provided by MEMA
Distributors beware. Liability for counterfeiting, product safety issues, and recalls could fall on you in certain instances. A review of recent related court decisions demonstrates that courts are finding distributors liable for actively participating in the counterfeiting scheme; for being "willfully blind" to the counterfeit nature of the goods; for any harm resulting from the counterfeit goods under a product liability theory; and for recalls or product safety issues resulting from private label (or "will–fit") products.
Distributors are liable if they actively participate in counterfeiting.
It should come as no surprise that a distributor may face liability for its active participation in trademark counterfeiting. "Active participation" can consist of activity ranging from the distributor actually applying labels on the counterfeit goods to a distributor that continues to sell product after receiving notice that it was counterfeit.
The former situation arose in a case involving batteries. The court found that the distributor was liable for trademark infringement when it placed the manufacturer's trademarks on counterfeit batteries and commingled them with genuine products.
While liability for applying labels is foreseeable for any party, including distributors, it was more surprising when a court in North Carolina found a distributor liable for trademark infringement when it continued to sell previously purchased counterfeit software after discovering that the goods were not genuine. In this instance, the fact that the distributor merely failed to act was enough to hold it liable for counterfeiting.
The courts are not alone in challenging the issue. State and local officials, most notably then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who recently resigned as New York governor in a sex-for-money scandal, have also investigated and brought action against distributors for counterfeiting claims. In fact, as a result in investigations conducted by Spitzer, several parties were convicted for the distribution of counterfeit goods.
Distributors are liable if they are "willfully blind" to the counterfeit nature of goods.
Much more surprising is the fact that distributors are now being found liable for the distribution of counterfeit products even if they did not have "actual" knowledge of the nature of the product. Instead courts have placed liability on distributors for counterfeiting if they "should have known" that that product was counterfeit.
This means a distributor could be liable if it failed to inquire further because it was afraid of what the inquiry might reveal. Courts call this failure to inquire "willful blindness" and have found it to constitute the requisite "knowledge" to be liable for counterfeiting.
The courts have examined a variety of evidence to determine whether the distributor has been willfully blind, including the following:
• Whether the purchase of the product was made by distributors from unauthorized dealers or on the secondary market. These purchases indicate willful blindness because they are outside the usual distribution network of the manufacturer.
• Whether the goods were sold without authenticating documentation or with altered documentation.
• Whether the actual quality of the purchased goods differs dramatically from the quality expected by consumers. Purchases of high-end goods with poor workmanship or low quality materials are evidence of willful blindness.
• Whether distributors have purchased goods at prices dramatically below the reasonable or suggested price for the goods. Uncharacteristically low prices for goods are often sufficient to provide evidence of willful blindness.
• Whether billing slips use mysterious or cryptic codes to describe the products purchased. This type of billing places a distributor on notice that unlawful activity may be occurring.
Those points demonstrate that the courts are not hesitating to find a distributor liable if the evidence establishes that it should have known that the product at issue was not legitimate.
In fact, in the first case listed above, a retailer and a distributor were held liable for the sale of counterfeit drugs primarily based on the fact that both parties could have purchased the legitimate product from the manufacturer but instead took the risk and bought the product on the secondary market.
The court actually dismissed the manufacturer from the case (even though it had originally manufactured the counterfeit drug) but found the distributor liable because it was in the best position to prevent the introduction of counterfeit goods into the stream of commerce.
This is an important lesson for distributors as they should be certain that they are protecting themselves from liability and not simply ignoring a possible problem.
Distributors can be liable under products liability theories for harm resulting from counterfeit goods.
Distributors may also be liable under products liability law on theories of negligence and strict liability for personal injuries and property damage when counterfeit products fail.
Counterfeit products present a substantially higher risk than genuine products because counterfeiters are not overly concerned with product safety.
For instance, counterfeiters will often include a label verifying the product safety specifications when the safety mechanism has, in fact, not been included in the counterfeit product. That obviously poses a threat to the safety of customers and can lead to expensive lawsuits and negative publicity for all involved.
Under U.S. law, however, the liability for the product failure does not lie solely with the manufacturer. In fact, distributors are vulnerable to liability under several legal theories.
First, most state laws prescribe that all the parties in the chain of distribution for a product, including distributors, may be strictly liable for personal injuries or property damage resulting from a defective product. Thus, a distributor who has sold a counterfeit good in one of these jurisdictions can be liable--without having to establish any negligence or knowledge of the counterfeit goods--for merely selling the counterfeit product.
State law also maintains that distributors may be strictly liable when they market a product manufactured by another as if it were their own. This occurs either when a distributor may appear to be the actual manufacturer of the product or when the product is marketed in such a way through the use of trade names and trademarks that consumers believe the product was made especially for the distributor.
Thus, if the counterfeit product is marketed with the distributor's name, even if that distributor was not the manufacturer, the distributor may be found liable for the harm resulting from the use of the counterfeit good.
A review of the applicable case law demonstrates that American distributors have also been found liable for a defective part when the foreign manufacturer is located outside of the reach of American courts or is unknown.
Thus, because the U.S. court system may not be able to impose liability on a Chinese manufacturer, for example, it may attach some liability to the U.S. distributor for the harm resulting from the defective product.
Finally, if a distributor is merely acting as a conduit from a manufacturer to a retailer, the distributor may be liable only for known dangers. For example, if a distributor is merely a shipping company that takes the product from Europe to the United States, the distributor would be found liable only if it knew that the products it was carrying were going to cause a danger to U.S. customers.
The danger may be known through "actual knowledge," which means that the shipping company was told of the possible danger, or "constructive knowledge," which means that the distributor had reason to know of the danger due to certain information provided by the manufacturer.
Distributors may be responsible for the recall of a private label or will-fit product even if not involved in its manufacture.
Many distributors mistakenly believe they will not be liable for any injuries resulting from a defective product because they are not involved in the manufacturing process of the product. Consequently, distributors have begun to supply private label or "will-fit" products in order to meet the price demands of their customers.
They often contract with a foreign manufacturer who has previously manufactured the product to meet certain specifications; thus, the distributor relies on this manufacturer and assumes it will meet these same specifications when developing the private label products. Unfortunately, this is not the case as many private label manufacturers have to cut corners in order to meet the pricing demands.
Furthermore, with the recent news of all the unsafe products being imported into the United States, including tires, toys, and dog food, the public has started to demand that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrative (NHTSA) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) take a more active role in protecting the public.
Those agencies have stepped up. In fact, NHTSA has recently begun to point its finger at the importing reseller when attributing liability for a product that does not meet U.S. standards. For example, NHTSA took action against the distributor of a tail light that did not meet the required safety standards. The assessed fines were in the range of $650,000.
A number of states also have started to hold the distributor liable for distribution of unsafe products. Recently, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer requested that the CPSC take action and draft legislation to address the problem. Spitzer has asked that the legislation impose penalties against distributors, as well as the manufacturers, that are selling unsafe products; he also asked that the legislation require the packaging to identify the name of the distributor and manufacturer.
Those actions clearly demonstrate that the focus has shifted to hold accountable all parties involved in the distribution chain of a product.
Editor's Note: MEMA and its market segment associations provide members and the motor vehicle parts supplier industry with the latest news and information regarding industry trends such as direct importing, counterfeiting, and intellectual property rights violations.
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