## Facts

- 114 claimants received blood transfusions or blood products supplied through public blood-transfusion services in England and Wales between March 1988 and September 1991.
- A portion of donated blood was infected with hepatitis C (HCV), and the claimants contracted HCV after transfusion; several claimants were children treated for leukemia.
- During the period, transfusion-related non-A, non-B hepatitis risks were known and HCV was identified in 1988, but routine UK screening for HCV was not implemented until September 1, 1991.
- Claimants sued under the Consumer Protection Act 1987, implementing the EU Product Liability Directive, alleging strict liability for a defective product.
- Defendants argued HCV infection was unavoidable given contemporaneous scientific limits, and that blood carried inherent infection risk that should shape what safety the public was entitled to expect.

## Issues

1. Whether HCV-infected blood supplied for transfusion was a “defective” product because it failed to provide the safety persons were entitled to expect under Article 6 of the Directive and the Consumer Protection Act 1987.
2. Whether unavoidability, impracticability, cost of precautions, and the social utility of transfusion services were “circumstances” that could reduce the safety level persons were entitled to expect.
3. Whether the “development risks” defense applied because the state of scientific and technical knowledge at the time could not have discovered the defect.
4. Whether blood for transfusion (and by analogy organs for transplantation) qualifies as a “product” capable of being defective under the Act.

## Decision

- Judgment for the claimants; HCV-infected blood supplied on and after March 1, 1988 was held defective under the Consumer Protection Act 1987 and the Directive.
- The court treated infected blood units as “non-standard” products: they deviated from the intended and expected condition of transfusion blood.
- Unavoidability of risk, cost, and service-utility considerations were not part of the defect inquiry and did not lower the safety the public was entitled to expect.
- The development risks defense was rejected on the facts; the state of scientific and technical knowledge during the relevant period was sufficient to discover the defect, and earlier testing implementation was feasible.
- Blood was a “product” (a natural substance within the statutory definition) and therefore could be defective for strict-liability purposes.

## Legal Principles

- Under strict product liability, “defect” is assessed by the safety persons are entitled to expect, judged objectively and focused on the product supplied rather than producer fault.
- For non-standard products, consumer expectations may treat contaminated units as defective even when the product category carries some background risk.
- The ability to prevent harm, resource constraints, and cost-benefit considerations do not generally reduce the expected safety level at the defect stage; such considerations are addressed, if at all, through statutory defenses.
- The development risks defense is construed narrowly and requires proof that scientific and technical knowledge at the time could not have discovered the defect.
- Natural substances supplied for medical use, including transfusion blood, fall within product-liability regimes and may generate strict liability when contaminated.

## Conclusion

The court imposed strict liability for HCV-infected transfusion blood, holding that recipients were entitled to expect blood free from HCV and that neither scientific difficulty nor cost considerations reduced that expectation; the statutory development risks defense was not established, and blood was treated as a product capable of being defective.


A v. Nat’l Blood Auth., (Q.B.) [2001] 3 All E.R. 289