Pennsylvania recognizes the gist of the action doctrine in the realm of contract law. This claims-limiting rule ensures that a breach of contract case is focused on the terms of an agreement and the parties’ performance of their contractual obligations. Claims based in tort, such as misrepresentation or fraud, are routinely dismissed and the cause of action limited to one for breach of contract.
In products liability cases, however, the claims asserted all too often go beyond a defendant’s design, manufacture and distribution of an allegedly defective product. Moreover, parties uninvolved in the design, manufacture and distribution of a product find themselves sued in products liability cases. As part of the ongoing modernization of Pennsylvania products liability law called for by our Supreme Court in Tincher v. Omega Flex, Pennsylvania courts should import the gist of the action doctrine into our products liability jurisprudence to ensure that the claims asserted in a products liability case are limited to those bearing on the design, manufacture, and distribution of the product at issue and that the only parties sued on these claims are the manufacturer and distributor of that product.
Pennsylvania’s Gist of the Action Doctrine
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