Instruction No.11

The plaintiff must establish three essential elements in order to recover under his theory of strict liability.They are as follows:

First,that the defendant General Motors corporation manufactured and sold a product which at the time General Motors sold it was in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the consumer or user;

Second,that the product was expected to and did reach the ultimate consumer without substantial change in the condition it was in at the time it was sold;and

Third,that the defective condition in the product proximately caused injury to the plaintiff.

Jury instruction #10 is the same as Section 402A Restatement (Second) of Torts (1965).Plaintiff did not make an objection at the time the instruction was offered.Plaintiff objected to jury instruction #11 “on the grounds that the second standard improperly states Montana law regarding tracing requirement back to the manufacturer.”

…(https://www.daowen.com)

We will now discuss strict liability under a manufacturing defect theory.Under a manufacturing defect theory,the essential question is whether the product was flawed or defective because it was not constructed correctly by the manufacturer:

[M]anufacturing defects,by definition,are “imperfections that inevitably occur in a typically small percentage of products of a given design as a result of the fallibility of the manufacturing process.A [defectively manufactured] product does not conform in some significant aspect to the intended design,nor does it conform to the great majority of products manufactured in accordance with that design.” (Henderson,Judicial Review of Manufacturers’ Conscious Design Choices: The Limits of Adjudication,73 Co.L.R.1531,1543).Stated differently,a defectively manufactured product is flawed because it is misconstructed without regard to whether the intended design of the manufacturer was safe or not.Such defects result from some mishap in the manufacturing process itself,improper workmanship,or because defective materials were used in construction.

Restatement (Second) of Torts,Section 402A (1965) has been adopted by this Court as the applicable law with regard to strict liability under manufacturing defect theory.The Restatement view is continued in Instruction #10,previously quoted in this opinion.In the context of strict liability under a manufacturing defect theory,we conclude that instructions #10 and #11,as given by the District court,are adequate….

We reversed and remand [on other grounds] for a new trial in conformity with this opinion.