Comprehensive Products Liability Reform

Comprehensive Products Liability Reform – S.B. 216

| July 10, 2023

Montana – 2023

Enables defendants to raise a comparative fault defense when the plaintiff asserts a strict product liability claim.

Expands the statutory misuse defense to include use of the product at issue in a manner that contravenes an express warning or instruction provided with the product

Establishes an affirmative defense that the product at issue could not have been made safer by the adoption of a reasonable alternative design or manufacturing process that was available at the time the product was first used

Creates a 10-year statute of repose

Establishes a rebuttable presumption that the product was not defective and that the seller was not negligent if the product complied with mandatory government safety statutes, regulations, or standards applicable to the product at issue and pertinent to the characteristics that allegedly caused the injury

Provides protection against product liability lawsuits for sellers who are not also manufacturers of the product at issue.