Amazon.com, Inc. v. McMillan
Texas Supreme Court
2021 Tex. LEXIS 624 (2021)
- Written by Salina Kennedy, JD
Facts
Amazon.com, Inc. (defendant) was a global e-commerce company that operated an online marketplace. In addition to selling its own products, Amazon listed products owned and sold by third parties. Amazon facilitated the sale of third-party products by processing buyers’ payments, retaining a portion of each payment, and sending the remainder of the payment to the seller. Some sellers also used the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) logistics service. These sellers retained title to their products prior to sale, but the products were stored in an Amazon warehouse and packaged and shipped to purchasers by Amazon. The husband of Morgan McMillan (plaintiff) bought a remote control from Hu Xi Jie, an Amazon third-party seller who lived in China and used the FBA service. McMillan’s 19-month-old daughter was severely injured when she opened the remote control’s battery compartment and swallowed the button battery. McMillan sued Amazon and Jie in federal district court, alleging strict liability for design and marketing defects. Jie did not make an appearance or file an answer, and Amazon moved for summary judgment, arguing that it could not be held strictly liable because it was not a seller of the remote. McMillan argued that Amazon was strictly liable as a nonmanufacturing seller under the Texas Products Liability Act. The district court denied Amazon’s motion, and Amazon appealed. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit certified to the Texas Supreme Court the question of whether an e-commerce website qualifies as a seller under Texas law if it does not hold title to third-party products sold on its website but controls the transaction and the delivery.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Busby, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 815,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,300 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.