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.
Mahopac, New York, is a hamlet in the Town of Carmel in Putnam County, New York. An exurb of New York City some 47 miles (76 km) to the south, Mahopac is located on US Route 6 on the County's southern central border with Westchester County. As of the 2000 census, the population was 8,478.