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> They should require amazon to randomly sample. This doesn’t seem like the most sensible approach. If my yogurt product is sold in grocery stores, isn’t it m

> They should require amazon to randomly sample. This doesn’t seem like the most sensible approach. If my yogurt product is sold in grocery stores, isn’t it my responsibility to make sure my yogurt is produced properly and my responsibility to label it with the correct ingredients and nutrition facts? I wouldn’t expect it to be the grocery store owner’s responsibility to randomly sample my yogurt and check for its quality or ingredients. Edit: Toned down inappropriately strong wording. Sorry for that. Didn’t mean to be a blowhard.

sk5t 7y ago
Your intuition about the grocery store's liability may have some deficiencies. A victim of food poisoning from negligence could absolutely bring suit against both the store and the yogurt maker.
- ajdlinux 7y ago
  Indeed in the Commonwealth, my (limited) understanding is that in those circumstances, liability had always been understood as being with the retailer, not the manufacturer, until the landmark decision of Donoghue v Stevenson in 1932 established the idea of a duty of care owed by the manufacturer even though there was no direct contract between manufacturer and end consumer.
  - divbzero 7y ago
    Thank you for sharing this. I wasn’t aware that this concept that manufacturers have duty of care to consumers — which is ingrained in my intuition — is actually a legal construct that evolved less than a century ago. [1][2] [1]: http://lawgovpol.com/case-study-donoghue-v-stevenson-1932/ http://lawgovpol.com/case-study-donoghue-v-stevenson-1932/ [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donoghue_v_Stevenson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donoghue_v_Stevenson
  - flukus 7y ago
    Does this let the retailer get off the hook? If so that seems like a terrible idea in a world where the manufacturer is likely to be international.
    - divbzero 7y ago
      No, it doesn’t let the retailer off the hook. It just means the manufacturer can be liable depending on the circumstances.
jakobegger 7y ago
If you sell a product in your store imported from a chinese company with no presence in your country, that violates local laws and regulations, you are definitely liable when it turns out that product is poisoning children.
- divbzero 7y ago
  It’s sensible that stores should remove products that aren’t safe. That’s what Amazon has agreed to do in this case, on a nationwide level. What doesn’t seem to make sense is requiring Amazon to do the actual safety testing. That would be akin to requiring baby stores to run safety tests on strollers, or requiring car dealerships to perform crash tests.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > That’s what Amazon has agreed to do in this case, on a nationwide level. That's kind of the problem, isn't it? They've "agreed" to do it, as if not doing that was also an option but Amazon decided generously (and not to set precedent) to comply with the law. Corporations are not sex offenders, they are very rational. If you fine them, their delinquency stops. If you don't, it won't.
  - PeterisP 7y ago
    You don't need to perform the safety testing but you're responsible for the safety testing. Let's assume that you have a physical store and you import and sell a toy and trust the manufacturer-provided documentation that claims that the toy is safe. The customer trusts you and relies on you to ensure that the toy is safe, the customer doesn't need to trust the manufacturer. If it turns out that the offshore manufacturer lied and faked the documentation, that's not the customer's fault or problem - you're fully liable and need to compensate the customer for selling a shoddy product that's apparently not fit for sale. Generally you have the right to recover that compensation from the manufacturer but if you can't do that (e.g. the manufacturer has since disappeared, or is insolvent) then that's not the customers problem, they bought the thing from you and it's your responsibility to uphold the warranties (at least in EU law) - so if you sell products from shoddy manufacturers then you assume full responsibility of them, which generally means that importers/distributors (or large retailers - a small store would delegate that task&risk to the wholesale importer/distributor, a major chain would do it themselves) audit their suppliers to ensure that they're not lying, faking safety documentation, etc. The baby store doesn't need to run safety tests on strollers, but it does need to verify that the safety tests have been done and ensure that the strollers are actually safe. The store can (and usually will) rely on others to ensure the safety and testing, but if they choose to rely on unreliable partners, that's the fault of that store.
arcticbull 7y ago
And yet if your Fage was contaminated with salmonella or lead you’d be first to sign on to the class action. On the other end would be anyone with a pulse between you and the manufacturer: the clerk, the grocery store, the distributor, the supplier and the manufacturer themselves. The fact is the end customer isn’t required to be their own certification lab. The onus falls on those who bring the products to market to ensure they don’t kill us. And yeah sometimes that means the grocery store, if they’re being willfully blind/negligent. I’m not saying they are, I have no context, though I don’t imagine Amazons attorneys told them to sign whatever was put in front of them. By selling us a product the manufacturer and the grocery store warrant merchantability [1] and fitness for a particular purpose [2] ("implied warranty"). If you got a hot cup of lead instead of yogurt and the grocery story knew it was likely to happen and looked the other way, you’d be well within your rights to sue... everyone. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-314 https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-314 [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-315 https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-315
- WillPostForFood 7y ago
  We've seen large cases recently of beef and greens contaminated with salmonella. E.g. https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/newport-10-18/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/newport-10-18/index.html I don't know every lawsuit, but the blame in these cases seems to largely not land on the grocery stores, but the manufacturer.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    That's true in the case where the grocery stores (and their reputations) are also the victims. I guarantee if they'd had some idea that they were selling contaminated greens, they'd be on the hook too. I'm guessing that this settlement indicates someone at Amazon knew or had the reasonable expectation of having known what was happening, and are now not-admitting-fault-but-simultaneously-fixing-it in true American judicial system fashion.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

sk5t 7y ago

Your intuition about the grocery store's liability may have some deficiencies. A victim of food poisoning from negligence could absolutely bring suit against both the store and the yogurt maker.

ajdlinux 7y ago
Indeed in the Commonwealth, my (limited) understanding is that in those circumstances, liability had always been understood as being with the retailer, not the manufacturer, until the landmark decision of Donoghue v Stevenson in 1932 established the idea of a duty of care owed by the manufacturer even though there was no direct contract between manufacturer and end consumer.
- divbzero 7y ago
  Thank you for sharing this. I wasn’t aware that this concept that manufacturers have duty of care to consumers — which is ingrained in my intuition — is actually a legal construct that evolved less than a century ago. [1][2] [1]: http://lawgovpol.com/case-study-donoghue-v-stevenson-1932/ http://lawgovpol.com/case-study-donoghue-v-stevenson-1932/ [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donoghue_v_Stevenson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donoghue_v_Stevenson
- flukus 7y ago
  Does this let the retailer get off the hook? If so that seems like a terrible idea in a world where the manufacturer is likely to be international.
  - divbzero 7y ago
    No, it doesn’t let the retailer off the hook. It just means the manufacturer can be liable depending on the circumstances.

jakobegger 7y ago

If you sell a product in your store imported from a chinese company with no presence in your country, that violates local laws and regulations, you are definitely liable when it turns out that product is poisoning children.

divbzero 7y ago
It’s sensible that stores should remove products that aren’t safe. That’s what Amazon has agreed to do in this case, on a nationwide level. What doesn’t seem to make sense is requiring Amazon to do the actual safety testing. That would be akin to requiring baby stores to run safety tests on strollers, or requiring car dealerships to perform crash tests.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- luckylion 7y ago
  > That’s what Amazon has agreed to do in this case, on a nationwide level. That's kind of the problem, isn't it? They've "agreed" to do it, as if not doing that was also an option but Amazon decided generously (and not to set precedent) to comply with the law. Corporations are not sex offenders, they are very rational. If you fine them, their delinquency stops. If you don't, it won't.
- PeterisP 7y ago
  You don't need to perform the safety testing but you're responsible for the safety testing. Let's assume that you have a physical store and you import and sell a toy and trust the manufacturer-provided documentation that claims that the toy is safe. The customer trusts you and relies on you to ensure that the toy is safe, the customer doesn't need to trust the manufacturer. If it turns out that the offshore manufacturer lied and faked the documentation, that's not the customer's fault or problem - you're fully liable and need to compensate the customer for selling a shoddy product that's apparently not fit for sale. Generally you have the right to recover that compensation from the manufacturer but if you can't do that (e.g. the manufacturer has since disappeared, or is insolvent) then that's not the customers problem, they bought the thing from you and it's your responsibility to uphold the warranties (at least in EU law) - so if you sell products from shoddy manufacturers then you assume full responsibility of them, which generally means that importers/distributors (or large retailers - a small store would delegate that task&risk to the wholesale importer/distributor, a major chain would do it themselves) audit their suppliers to ensure that they're not lying, faking safety documentation, etc. The baby store doesn't need to run safety tests on strollers, but it does need to verify that the safety tests have been done and ensure that the strollers are actually safe. The store can (and usually will) rely on others to ensure the safety and testing, but if they choose to rely on unreliable partners, that's the fault of that store.

arcticbull 7y ago

And yet if your Fage was contaminated with salmonella or lead you’d be first to sign on to the class action. On the other end would be anyone with a pulse between you and the manufacturer: the clerk, the grocery store, the distributor, the supplier and the manufacturer themselves. The fact is the end customer isn’t required to be their own certification lab. The onus falls on those who bring the products to market to ensure they don’t kill us. And yeah sometimes that means the grocery store, if they’re being willfully blind/negligent. I’m not saying they are, I have no context, though I don’t imagine Amazons attorneys told them to sign whatever was put in front of them. By selling us a product the manufacturer and the grocery store warrant merchantability [1] and fitness for a particular purpose [2] ("implied warranty"). If you got a hot cup of lead instead of yogurt and the grocery story knew it was likely to happen and looked the other way, you’d be well within your rights to sue... everyone. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-314 https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-314 [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-315 https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-315

WillPostForFood 7y ago
We've seen large cases recently of beef and greens contaminated with salmonella. E.g. https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/newport-10-18/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/newport-10-18/index.html I don't know every lawsuit, but the blame in these cases seems to largely not land on the grocery stores, but the manufacturer.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  That's true in the case where the grocery stores (and their reputations) are also the victims. I guarantee if they'd had some idea that they were selling contaminated greens, they'd be on the hook too. I'm guessing that this settlement indicates someone at Amazon knew or had the reasonable expectation of having known what was happening, and are now not-admitting-fault-but-simultaneously-fixing-it in true American judicial system fashion.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]