Class 9

            For some time, plaintiffs injured by defective products had limited recourse. Often, courts would recognize claims only if a customer had a direct contractual relationship with a manufacturer. Of course, most consumers purchased goods from retailers and could not clear this hurdle. Over time, courts began following an approach laid out in Judge Traynor’s concurrence in Escola v. Coca Cola Bottling (1944), recognizing broader causes of action against those who manufacture, design, or sell products. Traynor reasoned that product manufacturers would be more easily able to prevent injury because of their superior access to their products and to information about them. Manufacturers could also more easily pay for losses by passing them along to customers. Seriously injured plaintiffs could not spread costs in the same way. Finally, Traynor argued that product makers were markedly different than other defendants in terms of their capacity to do harm and the inability of consumers to protect themselves against injury.

            In the years since Escola, products liability jurisprudence has grown exponentially. These claims apply only against certain defendants—product manufacturers, professional sellers, suppliers, wholesalers, professional lessors, and others in the official supply chain. We will primarily study design defect and inadequate warning claims.

            Design defects involve problems with the very blueprint for a product. Design defects can be expensive to correct, and so the stakes of these claims are high. How should we evaluate a design? Are some products so useless that their existence is defective? How should consumer behavior factor into the equation? If a product is openly dangerous, can a warning make a design less objectionable?

            Consider these questions in reading the following cases, and evaluate the extent to which contemporary law reflects the vision that Traynor laid out.