The Effects of Company Image on Perceptions of Legal Responsibility

Abstract

When a product liability case involves a well-known company, the perceptions of the jurors may be influenced by the company's safety reputation. Safety reputation can stem from extrapolations from product quality and brand image that the juror previously held, or from details revealed during the trial. This research builds on a previous study that used fictitious scenarios based loosely on the highly publicized incident in which a woman was scalded by hot coffee she purchased from the drive-through window of a McDonalds restaurant. In the original study, participants exposed to scenarios that cast McDonalds safety practices in an unfavorable light allocated significantly more blame to McDonalds (and less to the woman) than participants exposed to scenarios that were either favorable or neutral toward McDonalds. This research investigates how allocation of responsibility and people's perceptions of duty to warn change as a function of the company named as the defendant and how it is portrayed. Participants allocated equal responsibility to all companies on average, but when companies were portrayed as having a history of investigating complaints, their hazard information was perceived as more informative even though this information was not actually provided. Injuries were perceived as significantly more severe for companies with a history of ignoring customer complaints, even though the injury descriptions were identical in each scenario. The implications of these results are discussed.