Case Notes

The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts began by repeating the rule that a plaintiff in a product liability action must show that the defendant manufactured or sold the product that injured him. Here, no reasonable jury could find the defendant sold the machine because: 1) the defendant's owner testified he did not sell the machine to plaintiff's employer; 2) no records established such a sale; 3) the defendant's owner testified that his company put stickers on the machines it sold and no such sticker was present; and 4) the plaintiff's employer testified that he bought his equipment from two middlemen, but one of them denied buying from the distributor and there was no evidence as to where the other obtained his machines. Even if the jury discredited some of this testimony, there was no affirmative evidence ' either direct or circumstantial ' that the machine was sold by the defendant. While the plaintiff argued tthat he jury could infer the sale because his employer purchased replacement parts from the defendant, there was no evidence as to why the employer did that or that it generally bought replacement parts from the same company that had originally supplied the machine. ' David R. Geiger, Catherine C. Deneke, Foley Hoag LLP.