미국 제조물책임법상 개발위험의 항변과 Beshada 판결의 의의

The state-of-the-art defence in Product Liability and the Beshada Ruling in U.S.A.

This article aims to examine, among the provisions of Korea’s Product Liability Act, in particular Article 4 (Grounds for Exemption), paragraph 1, subparagraph 2, which provides that “the manufacturer could not have discovered the existence of the defect given the state of scientific or technical knowledge at the time the product was supplied,” namely the development risk defense (the state-of-the-art defense). In Korea, this defense has not yet arisen as a direct issue in litigation, making it difficult to rely on case law, and there appears to be little scholarly literature devoted specifically to this topic. However, the development risk defense allows a manufacturer to be exempted from liability if it can prove that, at the time a defective product was placed on the market, the risks of that product could not have been known using the technology available at that time. Proving that even the highest level of scientific and technical knowledge of the period could not have anticipated the risk is extremely difficult. Moreover, such technology may constitute a company’s trade secrets, making disclosure problematic in some cases. Meanwhile, in the United States, most states recognize the development risk defense. However, the Supreme Court of New Jersey denied the applicability of the defense in Beshada v. Johns-Manville Products Corp., thereby generating substantial controversy. The author believes that if the specific reasons why the New Jersey Supreme Court refused to recognize the development risk defense—one of manufacturers’ key litigation defenses—can be clearly identified, this would offer significant guidance for interpreting Korean law, which merely provides for development risk as a manufacturer’s defense without addressing its limits. There has long been extensive debate over whether the development risk defense should be recognized or whether strict liability should be maintained. Although many states continue to recognize the development risk defense, with the exception of New Jersey, which rendered the Beshada decision, that ruling is considered a representative case in which strict liability was applied more appropriately in order to protect consumers who are victims of defective products. As discussed in the main text, the reasoning employed by the court in Beshada to protect consumers harmed by defective products is likely to serve as an important guideline for Korea, where there is as yet no significant case law concerning the development risk defense, in determining whether and how to recognize the “development risk defense” under the Product Liability Act.