Strict versus Negligence Software Product Liability

Strict versus Negligence Software Product Liability

The law of products liability in tort is designed to maintain a reasonable balance between the inevitable social costs and the benefits of innovative product technologies. Technological development must be supported not only for the best interests of the public but also the side effect namely product defect into one of the following: (1) manufacturing defect; failures to correctly implement saf...

Strict Liability versus Negligence in Indiana Harbor

In January of 1979, a railroad tank car containing the chemical acrylonitrile started leaking at a rail yard in south suburban Chicago. The chemical was manufactured by American Cyanamid Co (Cyanamid) in Louisiana. Cyanamid had leased the tank car, filled it with acrylonitrile, and delivered it to the Missouri Pacific Railroad for transport to the Chicago suburbs. The leak occurred while the ca...

The expansion of liability for medical accidents: from negligence to strict liability by way of informed consent.

New Differences between Negligence and Strict Liability and Their Implications on Medical Malpractice Reform

This Article seeks to explore previously unexamined differences between the negligence and strict liability rules and thereby examine whether medical liability reform is required. The main thesis is that negligence as a basis for liability entails a unique mechanism, which is essentially different than the strict liability mechanism, and is more efficient for several reasons related to the lega...

Switching consumers and product liability: on the optimality of incomplete strict liability

This paper shows that it may be socially optimal to grant accident victims less than full compensation. In our framework, firms are liable under product liability but also invest in care to prevent consumers switching to competitors. Affecting the partition of consumers by means of care-taking is not desirable from a social standpoint. Consequently, it may be optimal to reduce liability below f...