Justia Products Liability Opinion Summaries

Ferraro suffered serious burns after falling asleep next to the power adapter of her newly purchased laptop computer. She filed a product liability suit, alleging a design defect that allowed the power adapter to overheat, that HP failed to include adequate warnings about the power adapter’s propensity to overheat, and that HP breached an implied warranty of merchantability. The district court granted HP summary judgment, reasoning that Ferraro would be unable to show that the adapter was “unreasonably dangerous,” as required for her design defect claim. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Illinois law provides two alternative methods of establishing unreasonable danger: the “consumer-expectations test” and the “risk-utility test.” Ferraro appealed with respect to the consumer expectations test, but, under Illinois law, the risk-utility test “trumps” in design defect cases if the two methods of establishing unreasonable dangerousness have conflicting results. The district court’s finding that Ferraro could not succeed under the risk-utility test furnished an independent, unchallenged ground for its decision. View "Ferraro v. Best Buy Stores, L.P." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a class action suit against Vital for its distribution of ZERO IMPACT protein bars that were erroneously marketed and labeled as having little to no impact on blood sugar. On appeal, Vital challenged the district court's sua sponte order remanding the suit to state court for failure to establish the amount in controversy requirement under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), 28 U.S.C. 1453(c)(1). The court reversed and remanded, concluding that the undisputed Cimino declarations were sufficient to establish that CAFA's $5 million amount in controversy requirement was met. View "Watkins v. Vital Pharmaceuticals" on Justia Law