Products liability Bar Exam Flashcards - Medical Study Cards
Master Products liability with Oncourse flashcards. These spaced repetition flashcards are designed for medical students preparing for NEET PG, USMLE Step 1, USMLE Step 2, MBBS exams, and other medical licensing examinations.
Products liability Flashcard Deck - 10 Cards
Flashcard 1: Who may be held liable in the commercial chain of distribution for a defective product?
Answer: Strict liability may apply to commercial manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, and retailers who regularly sell or distribute the product, provided the product was defective when it left the relevant defendant. An occasional seller or noncommercial transferor ordinarily is not strictly liable.
Flashcard 2: How does a plaintiff prove a manufacturing defect?
Answer: The plaintiff must show that the particular product deviated from the manufacturer’s specifications or intended design and that the deviation caused the injury. The plaintiff need not prove that the manufacturer was negligent in creating the deviation under strict liability.
Flashcard 3: What must a plaintiff generally prove in a strict products-liability claim under the majority/Restatement approach?
Answer: The plaintiff must prove that the defendant is a commercial seller, the product was defective when it left the defendant’s control, the product reached the plaintiff without substantial change, and the defect actually and proximately caused injury while the product was being used in a reasonably foreseeable manner.
Flashcard 4: When may a manufacturer satisfy its duty to warn by warning an intermediary rather than the ultimate user?
Answer: Under the learned-intermediary doctrine, a manufacturer generally may discharge its warning duty by adequately warning a prescribing physician or other knowledgeable intermediary when that intermediary can make an informed decision for the user. The doctrine is most commonly applied to prescription drugs and medical products, and jurisdictions may limit it.
Flashcard 5: What defenses commonly apply to products-liability claims?
Answer: Comparative fault generally reduces recovery for the plaintiff’s negligent use, failure to follow warnings, or other contributory conduct, although jurisdictions differ on whether it applies to strict liability; express assumption of risk and unforeseeable misuse may bar or defeat recovery. A plaintiff’s ordinary awareness of a product’s danger usually is not, by itself, a complete defense to a manufacturing or design defect.
Flashcard 6: What is the effect of substantial alteration, foreseeable misuse, and unforeseeable misuse on products-liability claims?
Answer: A substantial unforeseeable alteration that causes the injury generally breaks the causal chain, while foreseeable alterations or misuse do not automatically defeat liability. A plaintiff’s foreseeable misuse may support liability, but unforeseeable misuse commonly defeats the claim because the resulting risk was not reasonably foreseeable.
Flashcard 7: What must a plaintiff prove for a failure-to-warn defect?
Answer: The plaintiff must show that the product had a foreseeable risk, the warning was inadequate or absent, the inadequacy made the product not reasonably safe, and the failure to warn caused the injury. The warning must generally be provided to foreseeable users or intermediaries.
Flashcard 8: Who may sue for a defective product, and must the plaintiff be in privity with the defendant?
Answer: Under modern majority rules, any foreseeable user or consumer—and often foreseeable bystanders—may recover for personal injury caused by the defect without contractual privity. Recovery for purely economic loss is generally governed by contract law rather than tort law.
Flashcard 9: What are the two principal tests for a design defect, and which is the majority approach?
Answer: The majority/Restatement approach uses a risk-utility test, generally requiring a reasonable alternative safer design whose omission made the product not reasonably safe. Some jurisdictions use the consumer-expectations test, asking whether the product was more dangerous than an ordinary consumer would expect.
Flashcard 10: What is the difference between a manufacturing defect and a design defect?
Answer: A manufacturing defect occurs when a product departs from its intended design, making that particular unit unsafe. A design defect exists when the product is manufactured as intended but the product line is unreasonably dangerous.
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