Trial court denies product manufacturer’s motion in limine, adding to conflicting case law on issue of admissibility of compliance with industry standards.

The trial court denied the defendant product manufacturer’s motion in limine and ruled that compliance with industry standards remains inadmissible in a strict product liability case. (Note that such evidence is admissible in cases with negligence claims or claims for punitive damages.) This longstanding rule against the admission of industry standards was called into question by the Supreme Court’s decision in Tincher v. Omega Flex, 104 A.3d 328 (Pa. 2014), which provided a basis to reconsider the rationale for excluding such evidence. Since Tincher, courts have come down on both sides of the issue, with some courts admitting and others excluding evidence that a product complied with ANSI or other standards. In Palmer, the district court traced the history of the rule, before and after Tincher, and reached several conclusions. The court echoed the pre-Tincher refrain that a “defective design could be widespread in the industry, and hence, evidence that a product comported with industry standards was not proof of non-defectiveness.” However, the court recognized that a plaintiff may open the door to such evidence, after which the defendant could appropriately rebut it. This controversial issue was recently taken up by the Supreme Court in Sullivan v. Werner Co., 2022 WL 2062309 (Pa. June 8, 2022)—one of the primary cases relied upon by Palmer—so this will not be the last word on the admissibility of industry standards in a product liability case in Pennsylvania.

^{Case Law Alerts, 3rd Quarter, July 2022 is prepared by Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin to provide information on recent developments of interest to our readers. This publication is not intended to provide legal advice for a specific situation or to create an attorney-client relationship. Copyright © 2022 Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin, all rights reserved. This article may not be reprinted without the express written permission of our firm.}