noting the similarity between misuse and highly reckless conduct, as “[b]oth . . . involve a plaintiff’s unforeseeable, outrageous, and extraordinary use of a product”
How later courts described this case
- noting the similarity between misuse and highly reckless conduct, as “[b]oth . . . involve a plaintiff’s unforeseeable, outrageous, and extraordinary use of a product”
- describing an affirmative defense as “a defendant’s assertion of facts and arguments that, if true, will defeat the plaintiff’s ... claim, even if all the allegations in the complaint are true”
- explaining that the Supreme Court “has unfailingly described assumption of the risk as an affirmative defense”
- explaining that a defendant ordinarily pleads affirmative defenses in a new matter
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice SAYLOR,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion, as applied to a manufacturing-defect case. However, particularly in light of the idiosyncratic fashion in which strict-liability jurisprudence has been applied in Pennsylvania, see generally Bugosh v. I. U. N. Am., Inc., 601 Pa. 277, 279-98 , 971 A.2d 1228, 1229-40 (2009) (Saylor, J., dissenting), I would not extend such holding to other scenarios (such as strict-liability, design-defect liti *1102 gation) without careful consideration of the fundamental fairness of doing so in a case or cases presenting material facts. In this regard, I note that strict products liability was originally fashioned with manufacturing defects in mind, and its uncritical extension to other areas, including the design-defect arena, has resulted in tremendous uncertainty, controversy, and instability, which continue to require this Court’s attention to remediate beginning at a foundational level. See id.