Pursuing Legitimate Claims by Honest People Injured by Defective Products and Irresponsible Insurers

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Summary of Colorado Products Liability Law

Personal Injury, Wrongful Death or Property Damage by Defective Products

In general, there are three classes of products liability cases which involve personal injury, death or property damage: design defect cases, manufacturing defect cases, and inadequate warning or instructions cases.

The products liability case has been defined as a "kind of civil lawsuit against the maker of a product, which claims that a person or group of people were injured or damaged by a product that was defective or not suitable for the use it was advertised for. Products liability lawsuits are often class actions." {source}

Colorado case law bases products liability in the public policy which requires manufacturers to protect the consuming public against products that present unreasonable dangers. People need more protection from dangerous products than is afforded by the law of warranty. The typical products liability case is one where a product is reasonably certain to put life or limb in peril and is distributed without care, and causes bodily injury. The manufacturer of the product is liable whether or not it is negligent because “public policy demands that responsibility be fixed wherever it will most effectively reduce the hazards to life and health inherent in defective products that reach the market.” Carter v. Brighton Ford, Inc. (Colo. App. 2010).

Strict products liability is a “term of art and is intended to reflect the idea that products liability is a discrete domain of tort law, borrowing from both negligence and warranty law. However, it is not fully congruent with traditional tort or to contract law. Strict products laibility does not rest on negligence principles alone; rather, it “is premised on the concept of enterprise liability for casting a defective product into the stream of commerce.” In strict products liability cases, "the focus is on the nature of the product rather than the conduct of either the manufacturer or the person injured."

So, the law of "strict products liability evolved to accommodate, and is driven by, public policy considerations surrounding the relationship between manufacturers and consumers in general, rather than any particular transaction or contract for sale. In addition to the typical inaccessibility of information and inequality of bargaining power inherent in any disclaimer or ordinary consumer's agreement to release a manufacturer, a claim for strict products liability is also premised on a number of public policy considerations that would be flatly thwarted by legitimizing such disclaimers or exculpatory agreements. Not least among these is the deliberate provision of economic incentives for manufacturers to improve product safety and take advantage of their unique “position to spread the risk of loss among all who use the product.” Boles v. Sun Ergoline, Inc., 223 P.3d 724, 726-27 (Colo. 2010).

"A failure to warn adequately can render a product, which is otherwise free of defect, defective for purposes of strict liability recovery. Barton v. Adams Rental, Inc., 938 P.2d 532, 539 (Colo.1997); Hiigel v. General Motors Corp., 190 Colo. 57, 63, 544 P.2d 983, 987 (1975); see Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A cmt. j (1965) (“In order to prevent the product from being unreasonably dangerous, the seller may be required to give directions or warning, on the container, as to its use.”). The plaintiff has the burden of proving that the manufacturer gave an inadequate warning of the danger that caused the injury. Peterson v. Parke Davis & Co., 705 P.2d 1001, 1004 (Colo.App.1985)." O'Connell v. Biomet, Inc., 09CA0224, 2010 WL 963234 (Colo. App. 2010).