ABSTRACT

Judge Weinstein suggests that the jury could have found that whole-cell vaccine "was a defective product at the time plaintiff received her DTP inoculation." Both sellers and consumers are experimenting all the time with many kinds of products. One balm for producers is that at some point, the experimental becomes the everyday, and consumers are expected to know about the hazards of products unknown to their grandparents. The process of innovation that confers great advantages on consumers often brings along with it knowledge on the part of sellers of hazards that might not have been evident at the beginning of product development. Advancing technology—the epitome of experimentation—has been a boon to consumers in the most varied applications. Judge Manion's opinion for the majority upheld a decision for Bic on the basis of a "consumer contemplation test" that served as a standard for design defect cases in Illinois.