PUERTO RICO Law and Practice Contributed by: Mónica Ramos-Benítez and Roberto A. Cámara-Fuertes, Ferraiuoli LLC
te v Cortés Express , 101 DPR 31, 36 (1973). The doc - trine, if applicable, could serve to reduce any damages awarded due to a product safety claim that occurred after a voluntary safety or recall notice. However, note that DACo Regulation No 7319 requires that whenever a United States or Puerto Rico agency orders a recall from the market of a product, “… the company selling the product in Puerto Rico shall notify the consuming public within 72 hours of learning of the circumstances that caused or would cause the product to be recalled from the market”. See Regula - tion 7319, Rule 7 at p. 10. The company selling the product in Puerto Rico shall use “the most effective means of communication available” to “provide broad public notice, in Spanish, of the recall of the product in question from the market”. Id. The communication must unequivocally state “all that is essential, neces - sary, and convenient” for consumers to know about the recall, including the risks posed by the product and the economic aspects of the recall. These require - ments also apply where a company elects to under - Other than the recall-triggered duty to notify the public described in 1.3 Obligations to Commence Correc- tive Action , Puerto Rico’s consumer-protection frame - work does not impose a general duty to report product safety issues to DACo or another authority. 1.5 Penalties for Breach of Product Safety Obligations In addition to any civil liability related to any alleged harm caused by product safety complaints, DACo has broad powers to investigate, prosecute, fine, test, and force corrective action regarding alleged safety issues (either complained about or voluntarily admitted by a manufacturer or designer of a product) and violations to Regulation No 7319, such as: • Rule 7 (A) at p. 10 (notice of market recall of prod - ucts); • Rule 7 (B) at p. 11 (mandatory safety testing com - manded by DACo and paid by a firm that sells any products in Puerto Rico); take a voluntary recall of its products. 1.4 Obligations to Notify Regulatory Authorities
• Rule 7 (C) at p. 11 (requiring any business that sells products in Puerto Rico to provide samples of products); and • Rule 8 at p. 12 (exceptions to regulations regarding labelling in Spanish). DACo is authorised to impose fines of up to USD10,000 per infraction and may factor into the fine calculation the volume of business and/or small-business sta - tus. Id., Rule 11 at p. 19. DACo Regulation No 9377, titled “Regulation for the Imposition of Administrative Fines”, contains further details and parameters for the imposition of administrative fines. Although there is no publicly available information on current companies being prosecuted or fined for breaching Regulation No 7319, there is a notable recall notice handled by the Department related to the DeltaMaxx battery distributed locally by Power Solar, LLC. Another example of DACo commercial “raids” took place from 14 to 15 April 2025 as part of a campaign to educate the consumer as to the scope and enforcement powers of the Department. Most of the referenced violations regarding product quality or safety were related to expiration dates on food items. It is worth noting that the two cases cited in 1.2 Regu- latory Authorities for Product Safety from the Puerto Rico Court of Appeals involve fines levied for expired food items. 2. Product Liability 2.1 Product Liability Causes of Action and Sources of Law Puerto Rico law recognises the following main causes of action for product liability. Negligence Negligence-based claims are brought under Article 1536 of the Civil Code of 2020 (formerly Article 1802 of the Civil Code of 1930), which provides that “any per - son who, through fault or negligence causes damage to another, is obligated to repair it”. Pre-2020 juris - prudence under former Article 1802 remains instruc - tive, as courts apply Article 1802 case law to Article 1536. Distinct from strict liability claims, negligence claims focus on the defendant’s conduct: whether
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