Liability of the Product Manufacturer under Section 84: The Five Bases and Strict Liability

Section 84 is the heart of Chapter VI: the product manufacturer's liability, stated as five bases, manufacturing defect, design defect, specification deviation, warranty non-conformity, and inadequate instructions or warnings, capped by the subsection that makes the liability strict: proof that the manufacturer was not negligent and not fraudulent is no defence. This note takes the five bases one by one, explains the strict-liability rule and its limits, and shows how a Section 84 case is proved.

1. The Provision

2. The Five Bases

2.1 Manufacturing defect

The one bad unit: the product departs from its own intended design, the batch's other units are sound, this one left the line flawed, the casting with the air pocket, the contaminated vial, the weld that never took. Proof compares the unit with its design and its siblings, and the flaw's presence at delivery is the crux; the laboratory analysis of Section 38 is the working instrument, and the very occurrence of a failure that sound units do not suffer carries evidentiary weight.

2.2 Design defect

The whole line is bad: the product performed exactly as designed, and the design itself makes it unreasonably dangerous, the geyser without a pressure release, the vehicle that rolls at foreseeable speeds, the toy sized to choke. Design cases are the regime's heaviest: they indict every unit sold, and proof runs on expert evidence of feasible safer design and the risk-utility of the choice made. The 2019 Act states the basis without codifying a test, leaving the Commissions to the comparative learning, risk versus utility, consumer expectation, as persuasive guides.

2.3 Deviation from manufacturing specifications

The product departs from the manufacturer's own declared standard: the specification promised a grade of steel, a tolerance, a composition, and the product delivered less. The clause spares the complainant design argument, the maker's own specification is the yardstick, and deviation from it, shown by testing, completes the basis.

2.4 Non-conformity with express warranty

The product fails what was expressly promised, in the warranty card, the label, the brochure, the advertisement that became the deal's terms: shatterproof glass that shattered, the 'kills 99.9 per cent' that did not. Read with Section 84(2), the basis is at its most strict: the manufacturer answers for the promise's failure even where the warranty was made without negligence or fraud, honest belief in the claim is irrelevant once harm flows from its failure.

2.5 Inadequate instructions and warnings

The product's danger was left unexplained: no adequate instructions of correct usage to prevent harm, or no warning of improper or incorrect usage, the pesticide without handling directions, the medicine without contraindications, the appliance silent about its one fatal misuse. Adequacy is judged by the ordinary user, prominence, language, and the danger's gravity all counting; and this is the basis Section 87 trims: no duty to warn of obvious or commonly known dangers, and the workplace, component and expert-channel carve-outs shift the warning's proper audience.

3. Strict Liability and How a Case Is Proved

• The rule: Section 84(2) forecloses the no-negligence defence, the complainant proves defect, harm and causation, never the manufacturer's state of mind or care; the risk of a defective product lies on the enterprise that profits from it.
• Who answers as manufacturer: the Section 2(36) sweep, maker of the whole or of parts, assembler, the brand owner who puts his mark on another's product, the designer and the re-manufacturer, so both the component maker and the assembler stand under Section 84 for their respective defects.
• The defences that remain: strictness is not absolution: causation may fail (misuse, alteration, an intervening cause), the Section 87 exceptions may apply to warning claims, and the harm may fall outside Section 2(22), the product's own destruction and commercial loss never ground the action.
• Proof in practice: preserve the product and the scene; plead the clause (each basis has its own proof shape); use the Section 38 laboratory for manufacturing and specification cases and expert opinion for design and warning cases; and document the harm head by head for the compensation the action exists to deliver.

4. Related Topics and Provisions

• Product liability complete notes (Topic 52): the chapter end to end
• The product liability action (Topic 54): the elements in the complaint
• Liability of the service provider (Topic 56): the companion theory
• Product manufacturer defined (Topic 21): who stands under this section