20-9-10. Product's manufacturer, assembler, or seller immune from strict liability for injury caused by certain alterations or modifications.

No manufacturer, assembler, or seller of a product may be held liable for damages for personal injury, death, or property damage sustained by reason of the doctrine of strict liability in tort based on a defect in a product, or failure to warn or protect against a danger or hazard in the use or misuse of such a product, or failure to properly instruct in the use or misuse of such product, where a proximate cause of the injury, death, or damage was an alteration or modification of such product made under all of the following circumstances:

(1)    The alteration or modification was made subsequent to the manufacture, assembly, or sale of the product;

(2)    The alteration or modification altered or modified the purpose, use, function, design, or manner of use of the product from that originally designed, tested, or intended by the manufacturer, assembler, or seller; and

(3)    It was not foreseeable by the manufacturer, assembler, or seller of the product that the alteration or modification would be made, and, if made, that it would render the product unsafe.

Source: SL 1979, ch 155, § 1.

20-9-10.1. State of the art defense in product liability actions.

In any product liability action based upon negligence or strict liability, whether the design, manufacture, inspection, testing, packaging, warning, or labeling was in conformity with the generally recognized and prevailing state of the art existing at the time the specific product involved was first sold to any person not engaged in the business of selling such a product, may be considered in determining the standard of care, whether the standard of care was breached or whether the product was in a defective condition or unreasonably dangerous to the user.

Source: SL 1995, ch 117.