Amazon’s platform not only sells products that the company stocks in its own warehouses, but they are also home to third-party retailers who want to leverage Amazon’s reach and customer base to sell their products. However, if you buy a defective product from a third-party retailer from Amazon, the question is, who should be held liable?
Thanks to a new ruling made by a federal appeals court, it seems that Amazon could potentially be held liable for defective products sold by third-party sellers on its platform. This is rather interesting because prior to this ruling, several other courts including two other federal appeals courts have actually ruled that Amazon cannot be held liable, but this decision by the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia is saying otherwise.
As to why this particular court felt that Amazon should be held liable, according to Circuit Judge Jane Richards Roth, this is because by using Amazon’s platform to sell their products, it “enables third-party vendors to conceal themselves from the customer, leaving customers injured by defective products with no direct recourse to the third-party vendor.”
This is based on a lawsuit filed back in 2016, where a woman bought a retractable dog leash from a third-party retailer through Amazon’s website, where the leash snapped back and blinded the customer in one eye.
Filed in . Read more about Amazon and Legal. Source: venturebeat