Pa. Federal Judge Declines to Extend Comment K to Strict Liability Manufacturing Defect Claim

PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania federal judge has allowed a strict liability — manufacturing defect claim to proceed in a feeding tube action, predicting that the state high court would rule that comment k of the Restatement (Second) of Torts does not bar strict liability claims against medical device manufacturers for "manufacturing" defects.

In a Dec. 1 order, Judge Lawrence F. Stengel of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania referred to the state high court’s recent statement that no product is expressly exempt from strict liability and, as such, “the presumption is that strict liability may be …