884
Opinion of the Court
King v. Hilton-Davis, 855 F. 2d 1047, 1052 (CA3 1988); Shipco 2295, supra, at 929; National Union Fire Ins., supra, at 541, 815 P. 2d, at 605. Moreover, manufacturers and component suppliers can allocate through contract potential liability for a manufactured product that does not work, thereby ensuring that component suppliers have appropriate incentives to prevent component defects that might destroy the product. King, supra, at 1054; cf. Shipco 2295, supra, at 930. There is no reason to think that initial users systematically control the manufactured product's quality or, as we have said, systematically allocate responsibility for user-added equipment, in similar ways. Regardless, the case law does suggest a distinction between the components added to a product by a manufacturer before the product's sale to a user, e. g., Airlift Int'l, Inc. v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., 685 F. 2d 267 (CA9 1982); King, supra; Shipco 2295, supra; and those items added by a user to the manufactured product, e. g., Nicor Supply Ships Assocs. v. General Motors Corp., 876 F. 2d 501 (CA5 1989); and we would maintain that distinction.
Second, respondents argue that our holding would impose too great a potential tort liability upon a manufacturer or a distributor. But we do not see how that is so. For one thing, a host of other tort principles, such as foreseeability, proximate cause, and the "economic loss" doctrine, already do, and would continue to, limit liability in important ways. For another thing, where such principles are satisfied, liability would exist anyway had the manufactured product simply remained in the hands of the Initial User. Our holding merely maintains liability, for equipment added after the initial sale, despite the presence of a resale by the Initial User.
We conclude that equipment added to a product after the Manufacturer (or distributor selling in the initial distribution chain) has sold the product to an Initial User is not part of the product that itself caused physical harm. Rather, in East River's language, it is "other property." (We are
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