Product liability (Consumer Protection Act 1987)

TOR.07 — Product Liability (Consumer Protection Act 1987)

The core idea. Part I of the CPA 1987 (implementing the EC Product Liability Directive) imposes strict liability for damage caused by a defective product. The claimant need not prove negligence — only the defect, the damage, and the causal link. It sits alongside common law negligence (Donoghue v Stevenson); a claimant can plead both.

Who is liable (s.2). Liability falls on:

• the producer (manufacturer, or extractor/processor of raw materials);
• the "own-brander" who holds himself out as producer by putting his name/mark on it;
• the importer into the UK (importing into the course of business). A mere supplier/retailer is liable only if, on request, they fail within a reasonable time to identify the producer/importer or their own supplier (s.2(3)). Liability is joint and several; it cannot be excluded (s.7).

Defect (s.3). A product is defective if its safety "is not such as persons generally are entitled to expect." Objective consumer-expectation test. Relevant circumstances: marketing/packaging, instructions and warnings, and what might reasonably be expected to be done with the product. The fact a later product is safer does not by itself prove the earlier one was defective. (A v National Blood Authority [2001] — Hep-C blood; public not entitled to expect zero risk to be discounted; harmful product was "non-standard." Richardson v LRC Products; Pollard v Tesco on warning-based expectations.)

Product / Damage. "Product" = goods, components, electricity (s.1/s.45). Damage recoverable = death, personal injury, or damage to private property exceeding £275 (s.5). NOT recoverable: damage to the defective product itself (pure economic loss), and business property.

Defences (s.4) include: defect attributable to compliance with the law; not supplied; not supplied in the course of business; defect didn't exist when supplied; and the "development risks" / state-of-the-art defence — scientific/technical knowledge at the time wasn't such that a producer might be expected to discover the defect.

Common SBAQ traps

• It is strict, not absolute — defect must still be proved.
• £275 threshold applies to property damage only, not personal injury.
• Claimant need not be the buyer (no privity needed).
• Limitation: 3 years from damage/knowledge (PI long-stop in s.11A LA 1980) and a 10-year long-stop from when the producer supplied the product — the 10-year cut-off is absolute.
• Retailer ≠ automatically liable; only via the s.2(3) identification trap.

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