Defense Case Law

Front 1

Vitan v. Goddard

Back 1

In deciding if a product is reasonably safe, a defendant should be held liable only for forseeable risks, which entails consideration of both the product's intended users and its intended use. A defendant cannot be held responsible if a small child attempts to use a kitchen knife to pry the lid off a jar because the child is not the intended user of the knife and knives are not intended to be used in that manner.

Front 2

Renden v. Munson

Back 2

The question in a strict liability action involves an objective assessment of the safety of the product as actually produced and sold, rather than the defendant's carefulness or subjective intent. Thus, one sued on a strict liability theory many not escape liability simply by showing that she was not negligent or lacked intent to cause harm.

Front 3

Hunter v. Ma-Ma

Back 3

In a strict product liability case, a plaintiff may not rely on the defendant's failure to comply with a statues as a basis for proving that the product was defective under Midlands Civil Code 662.

Front 4

Sheridan v. IPX, Inc.

Back 4

"Excuse" is an affirmative defense to a negligence per se claim. A defendant's violation of a statute is excused and thus does not constitute negligence per se under Midlands Civil Code 319 if the defendant demonstrates that (a) it neither knew nor should have known of the factual circumstances that rendered the statute applicable, or (b) the defendant's violation of the statute was due to the confusing way in which the requirements of the statute were presented to the public. Ignorance of the law, however is not itself a defense to a negligence per se claim.

Front 5

Hamilton v. Dr. Fu's Home Gym Co.

Back 5

The focus in a negligence per se action is narrowly confined to whether the defendant violated a duty imposed by statute or regulation and whether that violation was the direct and proximate cause of the sort of harm that the statute or regulation was designed to protect against.

Front 6

Yanka v. Edwards Industries

Back 6

Causation has two components: cause in fact (or direct cause) and proximate cause. To show cause in fact, the plaintiff must establish either that she would not have been harmed "but-for" the defendant's conduct or that the defendant's conduct was a substantial factor in bringing the harm about. Proximate cause requires showing that the particular harm suffered by the plaintiff was both a forseeable result of the defendant's wrongful or unlawful conduct and is of a type that could reasonably have been anticipated. In performing this analysis, the factfinder must first identify the particular risks that made the defendant's actions culpable and then determine whether injury suffered is among those risks.

Front 7

Flounder v. Minnesota Refining, Handing, and Metal Manufacturing

Back 7

Unlike some other jurisdictions, Midlands law expressly recognizes and permits a defendant to raise an affirmative defense of comparative fault in both strict liability and negligence per se actions. Moreover, our decisions in Hamilton v. Dr. Fu's Home Gym Co. (1999) and Renden v. Munson (1996) are not intended to exclude evidence offered to prove or rebut affirmative defenses, including comparative fault.

Front 8

Kramer v. Puro

Back 8

Plaintiffs (as well as caregivers, parents, guardians, and others who owe duties of care to the plaintiff, as well as agents of such persons) have a duty to exercise due care with respect to their own safety (or the safety of the person to whom they owe a duty). Midlands has abandoned a "pure" contributory negligence regime (in which any negligence by the plaintiff precluded liability on either a negligence, negligence per se, or a strict liability theory) in favor of a "modified" comparative fault regime in which the responsibility of all relevant parties is considered. If the defendant establishes that the plaintiff or an agent of the plaintiff bears some responsibility for the plaintiff's injury, the question then becomes the degree of relative culpability. If the defendant establishes that the combined responsibility of the plaintiff and the plaintiff's agents equals or exceeds that of the defendant, the defendant is not liable.