Chapter 2 - § 2.1 • BRIEF HISTORY OF COLORADO'S PRODUCT LIABILITY LAW

• Jurisdiction: Colorado

§ 2.1 • BRIEF HISTORY OF COLORADO'S PRODUCT LIABILITY LAW

A brief review of the history of Colorado's product liability law is warranted at the outset to help frame the various statutory items addressed in § 2.2, as well as subsequent portions of the book. Nevertheless, the following review of the historical developments is rather brief. To the extent that the historical developments of particular statutes, claims, and defenses impact current law, that history is addressed in the chapters specific to those topics.

Early Colorado law provided limited claims and remedies for those injured by defective products. Until the 1960s and 1970s, breach of warranty and negligence were the primary, if not sole, causes of action for product liability claims, and the viability of these two claims was often quite limited.¹

Breach of warranty claims prior to 1965 required privity, i.e., a direct contractual relationship between the injured plaintiff and the defendant providing the warranty.² Colorado adopted the Uniform Commercial Code in 1965, which, with subsequent modifications, governs Colorado law on product liability breach of warranty claims.³ Among other things, the Uniform Commercial Code eliminated the privity requirement, thus permitting plaintiffs to assert breach of warranty claims under many more circumstances.⁴

In the same year, 1965, the American Law Institute set forth a cause of action for strict liability for product defect, found at § 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts.⁵ This provided a much more liberal theory of recovery for plaintiffs in product liability actions than the Colorado law that existed at the time.⁶ The Colorado Court of Appeals adopted the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A in 1973 in Bradford v. Bendix-Westinghouse Automotive Air Brake Co.⁷ The Colorado Supreme Court formally adopted this provision of the Restatement (Second) of Torts in 1975 in Hiigel v. General Motors Corp.⁸

Colorado's General Assembly responded to these decisions almost immediately by passing a statute on product liability actions in 1977, set forth at C.R.S. §§ 13-21-401, et seq., discussed in § 2.2.1.⁹ This statute governs all product liability actions, regardless of the legal theories under which the actions are brought.¹⁰ The legislature has amended the product liability statute several times since its original inception.

In 1982, the Colorado Supreme Court adopted § 402B of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, which provides for a cause of action for...