Notre Dame Law Review Volume 49 | Issue 1 Article 10 10-1-1973 Product Liability and the English Implied Terms Bill: Transatlantic Variations on a Theme Robert J. Wittebort Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Robert J. Wittebort, Product Liability and the English Implied Terms Bill: Transatlantic Variations on a Theme, 49 Notre Dame L. Rev. 185 (1973). Available at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr/vol49/iss1/10 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by NDLScholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Notre Dame Law Review by an authorized administrator of NDLScholarship. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. PRODUCT LIABILITY AND THE ENGLISH IMPLIED TERMS BILL: TRANSATLANTIC VARIATIONS ON A THEME I. Introduction The action of breach of warranty arose under the general category of Case for deceit without scienter.' Gradually, as liability was extended to encompass parties to express agreements who performed their undertakings badly, the form ,of Assumpsit emerged as distinct from Case. Assumpsit offered distinct proce- dural advantages. Providing an express agreement existed, it allowed enforce- ment of parol contracts and avoided the wager of law, which could be invoked in an action on Debt. After proof of an express promise to pay the contractual "debt" was made unnecessary, the action of Indebitatus Assumpsit supplanted Debt as the vehicle for enforcement of contracts; and, a fortiori, it supplanted Debt as the chief means of recovering for breach of warranty. 2 The delictual character of warranty theory, however, had never been entirely forgotten,3 and was to reappear during the course of the American struggle with the privity doctrine.