Chris Paget <ivegotta@tombom.co.uk> wrote: > Does V still have the right to sue R? Let's put this a different way: Ford makes a car that seems to sell pretty well. Unfortunately, it has a fatal design flaw: if the car suffers a rear-end collision while it's in third gear during a rainstorm at night while the moon is waxing, the car explodes, killing its passengers. Consumer Reports discovers that this is the case and publishes a warning to its readers concerning this car. Ford is unable to reproduce the vulnerable configuration and ignores the warning, assuming it's a hoax. Two weeks later, a story breaks in the national news that a psychopath has taken it upon himself to rear-end all Ford cars on rainy moonlit nights. So far, five people have died. Who is responsible, Ford or Consumer Reports? Do you think Ford could successfully prosecute a lawsuit against Consumer Reports? Extra credit: if you said "no" to the second question, but think V should win a suit against R in Chris's hypothetical situation, please explain how the two situations are so substantially different as to result in completely opposite conclusions with regard to liability. -- Riad Wahby rsw@jfet.org MIT VI-2/A 2002
