The risk-utility test weighs factors including the seriousness and likelihood of harm, the availability and cost of a safer design, the effect of that design on utility and price, and the user's ability to avoid the danger.
In most jurisdictions applying it, the plaintiff must identify a reasonable alternative design that was economically and technologically feasible.
Alternative Names:
Risk-Benefit Test, Risk-Utility Balancing
Why it Matters?
This is the dominant design defect framework, and the alternative design requirement is where most cases are won or lost. A plaintiff expert who criticizes a design without demonstrating a feasible safer alternative that would have prevented this injury is vulnerable at both the Daubert stage and on summary judgment. Testing the alternative, rather than debating the existing design, is the productive line of attack.
Frequently Confused with
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
What factors does the risk-utility test weigh?
Must the plaintiff prove an alternative design?
