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.
Ghent is an unincorporated community in Raleigh County in the U.S. state of West Virginia. On January 30, 2007, the Flat Top Little General Store on U.S. Route 19 exploded, killing four people and injuring several others, near the Winterplace Ski Resort.