## Facts

- Heather R. Oberdorf bought a dog collar through Amazon.com Inc.’s Marketplace from a third-party vendor, The Furry Gang, which filled and shipped the order.
- Oberdorf attached a retractable leash to the collar’s D-ring; when her dog lunged, the D-ring broke and the leash snapped back into her face, striking her glasses and permanently blinding her in one eye.
- Neither Oberdorf nor Amazon could locate The Furry Gang after the incident.
- Amazon’s Marketplace structure gave Amazon meaningful control over the transaction and vendor relationship: Amazon retained the right to accept or reject vendors and listings, required vendors to provide certain product information and warnings, and required vendors to indemnify Amazon.
- Marketplace customers generally could not communicate directly with third-party vendors through Amazon’s system in the same way they could with Amazon itself.
- The Oberdorfs sued Amazon in federal court in Pennsylvania, asserting strict products liability and negligence theories, among other claims.

## Issues

1. Under Pennsylvania law (Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A), can Amazon be treated as a “seller” subject to strict products liability for an allegedly defective product sold by a third-party vendor on Amazon’s Marketplace?
2. Does § 230 of the Communications Decency Act bar the Oberdorfs’ claims, and if so, which ones, when the product listing content was supplied by a third-party vendor?

## Decision

- The district court granted summary judgment to Amazon, concluding Amazon was not a § 402A “seller” under Pennsylvania law and that the CDA barred Oberdorf’s claims.
- The Third Circuit panel vacated the summary judgment in significant part and remanded.
- On strict liability, the panel held Amazon could qualify as a “seller” under Pennsylvania law for a Marketplace transaction and therefore could face § 402A strict liability.
- On CDA § 230, the panel held the statute barred claims that would treat Amazon as the publisher of third-party content (such as failure-to-warn theories tied to the vendor’s product-description content), but did not bar claims based on Amazon’s own role and conduct in the sales process.

## Legal Principles

- Pennsylvania’s strict products liability doctrine under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A may extend beyond entities that take title, depending on functional factors used by Pennsylvania courts to decide whether a defendant is a “seller.”
- In assessing “seller” status under Pennsylvania law, courts consider factors drawn from Pennsylvania precedent (including *Francioni v. Gibsonia Truck Corp.*), such as: (1) whether the defendant is the only accessible member of the marketing chain for redress, (2) whether liability would encourage safer products, (3) whether the defendant is better positioned than consumers to prevent defective products from entering commerce, and (4) whether the defendant can spread the costs of injuries through its business.
- CDA § 230 bars claims that seek to impose liability on an interactive computer service as the publisher or speaker of information provided by another content provider.
- CDA § 230 does not bar claims that are based on the platform’s own conduct as a commercial actor in the transaction, rather than on its publication of third-party statements.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit panel vacated summary judgment for Amazon and remanded, holding that Amazon could be treated as a § 402A “seller” under Pennsylvania law for a defective product sold through its Marketplace and that CDA § 230 barred only those theories that depended on treating Amazon as the publisher of the vendor’s listing content, not theories grounded in Amazon’s own conduct in the sales process.


Oberdorf v. Amazon.com Inc., 930 F.3d 136 (2019)