PUERTO RICO Law and Practice Contributed by: Mónica Ramos-Benítez and Roberto A. Cámara-Fuertes, Ferraiuoli LLC
the defendant breached a duty of care it owed to the plaintiff. The elements of a negligence claim are: • a duty of care owed by the defendant; • a breach of that duty of care by the defendant’s act or omission; • damages suffered by the plaintiff; and • causal nexus (adequate or proximate causation) between the defendant’s breach of duty and the plaintiff’s damages. In the product liability context, the defendants owe a duty of reasonable care in the design and manufac - turing of the product and in the provision of adequate warnings and instructions. However, strict liability pro - vides the principal vehicle for personal injury claims. Article 1538 of the Civil Code of 2020 now authorises the imposition of punitive damages not to exceed the amount of the actual damages caused, in cases where the defendant’s act or omission constitutes a criminal offence, is carried out fraudulently or with gross disre - gard for life, safety or property of the plaintiff. Strict Liability Puerto Rico is principally a civil law jurisdiction, but in the realm of torts, it has followed and adopted many common law doctrines, particularly in the product liability area. Because there is a new Civil Code of 2020 that codified strict product liability for the first time, a brief overview of the development of Puerto Rico’s product liability doctrine prior to the adoption of the Civil Code of 2020 is necessary to understand the current product liability landscape. Prior to the adoption of the Civil Code of 2020, prod - uct liability stemmed from Puerto Rico’s general tort statute, Article 1802 of the Civil Code of 1930. In 1969, the PR Supreme Court adopted strict product liability following California’s landmark case of Greenman v Yuba Power Products , Inc ., 377 P.2d 897 (Cal. 1963) and general principles of the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A. See Mendoza v Cervecería Corona , 97 D.P.R. 499 (1969). Over time, Puerto Rico’s juris - prudence organised strict liability around three defect types: manufacturing, design, and failure to warn or provide adequate instructions.
Foundational cases after the 1969 decision in Men- doza extended and shaped the doctrine following principally California case law, including the adoption of California’s dual-path approach for design defects established in Barker v Lull Engineering Co ., Inc ., 573 P.2d 443 (1978) (see Rivera Santana v Super . Pkg ., Inc . et al ., 132 DPR 115 (1992)), and general princi - ples of the Restatement (Second) of Torts §402A, with the crucial exception that the product defect did not have to be “unreasonably dangerous” as §402A of the Restatement provided (see Montero Saldaña v Amer . Motors Corp ., 07 DPR 452 (1978)). By 2016, the PR Supreme Court synthesised the elements for strict liability under Puerto Rico law as requiring the plaintiff to prove: (i) a defect (manufac - turing, design, or warnings/instructions); (ii) existing when the product left the defendant’s control; (iii) the defendant engaged in the business of manufactur - ing, selling or distributing the product; (iv) the defect proximately caused the plaintiff’s injury; and (v) the plaintiff’s use of the product was reasonable and fore - seeable. See Rodríguez Méndez v Laser Eye , 195 DPR 769, 780-784 (2016) (summarising doctrinal develop - ment and reaffirming core elements of strict liability in Puerto Rico). On 28 November 2020, the Civil Code of 2020 came into effect, and it now codifies in Articles 1542-1544 the core contours of Puerto Rico’s strict product liabil - ity jurisprudence, though with certain modifications. Though the PR Supreme Court has yet to interpret the new strict product liability articles adopted in the Civil Code of 2020, it is presumed that the legisla - ture adopted the substantive doctrine as it had been developed by Puerto Rico’s jurisprudence prior to its adoption. Pursuant to Article 1542 of the Civil Code of 2020, PR Stat. Ann., Tit. 31 §10807, any person that sells in the flow of commerce a product that by its design or man - ufacturing is unreasonably dangerous shall be liable for the damages caused by said product regardless of fault or negligence. Of note, strict liability is now trig - gered by a product that is “unreasonably dangerous” as opposed to a product that is “defective”. Nonethe - less, the focus of strict liability claims remains on the
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