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.
Matewan is a town in Mingo County, West Virginia, USA at the confluence of the Tug Fork River and Mate Creek. The population was 498 at the 2000 census. The Norfolk Southern Railway's Pocahontas District runs through town.