FYLSX Strict and Products Liability 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A restaurant serves a cherry pie and a customer breaks a tooth on a cherry pit. Under the foreign-natural test for strict products liability in food cases, the restaurant is:
- Strictly liable because the pit caused injury
- Not strictly liable because cherry pits are natural to cherries (Correct answer)
- Strictly liable because consumers do not expect pits in prepared pie
- Not strictly liable only if the pit was disclosed on the menu
Correct answer: Not strictly liable because cherry pits are natural to cherries
Under the foreign-natural test, a seller is not strictly liable for natural components of food (like cherry pits in cherry pie) because they are not 'foreign' to the product.
Question 2: A plaintiff claims a pharmaceutical company failed to update drug warnings after post-market studies revealed new risks. This is best described as a:
- Manufacturing defect claim
- Post-sale duty to warn claim (Correct answer)
- Design defect claim based on the risk-utility test
- Breach of implied warranty of merchantability
Correct answer: Post-sale duty to warn claim
A post-sale duty to warn claim arises when a manufacturer learns of new dangers after the product is sold and fails to notify users or update warnings.
Question 3: A plaintiff sues under strict liability after being harmed by a component part installed in a finished product. The component manufacturer argues it supplied the part to the specifications of the assembler. Under the raw material/component parts doctrine, the component manufacturer is most likely:
- Strictly liable because its part caused the injury
- Not strictly liable if the component was not defective itself and defect arose from the assembler's design (Correct answer)
- Strictly liable only if it knew the assembler's design was dangerous
- Not strictly liable because it was not in privity with the plaintiff
Correct answer: Not strictly liable if the component was not defective itself and defect arose from the assembler's design
A component part manufacturer is not strictly liable when the component itself was not defective and the defect resulted from the assembler's design or specifications.
Question 4: A gun manufacturer sells a firearm that works exactly as designed but is used by a criminal to injure someone. The victim sues the manufacturer under strict products liability. The court will most likely:
- Hold the manufacturer strictly liable for placing a dangerous product in commerce
- Dismiss because the product performed as intended and the harm was caused by criminal misuse (Correct answer)
- Hold the manufacturer liable for failure to design safer technology
- Hold the manufacturer liable under abnormally dangerous activity doctrine
Correct answer: Dismiss because the product performed as intended and the harm was caused by criminal misuse
Strict products liability requires a product defect — a gun that functions as designed is not defective, and criminal misuse is an intervening cause that breaks the chain of liability.
Question 5: Under the risk-utility test for design defect, which factor does NOT weigh in the analysis?
- The probability that the product will cause harm
- The availability of a safer alternative design
- The manufacturer's subjective belief about the product's safety (Correct answer)
- The social utility of the product
Correct answer: The manufacturer's subjective belief about the product's safety
The risk-utility test uses an objective balancing of factors; the manufacturer's subjective belief about safety is irrelevant to the analysis.
Question 6: A plaintiff is injured by an exploding fire extinguisher. She cannot explain why it exploded. She invokes res ipsa loquitur. To use this doctrine in a strict products liability case, the plaintiff must show:
- The explosion is the kind of accident that ordinarily does not occur without negligence
- The product was in the exclusive control of the manufacturer at the time of injury
- The plaintiff did not misuse the product and the injury is the type caused by manufacturing defects (Correct answer)
- The defendant had superior knowledge of the product's dangerous condition
Correct answer: The plaintiff did not misuse the product and the injury is the type caused by manufacturing defects
In strict products liability, a res ipsa-type inference arises when the plaintiff shows the injury resulted from the kind of malfunction manufacturing defects cause and eliminates her own misuse.
Question 7: A strict liability claim for abnormally dangerous activity requires that the harm result from the:
- Negligent execution of the activity
- Specific risk that made the activity abnormally dangerous (Correct answer)
- Intentional conduct of the defendant
- Foreseeable use of a product in commerce
Correct answer: Specific risk that made the activity abnormally dangerous
Strict liability for abnormally dangerous activities only covers harms that result from the specific risk that rendered the activity abnormally dangerous — not other incidental harms.
FYLSX Strict and Products Liability 4
A restaurant serves a cherry pie and a customer breaks a tooth on a cherry pit.
Under the foreign-natural test for strict products liability in food cases, the restaurant is: