Section 3.8.5 Seely/East River/SRP v. Westinghouse

• Library: Construction Law Practice Manual 3rd Edition 2016

§ 3.8.5 Seely/East River/SRP v. Westinghouse

East River, as well as the seminal California Supreme Court decision on which it relied, Seely v. White Motor Co.,¹³ established the ELR as an absolute bar in product liability cases. In East River, the court ruled that, irrespective of the nature of the defect, the type of risk presented by the defect, or the manner in which the injury (to the product itself) arose, a manufacturer in a commercial relationship had no duty to prevent a product from injuring itself, under either a negligence or strict product liability theory.¹⁴ In S...