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- Title
REBOOTING PENNSYLVANIA PRODUCT LIABILITY LAW: TINCHER V. OMEGA FLEX AND THE END OF AZZARELLO SUPER-STRICT LIABILITY.
- Authors
Beck, James M.
- Abstract
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania's Tincher v. Omega Flex, Inc. decision in late 2014 overturned more than 35 years of Pennsylvania product liability precedent. Before Tincher, the unusually strict form of strict liability imposed by Azzarello v. Black Brothers Co had produced a long string of restrictive rulings narrowing not only the arguments that product liability defendants could present on their behalf, but also the evidence admissible against plaintiffs seeking to recover in strict liability. Commentators have described the Azzarello strict liability regime as "super-strict liability.". Tincher was a capstone to rising judicial criticism of Azzarello that began some ten years earlier, when three justices concurred in Phillips v. Cricket Lighters,* advocating that the Azzarello strict liability standard should be scrapped and replaced by the Restatement (Third) of Torts. The Court ultimately did not make the wholesale change in the nature of Pennsylvania product that the Phillips II concurrence advocated. Tincher did, however, end the attempt at absolute separation of strict liability from "negligence concepts" that had been the foundation for most, if not all, of the peculiarities of Pennsylvania strict liability doctrine under Azzarello. This article traces the pre-Tincher development of Pennsylvania product liability law, reviews the Tincher decision, and seeks to extrapolate how a faithful application of post-Tincher product liability principles under the Second Restatement of Torts could bring about a fairer and more rational application of strict liability in the Commonwealth.
- Subjects
PENNSYLVANIA; PRODUCT liability; STRICT liability; OMEGA Flex Inc.; FORD Motor Co.; PENNSYLVANIA Bar Institute; ACTIONS &; defenses (Law)
- Publication
Widener Law Journal, 2017, Vol 26, Issue 2, p91
- ISSN
1548-4076
- Publication type
Article