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.
Clarence is a village in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 516 at the 2000 census. It is located some seven miles east of the parish seat of Natchitoches and is part of the Natchitoches Micropolitan Statistical Area. Still owned by descendants of its founders, Grayson Barbeque, with a smokehouse, is the best known business in Clarence. It is located on U.S. Highway 71 near the intersection with U.S. Highway 84, which leads to Winnfield. Clarence Baptist Church was founded by thirty charter members in 1945, but its sanctuary on Louisiana Highway 6 dates to the pre-World War I era, having been the chapel of the former Camp Claiborne, a United States Army facility near Alexandria in Rapides Parish. The chapel was physically moved to Clarence in 1948, dedicated in 1949, bricked during the 1950s, and still serves as a worship center, having undergone complete remodeling in 2002. The balcony, now a storage area, was used by African American troops who were segregated in worship from white soldiers who used the pews of the lower tier. The church has a baptistry and maintains a parsonage across the highway. Since 2003, the pastor has been the Reverend Harry Bamburg, the 21st man to hold the position. Among previous pastors is William A. Poe (born 1926), formerly an historian with Northwestern State University in Natchitoches who has retired to his hometown of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.