"Bryant Walker Smith, assistant professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law and (by courtesy) the School of Engineering, and Affiliate Scholar, Center of Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, argues that AVs and many other products are now connected to their manufacturers in ways that permit the manufacturers to maintain "information, access and control over the products, product users and product uses" in ways that can "expand the legal obligations and liabilities of automotive companies toward people harmed by their products."
In his Georgetown Law Journal article, "Proximity-Driven Liability," Smith outlines the myriad legal issues surrounding the increased duties of manufacturers under a thesis of "proximity," (Smith, Bryant Walker. "Proximity-Driven Liability." Georgetown Law Journal 102, no. 6 (2014): 1777-1819). He argues that the rise in proximity correspondingly increases the classes of victims that will be foreseeable. This foreseeability will expand relational duty, under the logic that manufacturers, who can or should know their products, should anticipate more product-related uses, misuses and harms. Smith's well-formed argument posits that product information, combined with access to its product, users and use, can create an ongoing manufacturer obligation to inform consumers of dangers associated with that product, and may create an ongoing obligation for manufacturers to update or restrict their products' related uses."
- Date Published:11/18/2016
- Original Publication:The Legal Intelligencer