Consumer Deaths

Causality and Liability

Key issues in the area of consumer deaths include those of causality, that is, did the product itself cause the death or was it a result of misuse or coincidental? Did the company producing the product exercise an appropriate duty of care in ensuring that its products were safe, and had no reason to believe that any dangers were attached to them?

The standards of proof required in courts of law relating to these questions varies from country to country and the litigation process is often intense, because of the emotive nature of the cases and because of the potentially high level of compensation involved. The degree of culpability of the product producers can vary according to the degree to which consumers are expected to understand risks, and to protect themselves accordingly. This creates something of a spectrum of possible cases: ranging from children who are poisoned the toys to deaths from overuse of illegally obtained narcotics, for which there is much less public sympathy.

Nevertheless, when the supplier of a product is negligent in determining whether or not risks are involved with the marketing of goods and services, then the supplier can be prosecuted in most states. Most cases, of course, fall somewhere between the two extremes.

When the drug thalidomide came on the market in 1958, for example, the dangers to the unborn fetus were not recognized during research, and when thousands of children were subsequently born with severe deformities, then subsequent legal discussion centered on the degree to which more care should have been taken to identify possible dangers.

When thalidomide subsequently began to be identified as having additional special medical properties, it was able to be marketed under certain circumstances with its risks properly noted. The energy drink Red Bull was linked to the deaths of three young people in Sweden and has subsequently been banned in several countries. Two of the three people involved had mixed the drink with vodka and the other was said to have drunk several bottles and exercised strenuously. These details have been sufficient to deflect investigations in most countries, since a small amount of risk is considered inherent in any unforeseen circumstance.

...