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.
Scotland, in St. Mary's County, Maryland, is a small town near the southernmost end of the state, on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. There is a boys' summer camp, operated by a police department. Nearby are the tiny town of Ridge and Point Lookout beach, the former site of a Civil War prison camp.