(a) Compliance by a manufacturer or seller with any federal or state statute or administrative regulation existing at the time a product was manufactured and prescribing standards for design, inspection, testing, manufacture, labeling, warning or instructions for use of a product, shall raise a rebuttable presumption that the product is not in an unreasonably dangerous condition in regard to matters covered by these standards.
Terms Used In Tennessee Code 29-28-104
Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
Manufacturer: means the designer, fabricator, producer, compounder, processor or assembler of any product or its component parts. See Tennessee Code 29-28-102
Seller: includes a retailer, wholesaler, or distributor, and means any individual or entity engaged in the business of selling a product, whether such sale is for resale, or for use or consumption. See Tennessee Code 29-28-102
Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
United States: includes the District of Columbia and the several territories of the United States. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
Unreasonably dangerous: means that a product is dangerous to an extent beyond that which would be contemplated by the ordinary consumer who purchases it, with the ordinary knowledge common to the community as to its characteristics, or that the product because of its dangerous condition would not be put on the market by a reasonably prudent manufacturer or seller, assuming that the manufacturer or seller knew of its dangerous condition. See Tennessee Code 29-28-102
(b) A manufacturer or seller, other than a manufacturer of a drug or device, shall not be liable for exemplary or punitive damages if:
(1) The product alleged to have caused the harm was designed, manufactured, packaged, labeled, sold, or represented in relevant and material respects in accordance with the terms of approval, license or similar determination of a government agency; or(2) The product was in compliance with a statute of the state or the United States, or a standard, rule, regulation, order, or other action of a government agency pursuant to statutory authority, when such statute or agency action is relevant to the event or risk allegedly causing the harm and the product was in compliance at the time the product left the control of the manufacturer or seller.(c) Subsection (b) shall not apply if the claimant establishes that the manufacturer or seller:
(1) At any time before the event that allegedly caused the harm, sold the product after the effective date of an order of a government agency that ordered the removal of the product from the market or withdrew the agency’s approval of the product; or(2) In violation of applicable regulations, withheld or misrepresented to the government agency information material to the approval and such information is relevant to the harm which the claimant allegedly suffered.(d) The award of punitive or exemplary damages against a manufacturer of a drug or device shall be governed by § 29-39-104.
