Knowledge and Power: Drug Products Liability Actions and Women’s Health

While products liability law has provided a strong basis for consumer claims, its impact on women’s lives and interests has been less clearly beneficial. Beginning in 1932 with the House of Lords’ decision in Donoghue v Stevenson ([1932]: [599]), a duty of care has been owed by product manufacturers to the ‘ultimate consumer’ to take reasonable care in the ‘preparation or putting up’ of a product to avoid causing foreseeable injury. The principled basis of the decision was set out most broadly in Lord Atkins’ familiar neighbour principle.