Product Liability

In this age of endless lawsuits and litigation from everyone suing everyone else, one must ask the question "where does product liability end and consumer responsibility begin?" This question has been further complicated by occurrences that stretch to the most far-reaching ends of this spectrum, the spectrum ranging from strict product liability of the company to complete consumer responsibility. On the strict product liability of the company side, we have the cigarette industry where the CEOs of the largest cigarette companies denied that their product was liable for the cause of addiction. Almost all consumers know that the ingredient nicotine in cigarettes is addictive, due to extensive scientific testing and reports on this fact. What these CEO 's should have done was admit that they knew nicotine was addictive, and therefore made their product liable so as to give a fair warning to unknowing consumers. On the complete consumer responsibility side, we can examine the lawsuit where a man sued McDonald 's for over a million dollars because he spilled a cup of their coffee on his self and suffered burns. He claimed that McDonald 's was liable because there was not a warning on the lid that stated that the coffee was hot. In my opinion, this lawsuit should have never happened. The consumer is attempting to alleviate all of the responsibility from himself for spilling his coffee and pass it on to the producer of the product. Frivolous lawsuits such as this, as well as companies failing to consider the importance of product liability, have resulted in an increasing annual product liability bill. Last year alone $4 billion was spent on product liability lawsuits and settlements (McAdams, p.636). This staggering number suggests that maybe we need to reform our liability system. Ideally, we as a society would like to reach a happy medium between strict product liability of the company and complete consumer responsibility. If this occurred, lawsuits such as

Cited: Anonymous, Industrial Distribution, New York, April 2000, Volume 89, issue 4, p.36. Brostoff, Steven, National Underwriter, Chicago, September 2000, volume 104, issue 38, p.2 Eckert, Stephen, Marketing News, Chicago, April 2000, Volume 34, issue 9, p. 49. Giliberti, Frank, Marketing Management, Chicago, Winter 1999, Volume 8, issue 4, pp. 53-54. Lamnetti, David, The Business Lawyer, Chicago, February 2000, Volume 55, issue 2, p. 799. McAdams, Tony, Law, Business, and Society, Irwin/McGraw-Hill, New York, 2001, Sixth Edition, p. 636.