(Tex., filed August 30, 2023): Arguing that Sec. 82.008 “Compliance with Government Standards” protects manufacturers from tort liability if their products comply with all federal safety standards. For Section 82.008 to have meaning, courts must distinguish whether a regulation as a whole is inadequate from whether a particular product is defective. Plaintiff’s experts here did not provide the type of evidence necessary to overcome the Section 82.008(a) defense by establishing the inadequacy of federal safety standards. A fundamental principle of products-liability law is that a manufacturer need not destroy a product’s utility to make it safer.
