Strict Liability

What is Strict Liability?

Strict Liability is, “Liability without fault. Case is one of “strict liability” when neither care nor negligence, neither good nor bad faith, neither knowledge nor ignorance will save defendant.” (Black’s Law Dictionary 1591. 4th Ed. Rev. 1968). This refers to cases where a defendant may be found liable for damages, even if it was not their direct negligence or fault that brought about the damages. In other words, cases where liability is not necessarily about what the defendant did, and their intentions do not matter.

Two areas where strict liability is somewhat common are cases involving high-risk activities and cases involving defective products. An example of a high-risk activity would be keeping wild animals like lions or tigers. There is a clear, inherent risk in keeping an animal like that, and a party may be strictly liable if their animal injures someone, even if the party was not involved. An example of a defective product would be a car company manufacturing a car with faulty brakes, and those brakes resulting in a crash. Even if it was not the car company’s intention for the brake to fail or the crash to occur, they are likely to be found liable.

Strict liability is meant to make sure that injured parties are compensated, even in cases where an incident is not necessarily a defendant’s fault. In these cases, plaintiffs do not need to prove any negligence on the part of the defendant, only that something pertaining to the defendant caused an injury. There are some who disagree with this idea, and see it as unfair that defendant’s may be found liable for events that they did not intend. 

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