Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Innovations

Several legal innovations first arose in the United States, and some of those innovations have been adopted by other countries.

The most broadly influential innovation of 20th century American law was the rule of strict liability for defective products, which originated with judicial glosses on the law of warranty. In 1963, Roger J. Traynor of the Supreme Court of California threw away legal fictions based on warranties and imposed strict liability for defective products as a matter of public policy in the landmark case of Greenman v. Yuba Power Products.[13]. The American Law Institute subsequently adopted the Greenman rule in Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, which was published in 1965 and was very influential throughout the United States.[14] Outside the U.S., the rule was adopted by the European Economic Community in the Product Liability Directive of July 1985,[15] by Australia in July 1992,[16] and by Japan in June 1994.[17]

By the 1990s, the avalanche of American cases resulting from Greenman and Section 402A had become so complicated that another restatement was needed, which occurred with the 1997 publication of the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Product Liability.

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