Reply #19: Product Liability is an interesting legal area.

[Lithos]

And as a former engineer, I remember several apocryphal stories about liability. The most famous concerned a lawn mower which hurt someone because the user decided to lift it up and work on it while it was running. Lost a case, so the manufacturer thought they would get smart and add a "dead man's switch" on the handle bar so that someone would have to hold it while operating it. Sure enough, as the story goes, they were sued again because someone taped the switch shut as it kept killing the motor when they were using the lawn mower as a hedge trimmer.

Most cases as I recall really fell down to proving some sort of design failure or short-coming that contributed to the accident. The usual tactic, especially for older equipment, was to cite the manufacturer for failure to anticipate new safety technology that may not have been common practice at the time the unit was manufactured. The requirements concerning labeling, alarms, guards, kill-switches, and documentation have changed over times, but these changes can and have been cited as proof of inherent flaws which have often resulted in fees for manufacturers to retrograde changes onto older equipment. So what may have been considered state of the art "safe" at one time may not be considered safe by today's standards.

However, the Cat D9 was designed for general construction involving a work site clear of bystanders; and for those cases where people needed to work close in, general construction protocol generally dictates that there be some spotters who would communicate to the operator. It never was designed for the operations for which the IDF uses for; Cat for instance never designed the armored cage which severely limited the view of the operator. As such, it is very hard to show what defect Cat made in its design.

To add, there is also a bit of jurisdictional issue involved, the "failure" did not occur in the US. As such, no US court really has any authority to act on a liability issue, that if existed, would need to be handled by an Israeli court.

All told together, the legal theories that the Corries are trying to advance are pretty much non-existent. Do I have sympathy towards them for losing a daughter, yes? Do I think the IDF could have done more knowing there were civilians around? Yes. Do I think their legal challenge on Cat is nothing more than a publicity stunt? Yes.