Legal Safety Standards for Detergents

In the recent case of Brooks v. Temple Sinai, the Court of Appeals of New York affirmed an award of the Workmen's Compensation Board in favor of the claimant, holding that "the evidence sustained a finding of causal relationship between the splashing of detergent in the claimant's eye and the subsequent loss of sight in such eye, notwithstanding a prior history of eye trouble." Two judges protested vigorously on the grounds of overwhelming testimony against causal relationship and questioned the granting of the award on the bare legal sufficiency of other medical opinion. The decision of the Brooks court seems to be a stinging contradiction of the generally accepted principles applicable in the area of products liability. This article will attempt to reconstruct these principles in order that we may not lose sight of, nor stray beyond, that which has become the well ordered test of the manufacturer's liability for injuries sustained from the use of its products.