Liability for a product that fails

The sixteenth entry is le fabricant apparent, and the adjective quietly reverses the sentence for an English reader. « Apparent » in English carries a hedge. An « apparent contradiction » may dissolve on a second reading, the « apparent cause » is the one we are going with for now, and only « it became apparent » keeps the older sense of plainly on view. French kept that older sense and dropped the hedge altogether. Apparent means showing, exposed, there to be seen: des poutres apparentes are beams left visible in a ceiling, des coutures apparentes are seams meant to be noticed, and sans raison apparente is the one phrase where the two languages meet without trouble. So le fabricant apparent is not a supposed manufacturer whose status is in doubt. He is the one whose name or mark appears on the goods, and that label is precisely why the law treats him as the maker even when somebody else ran the factory. English avoids the word here and says « own-brander ». Read apparent as visible, never as alleged.