In Wall Street Journal Op-ed, Professors Edward Janger and Aaron Twerski Argue Amazon Be Held to Account

In a point/counterpoint essay in the Wall Street Journal, Professors Edward Janger and Aaron Twerski argued the position that Amazon, one of the world’s largest retailers, should be help accountable for injuries caused by products sold by third-party vendors on its platform, at least in cases where the third party cannot be found or is insolvent.

Although Amazon claimed it simply “connects buyers and sellers,” Janger and Twerski pointed to “Amazon’s leverage over its relationships with its suppliers” as reason that it should be held to account. They posited that a similar brick-and-mortar store would be held liable even despite “formal lack of ownership.”

“Just because Amazon has transformed the way in which consumers buy doesn’t mean that it should be excused from liability that is generally borne by other sellers of faulty products,” they wrote.

Janger, the David M. Barse Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Scholarship, is co-director of the Law School’s Center for the Study of Business Law & Regulation. He teaches and writes in the areas of bankruptcy law, commercial law, consumer credit, and data privacy. He is the past chair of the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Commercial and Consumer Law, and a member of the American College of Bankruptcy, the International Insolvency Institute and the American Law Institute. He has also served as consultant to the Business Bankruptcy Subcommittee of the Federal Bankruptcy Rules Advisory Committee.

Twerski, the Irwin and Jill Cohen Professor of Law, is one of the preeminent authorities in the areas of products liability and tort law, having literally “written the book” on the subject. He was co-reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law (Third) Torts: Products Liability, and is the author of the leading textbook Products Liability: Problems and Process. He also was appointed special master in the federal 9/11 cases dealing with the injuries claimed by those involved in the clean-up of the World Trade Center site.

Read the essay here.