Liability for “Design Defects” in California – A Legal Guide

California’s products liability laws let plaintiffs recover for injuries from design defects – even when there was no negligence on the part of the product’s designer or manufacturer.

To help you better understand liability for design defects in California, our California personal injury lawyers discuss:

• 1. California Law re Design Defects
• 2. How long do I have to sue?
• 3. Will I need an expert witness?
• Additional resources

You may also wish to review our article on “manufacturing defects” in California products liability cases

1. California Law re Design Defects

In California, a product is defective in design if either:

• The product has failed to perform as safely as an ordinary consumer would expect when used in an intended or reasonably foreseeable manner, or
• The benefits of the design do not outweigh the risk of danger inherent in such design.¹

The two tests are not mutually exclusive – they are alternative theories. Either or both may apply in a given case and be presented to the jury.²

In either case, California law imposes “strict liability” for a design defect. This means you do not need to prove that the defendant was negligent – only that a design defect caused your injuries when you used (or even misused) the product in a reasonably foreseeable manner.

The “consumer expectation” test

A design is defective if a product fails to perform as safely as an ordinary consumer would expect when used in an intended or reasonably foreseeable manner.³

The test may be used if the product is one within the common experience of ordinary, reasonable consumers, taking into account:

• Your use of the product;
• The circumstances surrounding your injury; and
• The objective features of the product which are relevant to an evaluation of its safety.”⁴

To prove liability under the consumer expectations test, you must prove four “elements”:

1. That the defendant manufactured/distributed/sold the product;
2. That the product did not perform as safely as an ordinary consumer would have expected it to perform when used or misused in an intended or reasonably foreseeable way;
3. That you were harmed; and
4. That the product’s failure to perform safely was a substantial factor in causing your harm.⁵

The “risk / benefit” test

Under the “risk / benefit” test, you need only show that:

• the defendant designed a product and
• the product caused your injury.

The burden then shifts to the defendant to prove that, on balance, the benefits of the challenged design outweigh the risk of danger inherent in such design.⁶

Factors the jury may consider in evaluating whether the benefits of a design outweigh the dangers include:

• The gravity of the potential harm resulting from the use of the product;
• The likelihood that this harm would occur;
• The feasibility of an alternative safer design at the time of manufacture;
• The cost of an alternative design;
• The disadvantages of an alternative design; and
• Any other relevant factors.⁷

2. How long do I have to sue?

California’s statute of limitations for personal injuries applies to design defects. It gives you two years to sue for injuries resulting from a defective product.⁸

Under California’s “discovery rule,” the two-year period starts to run when you know – or in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have known — of both the injury and its relation to the product.⁹

Our California products liability attorneys can help determine when the two-year California limitations period expires.

3. Will I need an expert witness?

It is not always necessary to call an expert witness in a California products liability case. For instance, when Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 phone batteries were catching on fire, it did not take expert testimony to tell people that should not happen.

In many cases, however, expert testimony is needed in order to:

• Establish that a design defect was the reason you were injured;
• Prove that a product could have been designed more safely; or
• Prove damages such as lost earning capacity.

Additional Resources

For more in-depth information, refer to these scholarly articles:

• An Overview of the Legal Standard Regarding Product Liability Design Defect Claims and a Fifty State Survey on the Applicable Law in Each Jurisdiction – Defense Counsel Journal.
• Unmasking the Test for Design Defect: From Negligence [to Warranty] to Strict Liability to Negligence – Vanderbilt Law Review.
• Order Cut of Chaos: Products Liability Design-Defect law – University of Richmond Law Review.
• Seizing the Middle Ground between Rules and Standards in Design Defect Litigation: Advancing Directed Verdict Practice in the Law of Torts – New York University Law Review.
• Design Defect Liability: In Search of a Standard of Responsibility – Wayne Law Review.

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