Under the Product Liability Act, liability shall be accepted for any death, bodily injury, damage to health or material damage caused by the defective product. However, damage to an item used for corporate, business, commercial or professional purposes, cannot be compensated under the Product Liability Act.
Types of product defect:
The “defect” is the key term in the Product Liability Act, as the product defect is the starting point for liability.
§ 3 of the Product Liability Act defines a defect as follows:
“A product is defective when it does not provide the safety which a person is entitled to expect, taking all circumstances into account, including:
It should be noted that nobody can expect one hundred per cent safety. In practical terms it’s important to distinguish between the absolute and relative hazard from a product: Each and every product carries a certain technical hazard potential, depending on its use in a specific case. Ultimately the deciding factor is how dangerous the product is – relatively speaking – compared with other products available on the market.
In other words, absolute safety does not have to be guaranteed. The thinking behind this is that unreasonable costs ought not be imposed on a producer in terms of production. Consequently he is not forced to implement every possible precaution that is technically feasible. The safety standard with which he needs to comply is limited to what is possible and reasonable. A producer must take all due diligence measures that cost less than the total amount of damages avoided by implementing them. As a result, the producer must carefully strike a balance between the threatened damage and the required safety measures.
Example: In the case of a dishwasher, where escaping water could ruin the whole kitchen, it is reasonable to install protection against rust perforation – which is technically feasible and manageable in terms of outlay – even in the face of heavy competition from the market.
The price of the product certainly plays a role in the legitimate safety expectation: The same basic degree of safety may be expected from a cheap product, but not the same overall degree of safety that would be expected from an expensive, highly developed product.
Types of product defect:
The “defect” is the key term in the Product Liability Act, as the product defect is the starting point for liability.
§ 3 of the Product Liability Act defines a defect as follows:
“A product is defective when it does not provide the safety which a person is entitled to expect, taking all circumstances into account, including:
- the presentation of the product,
- the use to which it could reasonably be expected that the product would be put,
- the time when the product was put into
circulation.”
It should be noted that nobody can expect one hundred per cent safety. In practical terms it’s important to distinguish between the absolute and relative hazard from a product: Each and every product carries a certain technical hazard potential, depending on its use in a specific case. Ultimately the deciding factor is how dangerous the product is – relatively speaking – compared with other products available on the market.
In other words, absolute safety does not have to be guaranteed. The thinking behind this is that unreasonable costs ought not be imposed on a producer in terms of production. Consequently he is not forced to implement every possible precaution that is technically feasible. The safety standard with which he needs to comply is limited to what is possible and reasonable. A producer must take all due diligence measures that cost less than the total amount of damages avoided by implementing them. As a result, the producer must carefully strike a balance between the threatened damage and the required safety measures.
Example: In the case of a dishwasher, where escaping water could ruin the whole kitchen, it is reasonable to install protection against rust perforation – which is technically feasible and manageable in terms of outlay – even in the face of heavy competition from the market.
The price of the product certainly plays a role in the legitimate safety expectation: The same basic degree of safety may be expected from a cheap product, but not the same overall degree of safety that would be expected from an expensive, highly developed product.
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