Product Liability -- 2016



Occidental Chemical Corporation v. Jenkins   (Texas Supreme Court)

Forever liability for improvements to real estate

The NAM filed two amicus briefs rejecting an expansion of the duty of care and urging the Texas Supreme Court to reject “perpetual liability” after a lower court imposed that liability on a former owner of real property. This is an appeal from a lower court decision imposing liability on the former owner of a chemical manufacturing plant, Occidental Chemical Corporation, for plaintiff’s injury while operating plant machinery, even though the injury occurred after Occidental sold the plant. If upheld, the decision would have caused Texas business and property owners significant uncertainty and introduced an unprecedented expansion of litigation risk for “negligence,” even if a personal injury occurred long after the owner relinquished control of the property. The NAM’s briefs argued that the lower court’s decision broke from clearly established Texas law and set a dangerous precedent that weakened Texas’s robust manufacturing economy. In a win for manufacturers, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that Occidental breached no duty of care to Jenkins.


Related Documents:
NAM brief  (February 13, 2015)
NAM amicus letter  (April 24, 2014)