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22 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 779 (1988)
Products Liability and Home-Exercise Equipment: A Failure to Warn and Instruct May be Hazardous to Your Health

handle is hein.journals/sufflr22 and id is 799 raw text is: PRODUCTS LIABILITY AND HOME-EXERCISE EQUIPMENT: A FAILURE TO WARN AND INSTRUCT MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH The recent increase in injuries to users of home-exercise equipment has brought new meaning to the fitness rallying cry of no pain, no gain. Victims sustaining personal injuries from use of home-exercise machines may find the developing theory offailure to warn and instruct an effective mechanism for seeking recovery from manufacturers offitness equipment. This Note reviews the current state of products liability law and explores some of the elements of a failure to warn theory of recovery when applied to three common types of claims arising from home-exercise equipment: inadequate instructions, failure to warn of hazards in use or misuse, and failure to warn of design defects. I. INTRODUCTION In recent years, Americans obsessed with the pursuit of good health and the body beautiful are increasingly shaping up and working out, not only in health spas and gyms, but also in the privacy of their own homes.' The $1.2 billion home-exercise industry offers consumers a wide variety of devices and machines for home use.2 Unfortunately, the 1. See Home Exercise Equipment, CONSUMER REP., Aug. 1985, at 448, 448 (ten million people work out regularly with home-exercise equipment); see also, Shaw, Home-Exercise Equipment, TRIAL, June 1987, at 11, 12 (discussing fitness craze and increased use of home- exercise equipment). The growth of the home-exercise industry is attributed in large part to the changing lifestyles of consumers who find health spas too crowded, inconvenient, or time- consuming. See Home-Exercise Equipment, CONSUMER REP., Aug. 1985, at 448, 448 (loca- tion of work-outs changing from spas and outdoor activity to home). Exercising at home is also the solution for those who are not in the best physical condition and have no experience with equipment use, those who may be embarrassed to exercise in front of others, as well as for those consumers who believe that home-exercise machines will somehow produce weight loss results faster and easier than conventional exercise. See Brody, Personal Health, N.Y. Times, Nov. 28, 1984 at C12, C13 (home exercise less embarrassing and eliminates problems of out- door activity such as muggings, dog bites, accidents); Burrough, Allure of Home-Exercise De- vices Sparks Big Sales - and Many Injuries, Wall St. J., Apr. 18, 1985, at 33 (consumers fail to understand that work-out machines won't sweat for them). 2. See Burrough, supra note 1, at 33 (describing wide variety of available home-exercise products); Brody, supra note 1, at C12, C13 (consumers spend thousands of dollars on com- plex fitness machines including electric treadmills, complete multi-purpose gyms, exercise bi- cycles, mechanical rowing machines). While many health experts agree that home-exercise equipment will not provide better physical conditioning than conventional forms of exercise such as walking, jogging, swimming, or bicycling, the flourishing home-exercise industry seems to have convinced consumers that their products will produce superior results with less effort. See Burrough, supra note 1, at 33 (consumers now stock their homes with wide variety of devices in hopes of quick and easy weight loss in response to ad campaigns). Although fitness experts dismiss many machines as unnecessary or even dangerous, and although some manu-

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