Bexis is pretty pleased this morning. Almost eighteen years ago, to the day, he filed his first brief with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court challenging the negligence/strict liability dichotomy adopted in Azzarello v. Black Brothers Co., 391 A.2d 1020 (Pa. 1978) (in a case called Spino). Over twelve years ago, he filed his first outright “overrule Azzarello” brief (in a case called Phillips). Well, yesterday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court did precisely that – it overruled Azzarello – unanimously in an opinion written by Chief Justice Castille. In the end, even the most pro-plaintiff members of the Court (those remaining, anyway) could not stomach the travesty that Azzarello had become. End of self-congratulatory gloat.
We learned of this development late yesterday afternoon and published a very brief “breaking news” post alerting our readership. At that point we had not yet read the Court’s entire 137-page opinion, Tincher v. Omega Flex, Inc., No. 17 MAP, slip op. (Pa. Nov. 19, 2014). Now we have. While it’s clear that the most obnoxious aspects of the Azzarello regime − the bizarre pre-trial procedure for determining “unreasonably dangerous” as a matter of law, the absolutist negligence/strict liability dichotomy, and the “plaintiff wins” guarantor/any element jury instruction (for those of you not familiar with Pennsylvania law, this is what jurors are instructed: “The supplier of a product is the guarantor of its safety. The product must, therefore, be provided with every element necessary to make it safe for its intended use, and without any condition that makes it unsafe for its intended use,” Azzarello, 391 A.2d at 559 n.12) – have been disapproved, what’s taken their place is less clear.
On the theory that you can’t beat something with nothing, ever since Phillips Bexis had been advocating the Third Restatement of Torts as an alternative, even though there were significant aspects of the Third Restatement that could hardly be called defense friendly. Yes, Azzarello was that bad. The Court, however, did not adopt the Third Restatement in Tincher. Instead, it has adopted a more mainstream (compared to Azzarello) approach to Restatement Second §402A, that in places is also informed by Third Restatement principles. We’ll be discussing that in more detail.
Continue Reading Pennsylvania Product Liability – Azzarello Is Dead, Long Live…?