Cuomo Urges Product-Liability Revisions
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In an effort to protect manufacturers from exorbitant legal judgments, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo today proposed significant changes in the state’s laws on product liability that would make it harder for people who have been injured to establish fault and recover damages. The Governor’s proposal would also limit contingency fees that lawyers may charge in cases of product liability, as well as personal injury and wrongful death. In proposing the legislation, Mr. Cuomo cited the burdens he said the state’s liability laws had put on manufacturers. After a grinding recession and slow recovery, Mr. Cuomo has now sided with Republicans in the Senate who have long complained that the strict laws have overly burdened the state’s businesses. The most sweeping of the new laws would limit the time in which manufacturers can be sued to the “useful life” of a product and would give them the presumption of innocence if a product is made with the most advanced technology at the time. ‘More Inviting’ for Industries It would also block using as evidence the fact that manufacturers later improved a product’s design. It would protect them from lawsuits based on inadequate warnings of products’ possible dangers unless negligence can be proven. Source : query.nytimes.com |