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.
Ford City is a borough in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, United States, 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Pittsburgh along the east bank of the Allegheny River and 4 miles south of Kittanning, the county seat. It was founded in 1887 as a company town by the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company as the site for its Works No. 3 glass factory. The town was named in honor of the company founder, John Baptiste Ford (1811–1903). The factory employed as many as 5,000 workers in its heyday. PPG shut down its Ford City operations in the 1990s. The once largest employer in Armstrong County, Eljer Plumbing, shut down its Ford City plant in 2008. Eljer Plumbing was once one of the largest and most modern plants of its type in the world. The plant shut down after Eljer merged with Crane Plumbing and American Standard of Americas to form American Standard Brands; some or all of these companies were majority owned by Sun Capital Partners. In 1900, 2,870 people resided in Ford City borough proper; in 1910, 4,850 people lived there; in 1930, 6,127; and, in 1940, 5,795. The population was 3,451 at the 2000 census.