Category Archives: Products liability
Sørensen, Rott and Sein, ‘Response of the European Law Institute: European’s Public Consultation on Digital Fairness – Fitness Check of Consumer Law’
ABSTRACT In its 2020 consumer policy strategy, the ‘New Consumer Agenda’, the European Commission announced that it would analyse whether additional legislation or other action is needed in the medium term to ensure equal fairness online and offline. For that reason, the Commission launched, in spring 2022, a Fitness Check of EU consumer law on […]
Marin Scordato, ‘The Curious Case of Tort Liability for a Defective Product That the Defendant Did Not Make, Sell, or Distribute’
ABSTRACT Rarely does the United States Supreme Court consider and decide an issue of tort law, especially one that does not implicate any aspect of federal constitutional law. The problem of bare-metal equipment is just such an issue, taken up and addressed by the US Supreme Court less than three years ago in the case […]
Hilyard Nichols, ‘The First Byte Rule: A Proposal for Liability of Artificial Intelligences’
ABSTRACT Artificial Intelligences (AIs) are a relatively new addition to human civilization. From delivery robots to board game champions, researchers and businesses have found a variety of ways to apply this new technology. As it continues to grow and become more prevalent though, so do its interactions with society at large. This will create benefits […]
Koopman and Widen, ‘Liability Rules for Automated Vehicles: Definitions and Details’
ABSTRACT This paper explains how the law ought to attribute and allocate liability for accidents involving automated vehicles. We advocate for the creation of the legal fiction of a ‘Computer Driver’ and allow a court or jury to attribute ordinary negligence liability to the Computer Driver anytime a court or jury determines that the Computer […]
Alexandra Lahav, ‘Crime and Tort: Reflections on Legal Categories’
ABSTRACT This Essay investigates how a particular category of torts – suits for injuries caused by dangerous products – has been seen alternatively as based in contact or criminal law – in addition to, or sometimes instead of, an independent doctrine sounding in tort that arises from a duty not to harm others. This category […]
Benjamin Cavataro, ‘Regulating Guns as Products’
ABSTRACT Toy guns are subject to federal product safety regulation. Real guns are not. If a defect in an air rifle causes it to discharge without warning, the manufacturer would be required to promptly notify a safety regulator (the Consumer Product Safety Commission); to recall the air rifle; and to provide a repair, replacement, or […]
Hua and Spier, ‘Platform Safety: Strict Liability versus Negligence’
ABSTRACT This paper explores whether platform liability should be strict or negligence based. In the model, two-sided platforms get revenue from two sources: selling products or services to consumers and selling advertising (or information) to others. There are indirect network effects: higher consumer participation generates more revenue from advertising or data sales. Platforms may take […]
Catherine Sharkey, ‘The Irresistible Simplicity of Preventing Harm’
ABSTRACT In Loomis v Amazon.com, the California Court of Appeal confronts the most pressing products liability issue of our time: the extent to which an online marketplace is liable for injuries caused by defective products sold on its platform. In a trailblazing concurrence destined to enter the torts canon, Justice John Wiley highlights Amazon’s ability […]
Piotr Machnikowski, ‘The Principles of European Tort Law and Product Liability’
ABSTRACT The authors of the Principles of European Tort Law (PETL) did not intend to regulate in detail the strict liability of a manufacturer for damage caused by a defect in its product. While creating general principles of liability for damage caused otherwise than by breach of an obligation, they had no need to refer […]
Guillem Izquierdo Grau, ‘Producer Liability for Substantial Modification of Products through Repair, Refurbishment and Remanufacturing’
ABSTRACT Within the framework of the European Union’s strategy on the transition to the circular economy paradigm, the reuse of products already on the market or put into service, through repair, refurbishment and remanufacturing, is being promoted in different regulatory spheres. Both processes were already timidly appearing in European legislation. However, the irruption of goods […]