Effects of product liability laws on small business: An Introduction to international exposure through a comparison of U.S. and Canadian law

The law of strict liability was originally developed in the US and has long been considered a severe impediment to product development that has placed US businesses at a competitive disadvantage with their international counterparts. Although historically this may have been true, the current trend throughout the industrialized nations is to move toward US-style strict liability methods of consumer recovery. The diminishing differences between the product liability laws of the countries of the developed world can be graphically demonstrated by comparing the requirements for recovery in the US and Canada. The real protection for the small business in Canada and other developed economies seems to lie in the limitations on damages and in intangible social factors that may discourage litigation.