Product Liability

This section will give an overview of the elements of Product Liability Act and manufacturer’s responsibility to deliver only quality products. This will then be applied to the case between Bob, sister and Toyota. The Product Liability Act has got three aspects namely (GLG 1): a) Strict Liability b) Fault Based Liability In strict liability it holds that the producer is responsible for the damages resulting from his products. Faulty based liability enables the claimant to use the producer on non-contractual grounds.

In particular, it safeguards the rights of the aggrieved party through the provisions of the Civil Code without the need for a contract justification (GLG 2). In contract liability the claimant is safeguarded from malicious breach of contract especially if a contract existed between him and the producer. In this regard, the aggrieved party can pursue warranty compensation in case the producer delivers a defective, sub-standard or dangerous product (GLG 2). The Product Liability Act provides a four step system which is also very well articulated in the other laws in respect to warranty claims.

Firstly, it states that the claimant has got a right to ask for repair, maintenance or replacement of a product. However, in the event that neither repair nor replacement can take place then the claimant is entitled to a price reduction or termination of the contract with a retrospective effect (GLG 2). Up to this point it would be worth while to raise the following queries: who should be blamed in case a product is faulty or defective? Is it the manufacturer, the distributor, importer, retailer or all of them?

The Product Liability Act is very clear on this since it holds that the producer or manufacturer for that matter is liable for any cases of low quality products (GLG 2). This study concurs with this position from a philosophical point of view and as per the principle of causality. It can be argued and justifiably so that the manufacture serves as the principal cause of the product, for instance, assembling, legal documentation and choice of materials just to mention a few. As can be seen, the other middlemen just take part in an already finished good (GLG 3).

The Act also states that the aggrieved party has the sole responsibility to prove damages and defects. Additionally, the aggrieved party should prove any breach of contract (GLG 4). This study cannot fail to mention negligence which happens to present the most important problems in the tort field. This is particularly the case since the problems in negligence not infrequently revolve significantly around establishing some duty owed by the defendant to the plaintiff (Street 3).

Here the liability for negligence is created due to the intentional tort of willful omission (Street 5). There is that category of torts which are unintentional and which are also not the result of any lack of reasonable care. They are those whose liability is imposed because certain types of accidents happen irrespective of whether anyone was of fault (Raz 9). The policy of the law in these cases is that the injured plaintiff must be given redress even though there is nothing legally or morally wrong in what the defendant was doing or how he did it (Raz 12).

Source: law aspect