Utah Injury Law Blog

It used to be that in Utah federal courts a plaintiff suing a product manufacturer for injuries caused by a faulty product design did not have to prove that a safer design was available at the time the defendant’s product was sold. This is no longer true. Over the last five years, several Tenth Circuit cases purporting to “interpret” Utah law now require a plaintiff to establish the availability of a safer design as part of the plaintiff’s prima facie case. There is, however, no Utah state appellate law supporting this position, and the Tenth Circuit’s position is arguably at odds with Utah Product Liability Act. My purpose here is to review these changes, put them in their historical perspective and explain why the Utah Supreme Court should reject the Tenth Circuit’s position.

At the root of the debate is the question: how “strict” should strict liability be when it comes to proving the manufacturer’s liability for an allegedly faulty product design?

Way back in ancient history, before the Contract with America and before Jazz playoff tickets cost more than a college education, strict liability was a popular legal doctrine. In the early 1980s, the Restatement 2d of Torts adopted Section 402A. That section provides that a manufacturer of a defectively designed product that causes injury is liable to the injured user, even if “the seller has exercised all possible care in the preparation and sale of the product.” This was a revolutionary change in the law. The drafters of the Reinstatement 2d reasoned that the manufacturer who profits from the sale of the product is normally in a better position than the injured victim to pay for the cost of injuries resulting from the product’s hazard, at least when the product is used in a normal and proper way. The drafters of the Restatement 2d also predicted that imposing strict liability on product manufacturers would motivate manufacturers to work harder to design better and safer products.