Product Liability

In one line

A manufacturer, a service provider and a seller may each be made to compensate a person harmed by a defective product, and the manufacturer cannot escape by proving he was not negligent.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: Chapter VI of the Consumer Protection Act 2019 applies to every claim for compensation under a product liability action for harm caused by a defective product, and section 83 allows such an action against a product manufacturer, a product service provider or a product seller.

Then, taking each in turn: section 84 makes a manufacturer liable on five grounds, and provides expressly that he is liable even if he proves he was not negligent or fraudulent in making the express warranty.

Section 85 makes a service provider liable on four grounds.

Section 86 makes a seller who is not the manufacturer liable on five grounds, and section 87 provides the exceptions.

The vocabulary

Product liability means the responsibility of a product manufacturer, seller or service provider to compensate for harm caused to a consumer by a defective product or a deficiency in services relating to it.

Product liability action is a complaint by a person before a Commission for that compensation.

Manufacturer is defined by section 2(24) as a person who makes any goods or parts of them; or assembles any goods or parts made by others; or puts, or causes to be put, his own mark on goods made by another person. The third limb is the one worth remembering: a trader who buys goods from a factory and sells them under his own brand is a manufacturer for this Act, and cannot answer a consumer by saying he only sold them.

Harm, in relation to a product liability action, covers damage to property other than the product itself, personal injury, illness or death, mental agony or emotional distress accompanying personal injury or damage to property, and loss of consortium or services, but not harm to the product itself, damage to property on account of a breach of warranty conditions, or commercial or economic loss including loss of profits.

Who may be made liable, and on what grounds

Section 84: the product manufacturer. He is liable if:

(a) the product contains a manufacturing defect;

(b) the product is defective in design;

(c) there is a deviation from manufacturing specifications;

(d) the product does not conform to the express warranty; or

(e) the product fails to contain adequate instructions of correct usage to prevent harm, or a warning about improper or incorrect usage.

And sub-section (2) is the heart of the chapter: a product manufacturer is liable even if he proves that he was not negligent or fraudulent in making the express warranty of a product. That is liability without fault, stated in a statute.