ABSTRACT
Prosser (Schwartz, Kelly, and Partlett, 2005) observes that, “When a court imposes ‘strict liability’ on a defendant, it is saying that the defendant must pay damages although the defendant neither intentionally acted nor failed to live up to the objective standard of reasonable care that traditionally has been at the root of negligence law” [emphasis added]. He says, “Some courts and text writers call this process ‘absolute liability.’ This description overstates the case because there are numerous defenses to an action for strict liability and, sometimes, especially in the so-called ‘strict products liability’ area …, fault creeps back into the system.” He notes that some other text writers and courts group such cases under the rubric “liability without fault.” He says that this description also fails because it “suggests that negligence and intention tort causes of action are always based on fault, but there are many examples of imposition of liability without fault under the negligence and intentional tort bases of liability” [emphasis added] (p. 686).
