2-2101.Definitions.

Section 2-2101 supplies the vocabulary for the rest of Part 21. "Clear and convincing evidence" is defined as proof strong enough to produce a high degree of certainty in the fact-finder's mind, requiring more persuasion than the ordinary preponderance-of-the-evidence standard. "Harm" covers property damage other than to the product itself, personal physical injury, illness or death, mental anguish or emotional harm to the extent the law recognizes it, loss of consortium or services, and any other loss deriving from those categories.

"Manufacturer" gets three alternative definitions: someone who designs or formulates and produces, creates, makes, or constructs a product or component; a product seller who designs, formulates, or otherwise creates or affects a product or component before it enters commerce; or any other product seller that holds itself out as a manufacturer to the product's user. "Product liability action" is defined broadly as any civil action, on any theory, against a manufacturer or product seller for harm caused by a product. "Product seller" covers anyone who sells, distributes, leases, installs, prepares, blends, packages, labels, markets, repairs, maintains, or is otherwise involved in placing a product in the stream of commerce.

These definitions control how the rest of Part 21 — the presumptions and defenses in Sections 2-2102 through 2-2109 — operates, since each of those sections builds on the terms fixed here. Part 21 was added by Public Act 89-7, the Civil Justice Reform Amendments of 1995, and the Illinois Supreme Court held that broader amendatory act unconstitutional in its entirety, finding key damages-cap and liability provisions invalid and inseverable from the rest of the Act, not long after it took effect. Anyone relying on Part 21's definitions or the sections that follow should confirm the current, court-tested status of these provisions before treating them as controlling law in a specific case.