Thomas v. Winchester

Thomas v. Winchester
Court	New York Court of Appeals
Full case name	Thomas v. Winchester
Decided	July 1852
Citation(s)	6 N.Y. 397
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting	Charles Herman Ruggles, Addison Gardiner
Case opinions
Decision by	Charles Herman Ruggles
Keywords
Product liability

Thomas v. Winchester, 6 N.Y. 397 (1852),^[1] which established the "imminent danger to human life" doctrine, was at the head of the cases in assaulting the protective wall of privity in the tort field. Subsequent examples include: MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co., Goldberg v. Kollsman Instrument Corp., and finally, Judge Jones's landmark holding in Codling v. Paglia, in which the Court demolished what was left of the privity barrier in tort cases by adopting the doctrine of strict products liability.

In Thomas v. Winchester, the Court, departing from the old common law rule in Winterbottom v. Wright, held that a commercial packager of a poison falsely labeled as harmless medicine, who sold it to a druggist who, in turn, sold it to the plaintiff who then ingested it should be liable for her acute distress. The Court found a way around the lack of privity between the consumer and the packager by adopting the rule that a party who puts falsely labeled poison into the market and thus "puts human life in imminent danger" should respond in damages to the ultimate consumer.

See also

• Privity of contract
• Loop v. Litchfield
• Losee v. Clute

References

This page was last edited on 20 November 2023, at 12:43