Encouraging Product and Service Quality with Strict Liability
Strict liability is not a moral but a legal doctrine. Business organizations are bound by laws of strict liability.
Moral responsibility is related to accountability and liability. Liability for a person's actions means that a person can be made to pay for the adverse effects of his or her actions on other people. Business organizations are frequently bound by laws of strict liability. This means that in cases of liability, no excusing conditions are applicable or accepted.
Strict liability does not assign blame, and is not the same as finding an organization negligent or culpable of not taking the proper precautions in making its products, or of failing to make right defects that it knows about. In these cases of negligence or culpability, the law will usually allow injured parties to sue not only for injuries they have suffered from the use of the product, but for punitive damages as well. Punitive damages can amount to several times the amount of actual damages paid to an injured party. The purpose of the higher payment is to punish the business organization for recklessness or for culpable negligence in making the product, and to discourage the organization and other similar organizations from acting recklessly or negligently in the future.
Strict liability is not a moral but a legal issue. A business organization which is held strictly liable under the law cannot also be held morally liable if it could not know or anticipate the harm that could come from the use of the product. Arguments have been expressed to show that the doctrine of strict liability is not unreasonable or unfair to businesses. There are three parts in the basic argument in defense of strict liability.
The first part is that strict liability is justified by the doctrine of "deep pocket". The harm has been done, and the question is raised of who is in a better position to bear the cost of the harm. Is it is the business firm or the consumer? In most cases it is the firm that is best equipped to absorb the cost of correcting the harm that has been done. Any firm that makes a product is in the best position to pay damages caused by the product because the firm can insure itself against the harm that its product may cause by buying insurance from a company which handles strict liability litigation or by self-insuring by adding a small price increase to their product to cover for these types of legal suits.
The second part of the argument is that since businesses are aware of the strict liability that they are held under, it is in their interest to make their products as safe as possible. These businesses are in the best position to have their products properly tested and to envision possible misuses of their products. Thus this doctrine of strict liability makes it an incentive for companies to test their products more carefully and to foresee potential misuses of their products.
The third part of the argument is that companies are in the best position to fix the defects in their products whenever they harm others. The threat of having to pay for this harm under strict liability laws provides them with an incentive to recall the products or fix the defects in a timely manner.
Thus, strict liability has an overall effect of reducing the harm to society that is caused by unsafe products. It is also the most efficient way to compensate the victims of these defective products.
Sources
DeGeorge, R.. (2010). Business Ethics. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Moral responsibility is related to accountability and liability. Liability for a person's actions means that a person can be made to pay for the adverse effects of his or her actions on other people. Business organizations are frequently bound by laws of strict liability. This means that in cases of liability, no excusing conditions are applicable or accepted.
Strict liability does not assign blame, and is not the same as finding an organization negligent or culpable of not taking the proper precautions in making its products, or of failing to make right defects that it knows about. In these cases of negligence or culpability, the law will usually allow injured parties to sue not only for injuries they have suffered from the use of the product, but for punitive damages as well. Punitive damages can amount to several times the amount of actual damages paid to an injured party. The purpose of the higher payment is to punish the business organization for recklessness or for culpable negligence in making the product, and to discourage the organization and other similar organizations from acting recklessly or negligently in the future.
Strict liability is not a moral but a legal issue. A business organization which is held strictly liable under the law cannot also be held morally liable if it could not know or anticipate the harm that could come from the use of the product. Arguments have been expressed to show that the doctrine of strict liability is not unreasonable or unfair to businesses. There are three parts in the basic argument in defense of strict liability.
The first part is that strict liability is justified by the doctrine of "deep pocket". The harm has been done, and the question is raised of who is in a better position to bear the cost of the harm. Is it is the business firm or the consumer? In most cases it is the firm that is best equipped to absorb the cost of correcting the harm that has been done. Any firm that makes a product is in the best position to pay damages caused by the product because the firm can insure itself against the harm that its product may cause by buying insurance from a company which handles strict liability litigation or by self-insuring by adding a small price increase to their product to cover for these types of legal suits.
The second part of the argument is that since businesses are aware of the strict liability that they are held under, it is in their interest to make their products as safe as possible. These businesses are in the best position to have their products properly tested and to envision possible misuses of their products. Thus this doctrine of strict liability makes it an incentive for companies to test their products more carefully and to foresee potential misuses of their products.
The third part of the argument is that companies are in the best position to fix the defects in their products whenever they harm others. The threat of having to pay for this harm under strict liability laws provides them with an incentive to recall the products or fix the defects in a timely manner.
Thus, strict liability has an overall effect of reducing the harm to society that is caused by unsafe products. It is also the most efficient way to compensate the victims of these defective products.
Sources
DeGeorge, R.. (2010). Business Ethics. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.