American Law Institute

The Greenman decision was a watershed, and privity-free strict HabiUty in tort swept the country as a tidal wave. In 1965, the American Law Institute embraced the concept in Section 402A, and thousands of decisions cited to the Restatement. Within a decade the decision became the majority rule in the United States in the 1990s all but a tiny minority of states ascribe to it. 

AH discussion of the post-1965 era must begin with the Restatement (Second) of Torts, Section 402A. The person responsible for this section was Dean William Prosser, who became the reporter for American Law Institute s Restatement (Second) of Torts at a time when change was on the horizon in the field of products HabiUty. His initiative in drafting Section 402A provided the courts with a ready-made formulation for the adoption of strict tort HabiUty. Entitled "Special Liabihty of Seller of Product for Physical Harm to the User or Consumer," Section 402A reads as follows ... 

In June 1992, the American Law Institute undertook the task of drafting the Restatement (Third) of Torts "Products LiabiUty." Tentative Draft No. 2 takes the position that different HabiUty rules must apply for manufacturing defects and defects based on inadequate design or failure to warn ... 

This principle is firmly entrenched in the Model Penal Code (MPC), a model statute drafted by the American Law Institute in 1962 to help states define crimes consistently across the country (5). Many states have adopted the MPC, in whole or in part, and it has helped unify criminal law in the United States. The MPC recognized the incongruence of criminalizing actions performed by someone who is asleep or unconscious and incorporated that recognition into its definition of a voluntary act. Section 2.01 of the MPC states A person is not guilty of an offense unless his liability is based on conduct that includes a voluntary act... 

To establish a product liability claim, it must be shown that the product is defective. This term was redefined (in 1998) as follows A product is defective because of inadequate instructions or warnings when the foreseeable risks of harm posed by the product could have been reduced or avoided by the provision of reasonable instructions or warnings by the seller or other distributor, or a predecessor in the commercial chain of distribution, and the omission of the instructions or warnings renders the product not reasonably safe. See the Restatement (Third) of Torts. Products Liability, issued by the American Law Institute. 

ALI —American Law Institute DHHS —U.S. Department of Health and Human... 

The ongoing effort to prepare restatements of law began as a result of a grant to the American Law Institute in 1952 from the A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust of Pittsburgh. Among the fields of law embraced in this effort are agency, trusts, conflict of laws, and contracts as well as torts. Extensive efforts in the expanding field of torts has produced two restatements . Restatement (Second) of Torts, Section 282. 

American Law Institute (1962) Model Penal Code (Philadelphia, PA ALl). 

All negligence cases have these elements in common, and absence of proof of any one element will defeat a finding of liability (American Law Institute, 1965). 

The basis for tort law in the United States is the American Law Institute s 1965 Restatement (Second) of Tortsy which follows from the first Restatement issued in the 1930s. One can regard the Restatement as a recommendation for "best" law practice, and a summary of what the law is in the majority of jurisdictions in the United States. But it should be recognized that the Restatement will be secondary to local statutes and cases in an actual trial. 

American Law Institute. (1965). Restatement (Second) of Torts. St Paul, MN. American Law Institute. 

During the Public Interest Era, the American Law Institute (ALI), a 3,000-member self-perpetuating body of judges, lawyers, and law professors, recommended a strict products liability regime in its influential Restatement (Second) of Torts, under which manufactures of defective products that were unreasonably dangerous would be held strictly liable without regard to fault. By 1976, the courts in 41 states had adopted some form of strict products liability. 

Revising the Restatement. During the second assault, the business community also targeted the Restatement (Second) of Torts for reform. When the powers that be at the American Law Institute selected the two most prominent critics of its strict liability approach to products liability. Professors James Henderson and Aaron Twerski, to be the Reporters for a separate volume of a third edition of the Restatement devoted exclusively to products liability, they appeared to have a particular agenda in mind. Any doubts on that score were dispelled when Henderson and Twerski stated at the outset that their aim was not simply to restate the law, but to improve it along the lines that they had long advocated. ... 

John P. Frank, The American Law Institute, 1923—1998, 26 Hofetra L. Rev. 615, 625 (1998) Report of the National Commission on State Workmens Compensation Laws (1972). 

Marshaff S. Shapo, Private Organization, Public Responsibility, 23 Law Social Inquiry 651, 653-54 (199B) John F. Vargo, The Emperor s New Clothes The American Law Institute Adorns a New Cloth for Section, oiA Products Liability Design Defect—A Survey of the States Reveals a Different Weave, 26 Memphis L. Rev. 493, 517-18 (1996). 

Restatement (Third) of Torts—Products Liability 4(a), (b), 6(c), (d) Teresa M. Schwartz, Regulatory Standards and Products Liability Striking the Right Balance Between the Two, 30 Mich. J. L. Ref. 431, 433-34 (1997) Victor E. Schwartz, The Restatement (Third) of Torts Products Liability—The American Law Institute s Process of Democracy and Deliberation, 26 Hofstra L. Rev. 743 (1998) (business community thrilled). 

---