Products liability doctrine holds a manufacturer, or other party involved in selling a product, strictly liable when an article, placed into the market with knowledge that it is to be used without inspection for defects, proves to have a defect that causes a personal injury. Consumers who are injured because of a fault with a product that the consumers had no ability to protect themselves against may recover against the manufacturer under a theory of products liability.
Sheffield is a village in Bureau County, Illinois, United States. The population was 946 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Ottawa–Streator Micropolitan Statistical Area. Sheffield was founded by Joseph E. Sheffield and Henry Farnam in 1852. Sheffield and Farnam constructed the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad, and the town site was intended as a coaling station for trains. According to Farnam, he and Sheffield flipped a coin to see for whom the town would be named. A monument to Joseph E. Sheffield, and the Rock Island Railroad stands today in Sheffield's town square.