Legal aspects of product liability and FMEA (R. Riccò, K. Pickard & B. Bertsche)

Pubblicazione legale: Product Liability is a broad and very complex issue and we are going to try to give an easy explanation of the basic aspects of the matter. As in recent times safety and reliability of products have become a specific require-ments to be satisfied by producers in order to be exempted from liability related to damages triggered by the use of the products, it is truly important for the same producers as well as for users to be acknowledged of the central problems of the allotment of liability in case of accidents. The basic legal aspects of product liability are the object of this paper. To illustrate the possible influence of qualitative risk prevention on the product liability, the FMEA [8, 9], the most common qualitative and preventive method, is chosen. Technical developments and mass production are clearly related to modern legal systems of civil liability. Mass consumption, in-fact, involves an increase in damages caused by the wider use of products, thus contributing to render the issue of the allocation of such damages more and more relevant. We do not intend to face the political options related to possible systems of sc. public liability, or with the problems of private insurance contracts in the field of product liability. We shall only try to analyse, firstly, existent laws in the same field of product liabil-ity, and, secondly, the most important methods of defect prevention, applicable in industrial cycles.

Fonte: Safety and reliability for managing risk, Londra 2006, vol. III, pp. 413 ss.