Product liability litigation – particularly the prominent billion-dollar verdicts against a manufacturer of talc-based baby powder – has been making headlines lately. The news that is still flying under the radar? The many archival repositories and libraries that hold the historical information you need to crack your product liability case.
The Role of Historical Research in Product Liability Litigation
Product liability is not necessarily an area of law many people immediately associate with the need for conducting historical research. After all, litigation over an injury involving burns from a hot cup of coffee or an exploding soda bottle doesn’t have much to do with dusty old historical documents. Or does it? What about an injury sustained while operating a piece of machinery that came with an inadequate instruction manual? Or an injury from a household product that had a misleading label? And what about the potential successor liability risks involved when acquiring a company that might have manufactured a defective product?