Answer Question
What does the new law on Amazon mean for third party sellers?
A federal court just ruled that Amazon can now be found liable for product liability for items sold by third party sellers on its marketplace:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-liability-idUSKCN1TY2HM
Here's a relevant quote from the relevant case:
Oberdorf sued Amazon in 2016 in a federal court in Pennsylvania, saying she was blinded in one eye when a retractable dog leash she bought through the company’s website from a third-party vendor snapped and recoiled, hitting her in the face. The Furry Gang shipped the leash directly to Oberdorf from Nevada. Neither Oberdorf nor Amazon has been able to locate any representative of the Furry Gang, which has not been active on Amazon’s site since 2016, according to court papers. In Wednesday’s opinion, Circuit Judge Jane Richards Roth, writing for a 2-1 majority of a three-judge panel, said Amazon may be liable in part because its business model “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.”So is this good or bad for third party sellers on Amazon?
