Grass Green Company makes and sells hedge trimmers, which are designed to be safe if used properly. Hazel buys a Grass Green trimmer and lends it to her neighbor Izak. In his garage, Izak is using the trimmer as a prod to dislodge a box from a high

Question

shelf when the trimmer suddenly engages. Startled, Izak drops the trimmer, which swings around and cuts his leg. Izak files a product liability suit against Grass Green, on the ground of negligence. On what basis could the manufacturer prevail?

Answer 1

A manufacturer or seller can prevail in a product liability suit based on negligence if the manufacturer designed its product to be safe for proper uses, even if the product was not designed to be safe for un-foreseeable, improper uses, such as the use in this question.
A manu-fac-turer is negligent if it breaches the duty to exercise reasonable care in the design or manufacture of its product, or warnings about the prod-uct, and this breach causes injuries. In other words, liability may be found if a product is unsafe because of negligence in its manufacture, as-sembly, testing, or inspection. Even if all reasonable care is taken, the manufac-turer may be liable if the design of the product makes it unrea-sonably dangerous for the uses for which the product is made. A manu-facturer must also be liable for failing to include a warning if the manufacturer knows the product is dangerous when used as intended or as could reasonably be foreseen, and users are not likely to be aware of the danger.

But a manufac-turer has no li-ability, when its product is reasonably safe for proper uses and foreseeable, improper uses, and is used in an unforesee-able, improper way.