Winterbottom v. Wright, 10 M. & W. 109, 152 Eng.Rep 402 (Ex.1842).
Wright was a manufacturer and repairer of stagecoaches. The Postmaster General contracted with Wright to keep the stagecoach in good repair. The plaintiff, Winterbottom, contracted with the Postmaster General to drive the coach. While driving, the coach collapsed, injuring Winterbottom. The court claimed that no action could be maintained by Winterbottom against Wright, who was a "remote" seller. The court reasoned, even in a negligence case, that Winterbottom would be unsuccessful as no privity existed between him and Wright as the two were not in a contract.
Thomas v. Winchester (6 N.Y. 397) [1852].
Winchester was a manufactured plant extracts used for medicinal purposes. Winchester sold a bottle labeled as dandelion extract to Aspinwall, a druggist. Aspinwall sold the bottle to Dr. Foord. Dr. Foord provided the bottle to his patient, Mary Ann Thomas. Contrary to its labeling, the bottle did not contain dandelion extract. Instead, it contained belladonna, a poison. The extract was administered to Thomas, and she became deathly ill. This case created the "imminent danger to human life" doctrine, which allowed Thomas to sue Winchester, despite no privity existing between the two parties.
Huset v. J.I. Case Threshing Mach. Co., 120 Fed. 865 (8th Cir. 1903).
At the turn of the century, certain courts started to implement exceptions to the privity rule. In this case, the plaintiff was injured by a threshing rig manufactured by the defendant. In determining whether the plaintiff cold recover, the court listed three exceptions to the privity rule: (1) an act of negligence of a manufacturer or vendor which is imminently dangerous to the life or health of mankind [in preparing] an article intended to preserve, destroy, or affect human life"; (2) "an owner’s act of negligence which causes injury to one who is invited by him to use his defective appliance upon the owner’s premises"; and (3) the selling or delivering of "an article which he knows to be imminently dangerous to life or limb to another without notice of its qualities."
MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co., 111 N.E. 1050 (N.Y. 1916).
This case is said to have destroyed the "privity obstacle" as well as marking the starting point for modern products liability law. In 1910, Donald MacPherson purchased a Buick automobile from Close Brothers. In 1911, MacPherson was injured when his automobile's wheel detached from the vehicle when he was driving his sick neighbor to the hospital. In writing the lead opinion, Justice Cardozo stated that, as an automobile manufacturer, Buick was responsible for the finished product because of a "duty of diligence" that existed. He also held the "imminent danger to human life" doctrine established in Thomas v. Winchester is not limited to poisons, explosives, and objects that are implements of destruction as Buick knew the danger of their product and that other consumers would use the product other than the initial buyer. After MacPherson, many courts soon followed, and by 1955, Professor Fleming James stated that the "citadel of privity has crumbled."
Roman Law
In ancient Rome, there was little protection to someone injured by a defective product, unless the seller committed fraud. Over the centuries, Roman law began to evolve. During Justinian's regime, if a seller unwittingly sold a defective product the buyer was owed the difference between the defective product and a functioning product. If the seller knowingly sold a defective product, the buyer was owed consequential losses resulting from his/her injury.
Early English Law
During the Middle Ages, there was a "moral law" regarding the sale of defective products with known, hidden defects were a fraud and a "sin." However, this rule evolved over centuries. As markets grew, a caveat emptor ("buyer beware") system would emerge. The term was first coined in the 1601 opinion of Moore v. Hussey. Moore v. Hussey, 80 Eng.Rep. 243). Under this system, no liability would be created unless there was an express warranty or fraud.
Early American Law
Most of the English law transitioned to the American colonies and remained after their independence in 1776. An early example is the 1804 case of Seixas v. Woods. Sexias v. Woods, 2 Cai. R. 48, 2 Am. Dec. 215 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1804). Here, Chancellor Kent of New York proclaimed that the doctrine of caveat emptor applied to latent defects in the sale of goods. Soon after this opinion, other American courts began to adopt the doctrine. In addition to this doctrine, there was a privity requirement as seen in cases such as Winterbottom v. Wright and Loop v. Litchfield. Winterbottom v. Wright, 10 M. & W. 109, 152 Eng.Rep 402 (Ex.1842); and Loop v. Litchfield, 42 N.Y. 351 (1870).
Modern products liability law is said to have occurred in 1916 with the decision of MacPherson v. Buick. With both caveat emptor and the concept of privity discarded, protection to consumers was more easily accessible. However, Professor David Owens states early courts treated product defect litigation as a "unitary notion" and saw no need to separate the field into separate forms of defects. When product defect litigation increased, defects were categorized in three claims:
Manufacturing Defect
Manufacturing defects occur when something occurs in the manufacturing process, either the raw materials or componets used to make a product were flawed or there was in error in assembling the componets into the final product. Usually, these defects are proved through nonconformity with industry standards, a deviation from the defendant's own design specifications, or, if the product was damaged or destroyed, a "malfunction" doctrine.
Design Defect
In design defect cases, the product may be manufactured perfectly; however, the product itself caused the plaintiff's injury. An example exhibited in Matthews v. Lawnlite Co. is a lounge chair's exposed mechanisms severed the plaintiff's finger. Matthews v. Lawnlite Company, 88 So. 2d 299 (Fla. 1956). Courts have used differing tests on determining design defects: (1) the consumer expectancy test, (2) the risk-utility test, or (3) a combination of the two.
Warning Defect
Manufacturers do have certain obligations to users when supplying instructions and warnings. However, there is risk in both over-warning and under-warning, with under-warning not adequately informing the consumer and over-warning "polluting" the effectiveness of the warnings. There is a duty to disclose hidden, latent dangers; however, courts have reconsidered a warning's adequacy when it does not warn about obvious risks known to the user, such as lung cancer from cigarettes.