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Liability for Products Manufactured by Other Companies By JESSIE ZEIGLER AND SARAH MILLER
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2019 Supreme Court ruling in a case dealing with liability related to asbestos has been cited as introducing new liability to manufacturers for dangers posed by products later added to theirs — even when they did not create or add the new product, and when asbestos had nothing to do with the claim. Some courts have drawn draconian lines of liability in asbestos litigation, including finding manufacturers liable for injury caused by asbestos-containing products made by others. The language of these opinions is concerning beyond asbestos litigation. It’s
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been a long time since companies stopped using asbestos commercially, and the major manufacturers of asbestos-containing products have declared bankruptcy. Plaintiffs’ counsel in asbestos cases have found new theories of liability and other defendants. Among them are manufacturers of products that do not contain asbestos, but arguably could have foreseen that their products would be used with asbestos manufactured by others. In March 2019, in a maritime case, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the so-called “bare metal defense” that protected
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manufacturers from being liable for harm caused by products they did not make, sell or distribute, but were used with other manufacturers’ asbestos-containing products. The Supreme Court ruled in Air & Liquid Sys. Corp. v. DeVries that in some circumstances manufacturers have a duty to warn of the dangers of products that were later added to theirs. The Court expressly limited this rule to the maritime context, which requires “special solicitude for the welfare” of sailors, but state courts have not uniformly recognized this limitation. Significantly, the Court did BACK TO CONTENTS
