Believing in Products Liability: Reflections on Daubert, Doctrinal Evolution, and David Owen's Products Liability Law

Abstract

This essay analyzes the implications of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993), for the substantive doctrinal evolution of products liability law. It begins by chronicling Professor David Owen's contributions to the recognition of products liability as a distinct body of law, with particular emphasis on his recently published hornbook, PRODUCTS LIABILITY LAW, as an introduction to Daubert's impact on the body of law's evolution. Utilizing a recent proposal for a new products liability cause of action by prominent scholars Margaret Berger and Aaron Twerski as illustrative of a Daubert-inspired evolutionary impulse, the essay concludes both that Daubert is a child of products liability's evolution, and that it will also inevitably become a parent to further products liability doctrinal evolution.

Keywords: Daubert, Products Liability, Torts, Evidence

JEL Classification: K13