Arizona Laws 12-687. Reasonable remedial measures; cause of action; punitive damages
If a person or entity conducts a product safety analysis or review and, as a result, takes reasonable remedial measures, the following shall apply to a product liability action brought against the person or entity:
Terms Used In Arizona Laws 12-687
- Action: includes any matter or proceeding in a court, civil or criminal. See Arizona Laws 1-215
- Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
- Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
- Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
- Impeachment: (1) The process of calling something into question, as in "impeaching the testimony of a witness." (2) The constitutional process whereby the House of Representatives may "impeach" (accuse of misconduct) high officers of the federal government for trial in the Senate.
- Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
- Person: includes a corporation, company, partnership, firm, association or society, as well as a natural person. See Arizona Laws 1-215
- Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
- Product: means the individual product or any component part of the product that is the subject of a product liability action. See Arizona Laws 12-681
- Product liability action: means any action brought against a manufacturer or seller of a product for damages for bodily injury, death or property damage caused by or resulting from the manufacture, construction, design, formula, installation, preparation, assembly, testing, packaging, labeling, sale, use or consumption of any product, the failure to warn or protect against a danger or hazard in the use or misuse of the product or the failure to provide proper instructions for the use or consumption of any product. See Arizona Laws 12-681
- Product safety analysis or review: means any investigation, inquiry, review, evaluation or other means by which a person or entity seeks to determine, calculate, predict, estimate, evaluate or report the safety or health effects of the use of any of its products, systems, services or processes. See Arizona Laws 12-681
- Reasonable remedial measures: means actions taken as a result of a product safety analysis or review and intended to improve the safety of products, systems, services or processes or to lessen the likelihood of a safety-related accident. See Arizona Laws 12-681
1. The plaintiff may not use the product safety analysis or review or the reasonable remedial measures to prove negligence, that the product was defective or unreasonably dangerous, or other culpable conduct in a product liability action. However, the plaintiff may use the product safety analysis or review or reasonable remedial measures for other purposes, such as proving feasibility of precautionary measures, impeachment or to controvert any position taken by a defendant in litigation which is inconsistent with the contents of the product safety analysis or review or reasonable remedial measures.
2. This subsection does not prevent a plaintiff in a product liability action from proving negligence, that the product was defective or unreasonably dangerous, or other culpable conduct by other independent evidence or sources, even if such evidence or sources are mentioned or included in the product safety analysis or review or reasonable remedial measures.
3. The plaintiff may not use the product safety analysis or review or the reasonable remedial measures to prove conduct that would subject the person or entity that caused the product safety analysis or review to be performed to punitive or exemplary damages, unless the plaintiff establishes that the analysis or review, or the reasonable remedial measures, were undertaken in bad faith or solely for the purpose of affecting the litigation instituted by the plaintiff.
4. The existence and contents of a product safety analysis or review and any resulting reasonable remedial measures are discoverable and subject to disclosure in a product liability action unless otherwise privileged. However, a portion of a product safety analysis or review may be designated and maintained as confidential and protected from public disclosure pursuant to applicable rules of civil procedures if the portion involves trade secrets as defined in section 44-401, proprietary material or competitively sensitive information. Any dispute as to confidentiality shall be determined by a court following an in camera review of the portion of the analysis or review in question.