Products liability.

Devault, Edward Justin; Murphy, Terrence Alan

Student Work

Products liability.

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For the past year we have been doing research on a type of civil action called products liability with Professor Hagglund and Professor Dimentburg. We have read two books, An Engineer in the courtroom, concentrating on the happenings of a civil court, and Products liability in a nutshell, written by Jerry J. Phillips stating what exactly products liability is in legal terms. We watched six videos on the proceedings before, during, and after a civil trial. After we became well acquainted with the material, we began to study three different cases, all involving products liability. We were given many pieces of information from the case including depositions, pictures, and measurements. We were not however aware of the outcome of any of the cases. We were to use the information from the cases combined with our knowledge of what we have learned at WPI thus far (physics, dynamic equilibrium ... etc.) and our understanding of products liability and form our own opinions on what we believed actually happened and who was at fault. A year of work was presented at a mock trial, where we gave our opinion on what we think happened and debated with other students who had their own ideas on how the events unfolded and who was to blame.

This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

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