Summary of argument.

PositionIADC Amicus Briefs

The Court has posed a simple question. Should the Court replace the strict liability analysis of [section]402A with the analysis of the Third Restatement? The question requires a simple answer. Of course it should.

The alternative is to leave in place an approach that has been called "confusing," "unfathomable," and "simply not well reasoned." It is all of those things and more. As currently applied, Pennsylvania law represents a departure from generally accepted principles of strict liability, relying on poorly instructed juries to solve the safe product puzzle without engaging in the risk/utility balancing at the heart of every design defect claim. No court should favor that alternative over even the slightest improvement.

The Third Restatement offers far more than the slightest improvement. Its reasoned approach recognizes that product design involves choices, tradeoffs between risk and utility, properly evaluated only by resort to negligence terminology. A product design should give rise to liability not when it fails to meet some undefined level of safety. A product design should give rise to...

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