printI import my beans freshly roasted from the fabulous JJ Bean Coffee in Vancouver, Canada. The place is charming and quaint—it sports a vintage 4-barrel Jabez Burns sample roaster. Back in the day, I used to love sipping a cup of the house blend and munching banana bread as I waited for my beans to be packaged.
The other day I was informed by JJ Bean’s insurance agent that the company’s goods will no longer be available in the US:
Legal liability laws in the US and Canada differ markedly with respect to consumer products. American product liability laws include ‘Strict Liability’ and this difference makes it prohibitively expensive for JJ Bean to continue with its US sales.
In Canada when a business sells a product, and that product causes harm to the consumer, the consumer must prove that the product caused the harm. In the US the onus of proof shifts onto the business owner, who must prove that he did not negligently cause the harm, something that is generally much more difficult to prove.
Accordingly, commercial legal liability insurance premiums in the US are much higher than in Canada, and if a Canadian business sells products into the US they are subject to these higher rates.
Because JJ Bean is a small franchise, it doesn’t generate enough business to support the steep overhead.
It is clear that Canadian law is far more compatible with the free market. American law is illiberal; it gums up trade, infantilizes Americans, and is tantamount to open season on business. What makes it particularly egregious is that, in the event that some malcontent initiates criminal proceedings against the company, the law leans toward a presumption of guilt, not innocence. Innocent until proven guilty; no crime without intent—now aren’t those supposed to be some of the foundations of the American judicial and constitution tradition?