Product Liability Essay -- essays research papers fc

In this age of endless lawsuits and litigation from everyone suing everyone else, one essential ask the question where does overlap obligation end and consumer responsibility find? This question has been further complicated by occurrences that stretch to the most far-reaching ends of this spectrum, the spectrum ranging from rigorous result liability of the bon ton to complete consumer responsibility. On the stern product liability of the company side, we have the cigarette industry where the CEOs of the largest cigarette companies denied that their product was nonresistant for the cause of addiction. Almost either consumers know that the ingredient nicotine in cigarettes is addictive, due to extensive scientific testing and reports on this fact. What these CEOs should have done was admit that they knew nicotine was addictive, and therefore made their product apt so as to give a fair warning to uninformed consumers. On the complete consumer responsibility side, we can exam ine the lawsuit where a man sued McDonalds for over a million dollars because he spilled a cup of their coffee on his self and suffered burns. He claimed that McDonalds was liable because there was not a warning on the lid that state that the coffee was hot. In my opinion, this lawsuit should have never happened. The consumer is attempting to alleviate all of the responsibility from himself for spilling his coffee and pass it on to the producer of the product. Frivolous lawsuits such(prenominal) as this, as well as companies failing to consider the sizeableness of product liability, have resulted in an increasing annual product liability bill. Last year alone $4 billion was spent on product liability lawsuits and settlements (McAdams, p.636). This staggering number suggests that maybe we need to square away our liability system. Ideally, we as a society would like to reach a happy medium between strict product liability of the company and complete consumer responsibility. If this occurred, lawsuits such as this would no longer drain our wakeless systems because an understanding would exist that the responsibility rests equally in both parties hands. However, that is an perfect situation, which rarely ever occurs in the real world. In the real world, tradeoffs mustiness be made in order to reach equilibrium. These tradeoffs between strict product liability and consumer responsibility will be discussed in twinkle of the situati... ...g to act, but just a little common sense should spot you that releasing a movie with the content such as Boyz N the Hood and only focusing on its negative themes will saddle the wrong message, especially in metro areas where crimes and gangs are prevalent.In an paragon world, consumers and companies would equally share the burdens of product liability and consumer responsibility. However, in the real world, we must make tradeoffs between these two. How we do this will not only come upon our legal environment, but our ec onomic and social environments as well. Works CitedAnonymous, industrial Distribution, New York, April 2000, Volume 89, expose 4, p.36.Brostoff, Steven, National Underwriter, Chicago, September 2000, volume 104, subject field 38, p.2Eckert, Stephen, Marketing News, Chicago, April 2000, Volume 34, issue 9, p. 49.Giliberti, Frank, Marketing Management, Chicago, Winter 1999, Volume 8, issue 4, pp. 53-54.Lamnetti, David, The Business Lawyer, Chicago, February 2000, Volume 55, issue 2, p. 799.McAdams, Tony, Law, Business, and Society, Irwin/McGraw-Hill, New York, 2001, Sixth Edition, p. 636.