2-2106.5.Inherent characteristics of products; nonliability.

Section 2-2106.5 protects against a narrow category of claims: those where the alleged harm comes from an inherent characteristic of the product rather than from a flaw in how it was made or a missing warning. To qualify, the characteristic has to be a generic aspect of the product — one shared by the product type generally, not a defect specific to one unit.

Two further conditions apply. First, the characteristic must be one that can't be eliminated without substantially compromising the product's usefulness or desirability; a sharp knife's edge or a sugar-sweetened product's sugar content are the kind of features this language points toward, since removing them would defeat the product's purpose. Second, the characteristic has to be recognized by the ordinary person with the ordinary knowledge common to the community — meaning the risk is one that common experience already accounts for, not a hidden danger.

This is a narrower defense than the warning provisions in Section 2-2106. It doesn't ask whether the manufacturer gave adequate notice of a risk; it asks whether the risk is an unavoidable, commonly understood feature of what the product is.