necessarily limited to product liability , privacy rights , unfair business practices , fraud , misrepresentation , and other consumer/business interactions. It

7920-419: 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

8019-400: The public cannot. Those who suffer injury from defective products are unprepared to meet its consequences. The cost of an injury and the loss of time or health may be an overwhelming misfortune to the person injured, and a needless one, for the risk of injury can be insured by the manufacturer and distributed among the public as a cost of doing business. It is to the public interest to discourage

8118-508: The rationale and doctrine of [Section] 402A." Section 2 of the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability distinguishes between three major types of product liability claims: However, in most states, these are not legal claims in and of themselves, but are pleaded in terms of the legal theories mentioned above. For example, a plaintiff might plead negligent failure to warn or strict liability for defective design. The three types of product liability claims are defined as follows: In

8217-471: The rise of attorneys specializing exclusively in plaintiffs' personal injury cases and their professional associations like the organization now known as the American Association for Justice ; (4) the ubiquity of so-called "bottle cases" (personal injury cases arising from broken glass bottles ) before aluminum cans and plastic bottles displaced glass bottles as the primary beverage container during

8316-457: The risk of their occurrence is a constant risk and a general one. Against such a risk there should be general and constant protection and the manufacturer is best situated to afford such protection. Traynor's argument for imposing strict liability in Escola "has had an enormous impact on the way legal scholars have understood products liability and tort law more generally". The year after Greenman ,

8415-507: The risks they pose to the health and safety of consumers." In Brazil, the consumer does not have to bring forward evidence that the defender is guilty. Instead, the defense has to bring forward evidence that they are innocent. In the case of Brazil, they narrowly define what a consumer, supplier, product, and services are, so that they can protect consumers from international channels trade laws and protect them from negligence and misconduct from international suppliers. Several regulations in

8514-536: The same defect. This embarrassed Germany into dropping its longstanding opposition to European collective redress proposals, and the country also made reforms to its domestic civil procedure. As a result, on 25 November 2020, the European Parliament and Council adopted the Directive on Representative Actions. Paragraph 1 of Article 1 of the Directive states that it is intended "to improve consumers' access to justice." In 2024, Directive (EU) 2024/2853 on

8613-414: The scope of the duty of care was limited to those with whom one was in privity. Later cases like MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co. broadened the duty of care to all who could be foreseeably injured by one's conduct. Over time, negligence concepts have arisen to deal with certain specific situations, including negligence per se (using a manufacturer's violation of a law or regulation, in place of proof of

8712-723: The services. An appeal could be filed to the State Consumer Disputes Redress Commissions and after that to the National Consumer Disputes RedresaRedressalsion (NCDRC). The procedures in these tribunals are relatively less formal and more people-friendly and they also take less time to decide upon a consumer dispute when compared to the years-long time taken by the traditional Indian judiciary . In recent years, many effective judgments have been passed by some state and National Consumer Forums. Indian Contract Act, 1872 lays down

8811-417: 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

8910-518: The unavailability (before the 2010s) of class actions. As of 2003, there was no country outside of the United States where plaintiffs were able to recover noneconomic damages above US$ 300,000 for even the most catastrophic injuries. As of 2015, product liability in Europe "has remained a fairly minor field which generates fewer cases, more modest awards, and rarely makes it into the headlines" (in comparison to its American cousin). In July 2018, European Commission staff reported that from 2000 to 2016,

9009-452: The world had to fight much longer and harder for less compensation. Many of them were unimpressed with Volkswagen's vigorous advocacy of legal defenses based on technical differences between different nations' environmental laws; from their perspective, they had paid for a "clean diesel" car, they did not get a "clean diesel" car, and did not understand why they deserved far less compensation than American consumers for what they perceived to be

9108-481: The world within the past two decades to become a "global phenomenon," and therefore, "the United States is no longer the only country with tough product liability rules." On the other hand, the picture looked very different when one "turn[ed] from the law on the books to the law in action." In the real world, the actual protection afforded to consumers by product liability law "depends heavily on whether claims are realistically enforceable," and that depends upon whether

9207-571: Was Greenman which led to the actual emergence of product liability as a distinct field of private law in its own right. Before this point, products had appeared in case law and scholarly literature only in connection with the application of existing doctrines in contract and tort. The Greenman majority opinion was authored by then-Associate Justice Roger J. Traynor , who cited to his own earlier concurring opinion in Escola v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. (1944). In Escola , now also widely recognized as

9306-434: Was Prosser's view which prevailed. The first step towards modern product liability law occurred in the landmark New York case of MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co. (1916), which demolished the privity bar to recovery in negligence actions. By 1955, James was citing MacPherson to argue that "[t]he citadel of privity has crumbled," although Maine, the last holdout, would not adopt MacPherson until 1982. The second step

9405-399: Was demolished in the landmark Henningsen case. Breach of warranty-based product liability claims usually focus on one of three types: Express warranty claims focus on express statements by the manufacturer or the seller concerning the product (e.g., "This chainsaw is useful to cut turkeys"). The various implied warranties cover those expectations common to all products (e.g., that a tool

9504-434: 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

9603-523: Was signed by Austria, Belgium, France and Luxembourg, it was ratified by none of them. On July 25, 1985, the then- European Economic Community adopted the Product Liability Directive . In language resembling what Traynor wrote in Escola and Greenman , the Directive's preface states that "liability without fault on the part of the producer is the sole means of adequately solving the problem, peculiar to our age of increasing technicality, of

9702-422: Was the landmark New Jersey case of Henningsen v. Bloomfield Motors, Inc. (1960), which demolished the privity bar to recovery in actions for breach of implied warranty. Prosser cited Henningsen in 1960 as the "fall of the citadel of privity." The Henningsen court helped articulate the rationale for the imminent shift from breach of warranty (sounding in contract) to strict liability (sounding in tort) as

9801-528: Was to find implied warranties implicit in the nature of certain contracts; by the end of the 19th century, enough U.S. states had adopted an implied warranty of merchantable quality that this warranty was restated in statutory form in the U.S. Uniform Sales Act of 1906, which drew inspiration from the British Sale of Goods Act 1893 . During the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, American law professors Fleming James Jr. and William Prosser published competing visions for

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