Narcissistic Moment

I am grateful to Justice Thomas G. Saylor of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, who, dissenting a few months ago, in a welcome footnote, plucked from obscurity a line of mine that I like, but that no other writer had ever cited. Here it is:

Dean Wade's reluctance to put a full panoply of risk-utility factors before lay jurors may well be justified, but the reality is that, in design cases, jurors will be charged with the duty to make an informed evaluation concerning design reasonableness, and the trial courts will be responsible to provide the jurors sufficient guidance to accomplish this task. Cf. George W. Conk, Compared to What? Instructing the Jury on Product Defect under the Products Liability Act and the Restatement (Third) of Torts, 30 SETON HALL L. REV. 273, 277 (1999):

"The quality of decisions will be better served if jury instructions invite the presentation of evidence and spur arguments that evoke the full vibrancy of the moment of design for the jury (and the court it assists). The clamor of the competing considerations in the good and prudent designer's mind should be heard in the courtroom and in the jury room.".

Bugosh v. I.U. N. Am., Inc., 971 A.2d 1228, 1248 (Pa. 2009)

Images: Justice Saylor, me