Safety and Unreasonable Danger as Design Criteria for Engineers: Some Effects of Products Liability Law on Engineering Design

Abstract

In this paper, the interrelated concepts of safety and unreasonable danger (as they apply to industry's products) are discussed in the context of their uses in the courts and design offices. It is shown that safety and design can be brought into essential harmony by defining safety in terms of qualities with meaning in the real worlds of both engineering and the courts. A lexicon of terms is introduced; the terms are used routinely in product liability litigation but are virtually unknown to many engineers. Finally, examples are cited of some industrial products whose designs have been changed as a result of their having been involved in product liability suits. The sense of the conclusions given in the paper can probably be extended, without significant change, to other industrial products.