Comment by throwaway_isms
5 years ago
Anyone in the supply chain is a potential party to products liability lawsuits, not just the supplier and retailer. So you have manufacturers, shippers, etc...
5 years ago
Anyone in the supply chain is a potential party to products liability lawsuits, not just the supplier and retailer. So you have manufacturers, shippers, etc...
Yes, you can of course sue the manufacturer directly. But the key issue Amazon is fighting is whether they're liable.
My point is anyone in the supply chain is jointly and severally liable for products liability under the law.
It is indisputable Amazon is in the supply chain of these products, and of course of a case by case basis their role(s) for each product is different, including, but not limited to: at minimum promoting the products on their online marketplace, facilitating the purchase of the products (potentially conducting the transaction itself via Amazon gift cards), storing/warehousing product, shipping/delivering product, in some instances they are the wholesaler of product, etc...
They should be thankful for the time they had escaping obvious legal liability and the opportunity to get a decade+ head start on any new marketplace that wants to compete and will have to contend with these legal risks. Amazon will fight it to tooth and nail to the end, and then start with appeals, they could spend billions a year and lose but it would be worthwhile because the simple number of dangerous products on their marketplace some of them resulting in death.
It makes sense that customers can sue Amazon directly. Otherwise any party in the supply chain will point to their suppliers until you end up at the sweatshop worker in Asia.
I can sue the Post Office for delivering a bad product to me?
No, because the federal government, including the post office, has sovereign immunity from lawsuits. There is the Federal Tort Claims Act that carves out some exceptions but I think is silent on the Post Office. Here is an article from the claims journal: https://www.claimsjournal.com/columns/road-to-recovery/2020/...
I once worked on a case where the client was hit by a bus operated by the County (so a local government in a particular state), the suit was not entirely barred but there was a cap on damages which would not otherwise exist if say it were a bus being operated by a private company (which would of course generally have a commercial insurance policy as well). It has been almost 10 years but at the time I think the cap was $200,000. Interestingly there is/was a mechanism to request the state (I think the state legislature) waive the damages cap on a case by case basis, but unless your firm was politically connected and donated to political campaigns good luck with that.
Post Office has no knowledge of what's inside the box, whereas Amazon not only knows it but often is the one that puts things in that box.
Last year we had issues where medications didn't arrive on time or were outright lost. Or farmers complained that chickens that were shipped arrived dead due to DeJoy's efforts to "improve" USPS.
So I would imagine that yes, you could.
> I can sue the Post Office for delivering a bad product to me?
Strange question, in USA, the is fact you can sue anyone for anything in a civil suit. It's up to a court to decide whether your case has merit or not.