This edition of the casebook remains sufficiently flexible to meet widely varying needs. It is appropriate to use in a two- or a three-hour course. The structure of the book permits omission of entire chapters or portions of chapters without disrupting the flow of the course. The book is arranged so that the core of products liability law is presented in the first six chapters, but the materials may also be taught out of order. Topics include misrepresentation and warranty law, defects and reasonableness, cause-in-fact, proof, proximate cause and damages. The remaining chapters cover core topics in products liability litigation. After a brief introduction, Chapters 1 and 2 address the application of misrepresentation and warranty law to products cases. These theories remain viable in most jurisdictions and in a few jurisdictions that never adopted the Restatement (Second) of Torts Section 402A, they remain at the core of modern products liability law. Chapters 3 and 4 address the development of modern products liability law and its defining characteristic: its focus on the concept of "defect" rather than the concept of reasonableness. Chapter 4 systematically presents materials on manufacturing, design and warning defects organized around Section 2 of the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability. Chapter 5 addresses cause-in-fact, especially the choice between the Second and Third restatements' approaches to cause-in-fact. Here as elsewhere the book does not attempt to reprise the coverage of causation in the first-year tort course, but rather focuses on the special cause-in-fact issues that typically emerge in product liability cases. Likewise, Chapters 6, 7 and 9 focus on the proof, proximate cause, and damages questions that most frequently arise in the products liability arena. The remaining chapters in the book cover the remaining core topics in products liability litigation: a) the effect of statutes and regulations b) apportionment of liability between plaintiff and defendant and among defendants in multi-party litigation c) the effect of statutes of limitations and repose d) parties and transactions that are covered and are not covered by products liability law e) complex litigation, including multidistrict litigation, class actions, and other forms of aggregate claim resolution.

The casebook, which is organized along traditional doctrinal lines, teaches students how tort law works to resolve disputes in the real world of litigation and settlement negotiations. A teacher can start with intentional torts or with negligence. The first chapter is an overview of trial court procedure in tort cases; the second is a concise treatment of intentional torts and defenses; and the third introduces negligence law with a streamlined treatment of the core breach-of-duty/substandard conduct concept. Subsequent chapters treat the remainder of the prima facie case in negligence, the principal defenses to negligence liability, and some of the basic concepts entailed in multiparty litigation. The book's concluding chapters are basic coverage of medical malpractice, common law strict liability, products liability, and nuisance.