Dear all, I have a small question: This is an hypertherical example of course: I have a site. Its ranked top 10 for a very competitive nich, for a certain health product. Now, Now, i want to sell on my popular website a health product that it produced in country X (middleeast). (this product of course is approved by the canadian & us health standards) Now, it comes, that a person who bought the product off my site got very ill from it. Will the sue my a*s, or the manufacturer back in mother countrty? please, help?!
They can sue your arse as the contract of sale is between yourself and the client. You however, if sued, could call the manufacturer as co-defendant and the judge will decide which of the two are responsible however assuming you are in the USA as the claimant is, if the manufacturer failed to answer the summons the courts may award the damages purely from yourself and leave you to recover monies from the manufacturer yourself as generally the law puts individuals rights/ interests well above those of companies. If you do decide to go ahead with the project, firstly check your contract with the manufacture regarding liability as they may well have a clause excluding liability outside of gross negligence (eg no liability if someone happens to be allergic but there would be liability if glass got into the medicine during the manufacturing process). Secondly seriously consider getting public liability insurance to cover you for being sued but expect the premiums to be fairly high for selling middle east manufactured medicines
Astaroth is on the right path but it works a little differently in the US. Typically everyone gets sued and chances are the entire chain will (you, the distributor, the manufacturer, etc.) and liability is assigned. It's not so simple because something like, e.g. defective design, is not something that the retailer deals with but the manufacturer. The manufacturer did the design not the retailer. It can be somewhat complicated but the bottom line is that you've got no choice but to try to disentangle yourself if something goes wrong so there will be some expense.