In August of 2020, a California Court of Appeal held that Amazon was subject to strict products liability for each and every product sold on its website. (See Bolger v. Amazon.com LLC (2020), 53 Cal.App.5th 431. You can read our full analysis of that opinion here. In short, the Court of Appeal held that, notwithstanding Amazon’s protestations, the company was within the vertical supply chain for the product, despite not falling within the classical definitions of designer, manufacturer, or distributor of the product in question. The Court of Appeal also relied on the public policy rationale underlying the doctrine of strict products liability and found that to hold Amazon liable under strict products liability would further those interests. Amazon appealed the Bolger ruling to the California Supreme Court, but review was denied.
Some eight months later, Amazon’s position has not improved. In Loomis v. Amazon.com LLC (No. B297995, filed April 26, 2021), a different district of the Court of Appeal held that Bolger was correctly decided and relied on it to overturn a motion for summary judgment on which Amazon had previously prevailed. The Loomis matter centers around a “hoverboard” product bought as a Christmas present from Amazon.com. The board was listed by a seller identified as TurnUpUp, which is a name used by SMILETO, allegedly a Chinese company. The board was shipped to Plaintiff by Forrinx Technology (USA), Inc. It arrived in time for Christmas and, a few days later, was plugged in to charge. The board was allegedly then discovered in flames, and Plaintiff suffered burns trying to extinguish the fire.
At the trial level, Amazon moved for summary judgment on Plaintiff’s strict liability and negligence claims, arguing that it was not in the “chain of distribution,” and that it was not liable under the “marketing enterprise theory.” The Trial Court granted Amazon’s Motion and Plaintiff appealed.
On appeal, Amazon argued that Bolger was erroneously decided because it failed to abide by long-standing limitations in strict liability law, namely that there was a threshold requirement limiting liability to those entities that “manufactured, sold, or supplied” the product at issue. Amazon argued that it was merely a facilitator in connecting the consumer and seller through its website. Finally, Amazon argued that the Bolger Court ill-advisedly relied on “vague and ill-defined policy notions” that were “cited six decades ago.” Despite Amazon’s arguments...
