Latest Case: Estabrook v. Mazak Corp (Products Liability)

Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: The Supreme Court Considers Whether an Independent Agency with a Single Director Who Can Be Removed Only “For Cause” is Constitutional

RODGER CITRON

Rodger Citron, Associate Dean for Research & Scholarship and Professor of Law at Touro Law, comments on a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument this week that presents the question whether an independent agency with a single director who can be removed only “for cause” violates the separation of powers principle enshrined in the Constitution. Citron notes that the decision to hear the case is unusual in that there is no conflict among the federal appeals courts, but he points out that that the government’s support of the cert. petition and then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s dissent on the issue when it came before the D.C. Circuit likely helped the present case come before the Court.

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Estabrook v. Mazak Corp

Docket: 19S-CQ-590

Opinion Date: March 2, 2020

Judge: Slaughter

Areas of Law: Products Liability

The Supreme Court answered in the negative a question certified from the federal district court and held that Ind. Code 34-20-3-1(b) is a statute of repose that cannot be extended by a manufacturer's post-delivery repair, refurbishment, or reconstruction of a disputed product. Plaintiff was injured while working on a machine owned by his employer, who purchased the machine from Defendant eleven years before Plaintiff's injury. Plaintiff filed a product-liability suit against Defendant in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana based on the court's diversity jurisdiction. Both parties agreed that strict application of the Indiana Products Liability Act's ten-year statute of repose would bar Plaintiff's suit but acknowledged a judicially-created exception to the statute of repose according to which rebuilding or reconditioning a product might create a "new product" restarting the statutory clock. The Supreme Court accepted the federal district court's certified question and answered it in the negative, holding that the Act's statute of repose contains no exception for a product's repair, refurbishment, or reconstruction.