Category Archives: Products liability
Michael Rustad, ‘Punitive Damages in Products Liability Revisited (1991-2024)’
ABSTRACT In August 2025, a Florida jury awarded a twenty-two-year-old female’s estate and another badly injured person two hundred million dollars in punitive damages in a case arising out of a 2019 Tesla crash that occurred when the car was in Autopilot mode. Punitive damages were based on the contention that Tesla’s Autopilot could not […]
Jan van Staalduinen, ‘Is There a Manufacturer in the House? On Contractually Shaping European Product Liability for Co-Created Medical AI’
ABSTRACT Hospital AI applications can be developed in several different ways: they can be developed by an external software development company (SDC), they can be developed internally in the hospital, or a hospital can work together with an SDC to jointly develop an AI application. The chosen arrangement has ramifications for the liability of the […]
Warren, Cyhlarova, Carlisle, Knapp and Nolte, ‘The contaminated blood scandal in England: exploring the social harms experienced by infected and affected individuals’
ABSTRACT During the 1970s and 1980s, over 30,000 people in the UK were infected with HIV and/or hepatitis C because of treatment with blood and blood products for conditions such as haemophilia or through blood transfusion. We used the social harms perspective to understand the experiences of those affected. We conducted in-depth interviews with 41 […]
Gsell and Mayrhofer, ‘The New Product Liability Directive 2024: Missed Updates or Upgrades for the Interplay with National Liability Rules and for Service Liability’
INTRODUCTION The new Directive (EU) 2024/2853 on liability for defective products and repealing Council Directive 85/374/EEC of 23.10.2024 (hereinafter: ‘PLD 2024’) entered into force on 8.12.2024 and must be implemented by 9.12.2026. The European legislator acknowledges that the previous Directive 85/374/EEC on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States […]
Cowart and Bock, ‘Tort Immunity Waiver for Vaccine Injuries: Ethical and Legal Perspectives’
ABSTRACT The COVID pandemic highlighted the importance of vaccine development and availability worldwide. Operation Warp-Speed in the United States accelerated vaccine production by several major pharmaceutical manufacturers, averting some of the normal administrative processes. The result has been a financial windfall for those companies. Some recent data has shown that the COVID vaccine can cause […]
‘European Union Product Liability Law and its (Uncertain) Future – Some Thoughts on LF v Sanofi Pasteur case’
It is difficult to overstate the importance of the forthcoming judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in LF v Sanofi Pasteur. The judgment, if it follows the recent opinion of ECJ’s Advocate General (AG) Medina, is likely to create a major shift in the system of liability established by the EU’s Product Liability […]
Luke Meier, ‘Failure-to-Warn Suits Against Pharmaceutical Companies: Physician Testimony, Causation, and Summary Judgment’
ABSTRACT It is hard to win a tort suit against a pharmaceutical company. The theory that a drug or medical device has been incorrectly designed is often foreclosed under existing law. A plaintiff pursuing a tort suit based on a warning theory might have her claim preempted by federal law. Even if a plaintiff can […]
Akwii, Broad Leib, Shapiro and Paparo, ‘Promoting Food Donation: Liability Protection Law and Policy’
ABSTRACT Excessive food loss and waste (FLW) is a pressing challenge facing global food systems. FLW occurs at every stage of the supply chain and generates significant social, environmental, and economic costs. International estimates predict that more than one-third – or 1.3 billion tons – of food produced is lost or wasted along the supply […]
Mark Geistfeld, ‘Product Liability Law in the Age of AI’
ABSTRACT Although the title to this book has changed, this edition continues the developmental path staked out in the prior two editions of this casebook. When I began working on the liability issues involving the crashes of autonomous vehicles about a decade ago, I felt as if I were undergoing a comprehensive final examination on […]
Mark Wilde, ‘Horizons of Pure Economic Loss: Product Liability and the Post Office Horizon Scandal’
ABSTRACT This paper examines the Post Office Horizon scandal from the perspective of product liability and whether Fujitsu owed a duty of care under English common law to the postmasters who used the system and suffered loss as a result of the faults. It confronts the problem of pure economic loss, which is generally irrecoverable […]