It’s an interesting week for thinking about risk. As it happens, I’m presenting on lethal diseases and “real world evidence” at the annual meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis. Meanwhile, the General Counsel of Praedicat recently published an interesting article on: “What’s the risk in learning about risks?” It’s well worth reading. The article starts out as follows:
“In talking with product stewardship and risk management professionals, we occasionally see a fear of too much knowledge. You may believe that knowing about a specific risk means being held legally responsible if the risk manifests. Unfortunately, that’s true.
Proving liability when a harm results requires showing that the risk was reasonably foreseeable. And known risks are by definition reasonably foreseeable. In product liability cases in particular, a manufacturer has a duty to warn consumers of any risks that it knows about or reasonably should know about.”