What You'll Learn

  • Strict liability basics 2. Animals
  • Dangerous activities 4. Product defects
  • Defenses and scope

Educational information only; not legal advice. This article is a general study aid and should be checked against current authority and course materials.

1. Identify the Strict-Liability Category

Wild animals A keeper or possessor is generally strictly liable for harm characteristic of the wild animal, regardless of precautions. Domestic animals Strict liability generally requires knowledge or reason to know of a dangerous propensity abnormal to the animal's class.

Abnormally dangerous activity The activity creates a high and serious risk that reasonable care cannot eliminate, is uncommon, and may be inappropriate to the location. Defective products A commercial seller may be liable when a product contains a manufacturing, design, or warning defect that makes it unreasonably dangerous and causes harm.

Trespassing livestock and other animal rules vary by jurisdiction. For domestic animals, the outlines emphasize prior behavior or other facts showing that the keeper knew or should have known of the particular dangerous propensity.

2. Dangerous Activities and Product Defects

For abnormally dangerous activities, weigh all of the listed factors and then ask whether the injury arose from the danger that makes the activity exceptional. For products, identify the type of defect before discussing causation or defenses.

Doctrine Core test Scope limit

Abnormally dangerous activity High risk, serious possible harm, inability to eliminate risk with care, uncommon use, location mismatch, and danger outweighing community value. Only harm within the abnormal danger is covered; an unrelated accident is not enough.

Manufacturing defect The particular product departed from its intended design or specifications when it left the seller's control. Plaintiff must connect the defect, rather than later alteration or misuse, to the injury.

Design defect The product was made as intended, but the design itself was unreasonably dangerous. Courts use jurisdiction-specific risk-utility or reasonableness approaches; the defect must cause the harm.

Warning defect The product lacked an adequate warning or instruction concerning a nonobvious risk. Plaintiff must show that an adequate warning would have changed use or prevented the injury.

Animals Wild nature or known dangerous propensity triggers the rule. Liability is limited to harm characteristic of that danger.

Key Takeaway

A product that causes injury is not automatically defective. The defect must exist when the product leaves the responsible seller, must make the product unreasonably dangerous under the governing test, and must factually and proximately cause the plaintiff's harm.

Defenses

Assumption of risk can defeat or reduce strict-liability recovery when the plaintiff knowingly and voluntarily encounters the protected danger. Comparative fault, misuse, alteration, third-party intervention, and statutory rules vary by jurisdiction.

Act of God and outside risks

An unforeseeable natural event or independent act may cut off liability when it alone causes the injury. The central inquiry remains whether the harm came from the animal, activity, or defect that justified strict liability.

3. Use a Category-and-Scope Analysis

1 Classify the claim as animal, abnormally dangerous activity, or defective product liability. 2 State every requirement for that category; do not merely announce "strict liability." 3 For activities, apply the full set of danger, common-usage, location, and social-value factors. 4 For products, identify manufacturing, design, or warning defect and when the defect existed. 5 Prove actual cause, scope of risk, and damages even though negligence is unnecessary. 6 Analyze assumption of risk, misuse, alteration, statutory authorization, and superseding causes where supported.

Key Takeaway

A blasting company uses every available precaution, yet a shockwave damages a neighboring garage. Blasting may qualify as abnormally dangerous, and shockwave property damage is within the danger that makes blasting exceptional. The absence of negligence therefore does not defeat the claim.

Common Mistake

Do not say that strict liability makes the defendant liable for every injury connected to the activity or product. The harm must arise from the protected risk, and product cases require proof of a defect.

Primary Authorities

  • • Spano v. Perini Corp. (strict liability for blasting harm).

  • • Rylands v. Fletcher (escape of a dangerous thing).

  • • Foster v. Preston Mill Co. (scope of ultrahazardous risk).

  • • Sandy v. Bushey (known dangerous propensity of an animal).

  • • Restatement (Second) of Torts Section 402A (defective products).

  • • MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co. (manufacturer duty beyond privity).

Exam-ready conclusion

Strict liability changes the fault element, not the rest of tort analysis. Identify the category, prove the triggering danger or defect, and connect the injury to the risk that justifies liability without negligence.