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Full-Text Articles in Consumer Protection Law
Product-Related Risk And Cognitive Biases: The Shortcomings Of Enterprise Liability, James A. Henderson Jr., Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
Product-Related Risk And Cognitive Biases: The Shortcomings Of Enterprise Liability, James A. Henderson Jr., Jeffrey J. Rachlinski
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Products liability law has witnessed a long debate over whether manufacturers should be held strictly liable for the injuries that products cause. Recently, some have argued that psychological research on human judgment supports adopting a regime of strict enterprise liability for injuries caused by product design. These new proponents of enterprise liability argue that the current system, in which manufacturer liability for product design turns on the manufacturer's negligence, allows manufacturers to induce consumers into undertaking inefficiently dangerous levels or types of consumption. In this paper we argue that the new proponents of enterprise liability have: (1) not provided any …
Product Liability And The Passage Of Time: The Imprisonment Of Corporate Rationality, James A. Henderson Jr.
Product Liability And The Passage Of Time: The Imprisonment Of Corporate Rationality, James A. Henderson Jr.
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
In theory, the product liability system should induce manufacturers to invest in product safety at the socially optimal level, i.e., the level at which the marginal cost of the investment equals the marginal cost of product-related accidents thereby avoided. In reality, however, this inducement may be weakened by countervailing incentives, causing manufacturers in marginal cases to forgo investment that would appear to be cost-effective. Professor Henderson argues that in these cases corporate rationality has been "imprisoned" by two "real-world" phenomena. First, a manufacturer may postpone product improvements lest they be viewed by potential claimants and juries as a confession of …
Should A "Process Defense" Be Recognized In Product Design Cases?, James A. Henderson Jr.
Should A "Process Defense" Be Recognized In Product Design Cases?, James A. Henderson Jr.
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Professor Henderson, addressing the suggestion that the focus in product design liability cases should be on the process by which design decisions are made rather than on the reasonableness of a particular design, analyzes a proposal that manufacturers be able to present evidence of good process as a defense. Although he applauds the attempt to resolve the difficulties of deciding product design cases, he questions the soundness of the process approach. Specifically, he argues that a process defense would be unworkable because judges would be unable to tell good process from bad, and that the proposal does not address polycentricity--the …
Coping With The Time Dimension In Products Liability, James A. Henderson Jr.
Coping With The Time Dimension In Products Liability, James A. Henderson Jr.
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Judicial Review Of Manufacturers' Conscious Design Choices: The Limits Of Adjudication, James A. Henderson Jr.
Judicial Review Of Manufacturers' Conscious Design Choices: The Limits Of Adjudication, James A. Henderson Jr.
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.