What is strict liability?

Where it applies

• Defective products. A manufacturer, distributor or retailer can be liable for a design defect, a manufacturing defect, or a failure to warn — even if the company took every reasonable precaution.
• Abnormally dangerous activities. Blasting, storing explosives, some uses of hazardous chemicals. The activity is lawful; the cost of the rare accident still falls on whoever chose to run it.
• Animals. Roughly two thirds of states apply a strict-liability dog-bite statute. The rest still use a version of the «one bite» rule, where the owner is liable once they know the animal is dangerous.

Why the rule exists

A buyer cannot inspect the inside of an airbag, and a neighbour cannot audit a quarry's safety procedures. Strict liability puts the risk on the party that created it, can spread the cost through pricing and insurance, and is best placed to make the product safer.

What still has to be proved

Strict does not mean automatic. In a product case you must show the product was defective when it left the defendant's hands, that you used it in a foreseeable way, and that the defect caused your injury. Substantial alteration of the product, or a use nobody could have predicted, remains a real defence.

Deadlines that catch people out

Two clocks run in product cases. The ordinary statute of limitations starts when you are injured or reasonably discover the injury. A statute of repose, which exists in many states, cuts off claims a fixed number of years after the product was sold — often eight to twelve — regardless of when the harm appeared.