Boos

I.

BACKGROUND

To supply context for this appeal, we begin with a brief introduction to the topic of strict products liability for manufacturing and design defects. A. Strict Liability Under California law, a manufacturer is strictly liable in tort if a defect in the manufacture or design of its product is a substantial factor in causing harm to a plaintiff while the product is being used in a reasonably foreseeable way. (Soule v. General Motors (1994) 8 Cal.4th 548, 560; Johnson v. Standard Brands Paint Co. (1969) 274 Cal.App.2d 331, 337; Demara v. The Raymond Corp. (2017) 13 Cal.App.5th 545, 554 (Demara).) “A manufacturing defect exists when an item is produced in a substandard condition” (McCabe v. American Honda Motor Co. (2002) 100 Cal.App.4th 1111, 1120 (McCabe) [italics added]), such as, for example, when the product “differs from the manufacturer’s intended result or from other ostensibly identical units of the same product line.” (Barker v. Lull Engineering Co. (1978) 20 Cal.3d 413, 429 (Barker).) An example of such a defect is “the one soda bottle in ten thousand that explodes without explanation.” (Id., at p. 428.) “A design defect, in contrast, exists when the…