Commercial seller requirement in products liability claims
Commercial seller requirement in products liability claims
Oklahoma’s products liability law is based on Restatement of Torts (Second) §402A. One of the requirements is that the seller be engaged in the business of selling such a product. Liability is not imposed upon occasional sellers who where the sale is not part of a business. Thus, in order to impose §402A liability, the defendant must be a "seller . . . engaged in the business of selling" the allegedly dangerous product. In Spence v. Brown-Minneapolis Tank, Co., 2008 OK CIV APP 90, the court stated that if defendant is not a commercial "seller engaged in the business of selling" the allegedly dangerous product, summary judgment is proper. In this case, intra-company transfer of goods was not a sale, and the defendant was not in the business of selling the doohickies that caused the injury. Thus, summary judgment was proper.
