The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently granted allocatur in the matter of Sullivan v. Werner Co., 253 A.3d 730 (Pa. Super. 2021), in which the Superior Court affirmed the trial court’s exclusion of evidence of government and industry standards at trial in a strict product liability action. In so doing, it noted that while the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Tincher v. Omega Flex, Inc., 104 A3d 328 (Pa. 2014), overruled Pennsylvania’s longstanding separation of negligence and […]

Discovery requests in product liability litigation matters are often a costly and time-consuming black hole. They consume precious resources manufacturers and distributors could use to build up their businesses and, worse, often force exposure of sensitive internal communications and materials. What to do? Well, a seldom-explored legal tool to avoid the expenses and resources demanded by such requests, protecting certain documents from discovery, is the self-critical analysis, or self-evaluative, privilege. This article traces the […]