Torts Essay

Torts Essay – Final Exam

Issue:  Will P prevail against R for injury caused by the exploding cartridge purchased from R?

P, injured by a defective product, can base her suit on the following theories:  Negligence, Strict Products Liability, Breach of Warranty, or Intentional Tort.

Negligence:

Duty:  Does R owe a duty to P?  A duty of reasonable care is owed to all foreseeable plaintiffs.  P purchased the printer cartridge from R.  P did not know which cartridge to purchase for her printer, so she asked R, who regularly dealt with products for printing, for a recommendation.   In this situation, even though R made the recommendation, R has no duty to inspect the goods.  

Breach:  Did R breach its duty to P?  Since R had no duty to inspect the product prior to selling the product to P, there was no breach of duty.

Actual Cause:  Was R the actual cause of P’s injury?  In this case, R had no knowledge of the defective product, and but for selling the product to P, P would not have been injured.

Proximate Cause:  Was R the proximate cause of P’s injury?  It is foreseeable that R could sell a defective  product even though R did not know the product was defective at the time it was sold.

It is unlikely that P will prevail in a cause of action based on negligence.

Strict Products Liability:

One who makes or distributes or sells a defective product is strictly liable in tort for damages it causes to a foreseeable user.  To prove a claim for strict products liability, P must show proper parties, defective product, causation, damages and absence of defenses.

Proper Parties:  A foreseeable user of a product may recover from parties engaged in the manufacture, distribution or retailing of a defective product.   The plaintiff, P, is proper here because R, being the retailer, sold a defective product to P.

Defective Product:   There are three different ways to prove a defect:  1. Manufacturing; 2. Design defect, and 3. Failure to warn.   In this case, R is the non-manufacturer of this product and therefore would not be involved in the manufacturing, designing or failure to warn of the defective product.  In this case  however, P can still recover from R even though R merely sold the product and behaved completely carefully.

For P to prove her case she must prove that the item was made or sold by R; that the product was defective; that the defect caused her injuries; and the defect existed when the product left the defendant’s hands.

P purchased the product from R, and therefore can prove R sold her the defective product.  After inserting the cartridge and using it for a few days of relentless use, P heard a noise and opened the printer to find out the problem, and in doing so, exposed the printer to light while tapping on the cartridge.  Doing both of these actions cause the cartridge to explode injuring P. There was a defect with the cartridge for it to explode.  Even though P read through instructions when initially installing the cartridge, there were additional instructions from the manufacturer which stated that “under no circumstances should the printer be used for more than one hour of continuous printing without a half-hour break and exposing cartridge to light, after installation, and dropping cartridge might cause it to explode”, should not relieve R under strict liability because R is in the business of selling this product.   R was not aware of any further instructions other than regarding use.