Pennsylvania Superior Court upholds exclusion of government and industry standards in crashworthiness case.

The plaintiff in this strict product liability case recovered a jury verdict based on a crashworthiness design defect theory of liability. On appeal, the defendant argued that the trial court erred in precluding evidence of applicable government and industry standards. The Superior Court rejected the defendant’s argument, citing the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s pre-Tincher pronouncement that “such evidence should be excluded because it tends to mislead the jury’s attention from their proper inquiry, namely the quality or design of the product in question.” In so holding, the Superior Court concluded that nothing in Tincher purported to change this established precedent.

_{Case Law Alerts, 2^nd Quarter, April 1, 2016}

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