This month, the Supreme Court of Texas decided the case of Emerson v. Johnson, which was argued in front of the court in October. While the case is about a horrific workplace accident, at its core this case is about design.

A maker of electric terminals used to make their terminal a certain way. Then, for over a decade, they made two electrical terminals that function in the exact same way and cost them the same amount. An affiliated company of the manufacturer of the electrical terminal decided to use the older product in manufacturing new air conditioning compressors.

Johnson, a HVAC (heating/ventilation/air conditioning) technician with many years of experience bought and installed one of the compressors that had the old terminal design. While he was extremely experienced, there was no way that he could know that the new compressor had what the Supreme Court of Texas and lower courts described as "outdated technology."