Quote:
Originally Posted by Luckypants
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Good. This is consistent with my understanding from other areas of work: When it comes to health and safety, we generally have a modus operandi in the UK of having to try to protect the public domain from the forseeable actions of all people including the quite ignorant (i.e unaware), based around a concept of what a "reasonable person" might know or expect. What might seem obvious for most can't be assumed for everyone.
It generally takes a 'test case' or two to clearly set legal precedent on civil liability. This is saddening because by default these come after tragic incidents have occurred. Until then what's 'correct' is the domain of advocacy, lobbying, sales/marketing (i.e. just proclamation of opinion, whether good bad or indifferent).
I guess in this case the debate is around "fit for intended purpose" and compensation, as generally included in much of UK legislation for sale of goods. Though some might consider there is a case for some sort of criminal negligence for the way this has been introduced and labelled (but that's a different set of rules with a much higher burden of proof)*
(* None of this is legal advice - my background is as an Engineer working within legislative frameworks. One picks up a bit along the way but I'm not a Lawyer, and definitely not expert in product liability.)