product-liability
4 free lessons tagged product-liability across Law & Compliance. Each one is a short sequence of focused steps with narration and a five-question quiz at the end — take them in any order, no signup required.
Proof: Disclosure, Presumptions, and the Complexity Rule
Strict liability is worthless if the claimant cannot prove a defect they never saw. Articles 9 and 10 answer that with a disclosure order, three presumptions of defectiveness, a presumption of causation, and a rule turning complexity into the claimant's ally. This lesson works through the cascade, the three-year and ten-year clocks, and what a defendant should be able to produce.
Who Pays, and For What Damage
The Directive builds a chain of liable operators so an injured person in the EU always has someone to sue. This lesson covers the manufacturer and component manufacturer, the importer and fulfilment service provider route, the distributor's one-month rule, online platforms, how a modification makes you a manufacturer, the heads of damage including data loss, and the exemptions.
Defectiveness: The Safety a Person Is Entitled to Expect
A product is defective when it lacks the safety a person is entitled to expect. Article 7 turns that into circumstances a court weighs, several written for software: the ability to learn after release, interconnection, cybersecurity requirements, and recalls. This lesson works through the list, the rule that a later improvement is not an admission, and why compliance is not a defence.
Software as a Product: What the New Liability Directive Changed
Directive (EU) 2024/2853 replaces the 1985 regime and settles a forty-year argument by naming software a product. This lesson covers the new definition and why delivery method is irrelevant, why information is not a product, how components and related services extend the net, where open source sits, and why liability cannot be disclaimed by contract.