Amazon Product Defect Liability Question Sent to Minnesota Court

A federal appeals court asked the Minnesota Supreme Court to answer whether an e-commerce company that allows third-parties to sell defective products through its platform should be liable for the harm in a dispute over a battery sold through Amazon.com Inc.

“To certify, or not to certify, that is the question,” the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit said Monday. “We need to know whether, under Minnesota law, Amazon is strictly liable for a defective product it offered, stored, and shipped, even though someone else was the seller,” Judge David R. Stras wrote.

The panel certified a question ...