The role of safety analyses in reducing products liability exposure in "smart" consumer products containing software and firmware

Proceedings of the Annual Reliability and Maintainability Symposium

Volumn , Issue , 2003, Pages 153-158

  Hecht, Myron ^a  

^a SoHaR Incorporated   (United States)

Author keywords

Consumer products; FMEA; FTA; Litigation; Products liability; Safety

Indexed keywords

COMPETITION; CONSUMER PRODUCTS; DEFECTS; ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL EFFECTS; EMBEDDED SYSTEMS; FIRMWARE; MARKETING; RISK ASSESSMENT; SAFETY FACTOR; SOFTWARE ENGINEERING;

EMBEDDED COMPUTING DEVICES; SAFE CODE; SAFETY ANALYSES;

PRODUCT LIABILITY;

EID: 0037256177     PISSN: 0149144X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Conference Proceeding    
DOI: None     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (19)

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2. National Highway Safety Commission Denial of Petition, requesting that the agency "institute a new investigation into the cause or causes of sudden acceleration, Federal Register: April 28, 2000 (Volume 65, Number 83), Page 25026-25037
3. id at 25026
4. id at 25033; John Pollard and E. Donald Sussman, An Examination of Sudden Acceleration (Cambridge, MA.: NHTSA, 1989, DOT-HS-807-367)
5. Arena v. Owens Corning Fiberglass Corp., 74 Cal. Rptr.2d, 266, (1997)
6. 1 Madden & Owen on Prod. Liab. § 8:3 (3d ed. 2000) at FN 13 citing Wash. Rev. Code Ann. § 7.72.030(1)(a) & (3).
7. Barker, 20 Cal. 3d 413, 426-427; 573 P.2d at 452
8. William Powers, Jr., A Modest Proposal to Abandon Strict Products Liability, 1991 U. Ill. L. Rev. 639, 648, 653
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10. Id. at 310.
11. Scoby v. Vulcan-Hart Corp., 211 Ill. App. 3d 106, 155 Ill. Dec. 536, 569 N.E.2d 1147, (4th Dist. 1991) also Camacho v. Honda Motor Co., Ltd., Ltd., 741 P.2d 1240, 1246-47, (Colo. 1987), cert. dismissed, 485 U.S. 901, 108 S. Ct. 1067, 99 L. Ed. 2d 229 (1988) See also Madden & Owen on Prod Liab. 8:4 (3d ed. 2000) at FN 27 citing Potter v. Chicago Pneumatic Tool Co., 241 Conn. 199, 694 A.2d 1319, (1997); Seattle-First Nat. Bank v. Tabert, 86 Wash. 2d 145, 542 P.2d 774, 779 (1975) (same).
12. 1 Madden& Owen on Prod. Liab. § 8:4 (3d ed. 2000)
13. Soule, 882 P.2d at 452
14. Richard A. Posner, Economic Analysis of Law 165 (3d ed. 1986)
15. i.e., ΔP is positive when the risk is reduced by the design change
16. K. Kimseng, M. Hoit, N. Tiwari, and M. Pecht, Physics-of-Failure Assessment of a Cruise Control Module, Microelectronics Reliability, Vol. 39, pp. 1423-1444, February 1999.
17. Cole v. Ford Motor Co., 136 Or.App. 45 at 51 900P.2d 1059 at 1062
18. Jarvis v. Ford Motor Co., 69 F.Supp.2d 582 at 590
19. J. Armor and W.S. Humphreys, Software Product Liability, Software Engineering Technical Report CMU/SEI-93-TR-13, August, 1993, p. 16