In 1973, New York for the first time recognized the tort of strict products liability in design defect cases.[1]�
Since then, the New York Court of Appeals has, on multiple occasions, articulated a two-prong test to be applied in evaluating defectiveness for strict liability purposes. One prong is the familiar “risk/utility” analysis. The risk/utility test has become so common that New York is often referred to as a “risk/utility jurisdiction”[2]� such that, one would think, a balancing of risk versus utility is all that is required to establish a defectively designed product. The caselaw holds otherwise.
