9. If the farmer brings an action against the chemical company to recover the value of the cows that died, the farmer will

Strict liability requires proof of the following elements: (i) the nature of the defendant's activity imposes an absolute duty to make safe; (ii) the dangerous aspect of the activity is the actual and proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury; and (iii) the plaintiff suffered damage to person or property.

An activity may be characterized as abnormally dangerous if it involves a substantial risk of serious harm to a person or property even when reasonable care is exercised. For an activity to be considered abnormally dangerous, two requirements must be met: (i) the activity must create a foreseeable risk of serious harm even when reasonable care is exercised by all actors; and (ii) the activity must not be a matter of common usage in the community. The storage and transport of toxic chemicals and flammable liquids often, but not always, give rise to strict liability.

In most states, the defendant is liable only to foreseeable plaintiffs, meaning persons to whom a reasonable person would have foreseen a risk of harm under the circumstances. The harm must result from the kind of danger to be anticipated from the abnormally dangerous activity; i.e., it must flow from the «normally dangerous propensity» of the condition or thing involved.

B is correct. This is a strict liability question based on the abnormally dangerous activity of handling a toxic chemical: XRX. To sustain this cause of action, the farmer must prove that the nature of the activity imposed an absolute duty on the company to make it safe, that the damages were caused by the defendant's failure to do so, and that damages occurred. Based on the facts presented, the chemical company had an absolute duty to make conditions safe because it was performing an abnormally dangerous activity by manufacturing and storing XRX, a toxic chemical. The farmer can prove damage to his property through the death of his cows. The only other necessary showing is that the leak of XRX, the chemical that killed the cows, escaped from the company's premises. This choice is therefore correct because it seals liability by establishing this causation, which is the only remaining element of strict liability.

A is incorrect. This answer reaches the correct answer with the wrong reasoning. The farmer will prevail, but not because a manufacturer will be liable for any and all harm that results from its products. For strict liability to apply to the manufacture of products, the plaintiff must make certain showings. For example, courts generally hold companies strictly liable for «unreasonably dangerous» products found to be defective. Thus, it is too broad to assert that a manufacturer will be liable for harm caused by its products. To be strictly liable, the products must be of a certain kind and pose an unreasonable danger to customers. Nevertheless, the farmer will prevail because the company was engaged in an abnormally dangerous activity, and all three elements are satisfied, as explained above.

C is incorrect. It is true that defendants are usually only liable to foreseeable plaintiffs, meaning people to whom a reasonable person would have foreseen a risk of harm under the circumstances. In this case, the farmer is certainly a foreseeable plaintiff given that his property is adjacent to the company's property, and a leak would be likely to affect him and his property interests.

D is incorrect. This is a misapplication of the law to the facts. For an activity to be considered abnormally dangerous, it must create a foreseeable risk of serious harm despite reasonable care and not be a matter of common usage in the community. It is well-accepted that the storage of toxic chemicals often triggers strict liability. Here, the chemical company's storage of XRX created a foreseeable risk of harm that could not be eliminated by due care, shown by the fact that the escaped chemicals were dangerous enough to pollute water and kill livestock. The chemical manufacture and storage was also not a common usage of the land, shown by the fact that the storage area was surrounded by farmland. Therefore, the storage of XRX is an abnormally dangerous activity.