Case Title: Burns v. Architectural Doors and Windows

Citation: 

Docket Number: Pen-10-81

State: maine

Court: Maine Supreme Court

Date: 2011-05-24T00:00:00Z

Document:
MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT     
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2011 ME  
61 
Docket: 
Pen-10-81 
Argued: 
November 9, 2010 
Decided: 
May 24, 2011 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, LEVY, SILVER, MEAD, GORMAN, and 
JABAR, JJ. 
 
 
CRAIG BURNS 
 
v. 
 
ARCHITECTURAL DOORS AND WINDOWS 
 
SAUFLEY, C.J. 
 
[¶1]  Craig Burns was injured when an overhead garage door struck him on 
the head at his place of employment.  His product liability claim against the 
installer of the door resulted in a judgment against him entered in the Superior 
Court (Penobscot County, Murphy, J.) following a jury’s determination that the 
installer was not liable to Burns.  Burns challenges, among other matters, the 
court’s limitations on his ability to argue certain causes of action during trial.  
Finding no error, we affirm the judgment.  
I.  BACKGROUND 
A. 
Circumstances of Burns’s Injury 
 
[¶2]  The following facts are taken from the evidence presented by Burns at 
trial.  Burns was employed as a mechanic in the Whited Ford light-duty truck shop 
in Bangor.  Whited owned and operated a commercial garage that had five garage 
 
2 
bays used for light-duty automotive repairs.  Each of the doors was controlled by 
an operator with three electric push-buttons—up, down, and stop.  The buttons 
were “single-push” buttons, such that a person could push the “down” button and 
walk away, and the door would close.  The operators did not have a safety 
mechanism that would stop a door from closing if it encountered an obstruction. 
 
[¶3]  In 1996, Whited sought to replace two of its wooden garage doors with 
new steel doors.  Whited purchased replacement doors, manufactured by 
Wayne-Dalton Corporation, from Architectural Doors and Windows (known then 
as Portland Glass).  ADW installed the doors on Whited’s existing garage door 
operators.  
 
[¶4]  Burns began working at Whited in 1998.  In November 2001, he was 
working on a truck outdoors because all of the garage bays were full.  As he was 
walking into the garage to get a tool, a closing garage door struck his head and 
knocked him to the ground.  He may have noticed the door coming down in the 
second before it hit him.  Although he did not immediately notice any significant 
injury, over the next days and weeks he began to experience pain in his neck and 
shoulder from a herniated disc in his neck.  He ultimately had surgery and missed 
eleven weeks of work. 
 
[¶5]  At the time of the accident, Burns had worked at Whited for three 
years, and he knew how the doors operated.  He testified that it was obvious to him 
 
3 
that when a garage door was closing, it would not stop if it hit a person or an 
object.  In fact, he had seen vehicles struck by a closing door on at least two 
occasions.  The shop was a busy, noisy place with “diesels running, cars running, 
[and] people hollering,” such that a person could not hear the garage doors 
operating.  Burns walked in and out of the garage doorways approximately eight 
times per workday. 
B. 
Procedural History 
 
[¶6]  On October 30, 2007, Burns sued Wayne-Dalton and ADW on a theory 
of product liability related to the garage door that struck him.  His single count 
against ADW alleged only product liability.  In his initial complaint, Burns alleged 
that the garage door was in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the 
ultimate user or consumer of the door because it did not have a mechanism that 
would cause it to stop or reverse if it encountered an object.  He reiterated this 
allegation in both his first amended complaint and his second amended complaint, 
which was the operative complaint proceeding toward trial.  Specifically, he 
alleged the following against ADW in his second amended complaint: 
9.   
Said garage door was defective in that it did not have a 
mechanism which would cause it to stop or reverse if it 
encountered any object. 
 
 . . . . 
 
 
4 
20.   The steel garage door reached the ultimate users of it (the 
employees of Whited) without significant change in the 
condition in which it was sold. 
 
. . . .  
 
22.   The steel garage door was in a defective condition unreasonably 
dangerous to the ultimate user or consumer of the door. 
 
 
[¶7]  In December 2008, more than a year after Burns filed his initial 
complaint, Wayne-Dalton, the manufacturer of the door, moved for summary 
judgment, arguing, among other things, that the replacement door itself was not 
defective and that Wayne-Dalton had manufactured and supplied the replacement 
door to ADW without knowledge of how the door would be installed and operated 
at Whited.  In support of its motion, Wayne-Dalton offered affidavits from its plant 
manager and the parts and service director at Whited.  A week later, ADW also 
moved for summary judgment.  In its motion, ADW adopted by reference 
Wayne-Dalton’s summary judgment arguments and statement of material facts, 
and relied on the same evidence that had already been presented by Wayne-Dalton. 
 
[¶8]  Apparently recognizing at that stage of the litigation that ADW had 
sold Whited the door but not the operating mechanism, Burns argued in response 
to the motions for summary judgment, among other things, that both the 
manufacturer and the installer had a duty to warn him that the door, as installed on 
Whited’s existing equipment, could be dangerous.  By the time that Burns filed his 
 
5 
opposing memoranda and statements of material facts in April 2009, nearly 
eighteen months had passed since he had initiated the litigation. 
 
[¶9]  After hearing from the parties, the court denied both defendants’ 
motions for summary judgment.  Because neither of the defendants manufactured, 
designed, or sold the door operator, claims of a defect in the manufacture or design 
of that operator could not survive summary judgment.  See Bernier v. Raymark 
Indus., Inc., 516 A.2d 534, 537 n.3 (Me. 1986) (listing three forms of product 
liability: an error in the design process, a defect in the manufacturing process, or a 
failure to warn of a product hazard); Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products 
Liability § 2 (1998) (same).  Thus, with a single count alleged against each 
defendant in a complaint that made no distinction between the door—the product 
alleged to be defective—and the closing mechanism—a product that neither 
defendant manufactured, sold, or installed—the court read the complaint 
generously to state a product liability cause of action for failure to warn Burns. 
 
[¶10]  Because Burns had referred to additional potential claims in his 
summary judgment argument, causing the possibility of confusion, the court also 
clarified the matters going forward for trial.  Specifically, the court noted that 
Burns, in opposing ADW’s motion, had “mischaracterized, or changed, his 
failure-to-warn claim against ADW” by arguing that ADW “had a duty to warn 
that the door should only be used with an operator with a safety mechanism.”  
 
6 
(Emphasis added.)  Because that cause of action had not been pleaded, the court 
clarified that Burns’s claim going forward was limited to the product liability claim 
against ADW alleging that ADW failed to warn Burns “of the increased potential 
for crush injuries” presented by the door itself.  
 
[¶11]  Burns settled his claim against Wayne-Dalton on the eve of trial, and 
any liability on Whited’s part had been addressed through workers’ compensation 
proceedings.  Burns therefore proceeded to trial only on his remaining defective 
product claim against ADW. 
 
[¶12]  ADW moved in limine to prevent Burns from arguing or offering 
evidence on claims not pleaded.  The court granted the motion before trial and 
held, consistent with its earlier announcement, that Burns’s claim against ADW 
would be tried “as a failure to warn case.”  Burns continued to press alternative 
arguments, roughly framed as follows: the door was defective as installed; ADW 
negligently installed the door; and ADW negligently breached a duty to advise 
Whited about the door controls.  The court declined to allow argument on those 
claims and specifically determined that Burns’s defective-as-installed argument 
was based on the “component parts doctrine,” which has not been adopted in 
Maine.1  The court further ruled in limine that Burns had not pleaded, and therefore 
                                                
1  Burns did not plead a claim that the door was defective based on the component parts doctrine.  See 
Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability § 5 (1998).  Because of Burns’s efforts to shift his theory 
 
7 
could not argue, that ADW had a separate, independent duty to warn Burns’s 
employer, Whited, regarding Whited’s existing equipment. 
 
[¶13]  In January 2010, the court held a two-day jury trial on Burns’s 
product liability claim against ADW.  Despite the pre-trial rulings, Burns again 
attempted to offer evidence to support claims other than the failure-to-warn 
product liability claim.  Based on its pretrial rulings, the court prevented Burns 
from offering such evidence.  At the close of Burns’s case, ADW moved for 
judgment as a matter of law, see M.R. Civ. P. 50, but the court denied this motion. 
 
[¶14]  At the end of the trial, the court instructed the jury on product liability 
and the elements of a failure-to-warn cause of action.  Consistent with Maine law, 
the court instructed, “a seller has no duty to warn of a danger that is obvious and 
apparent to users of the product.”  See Hatch v. Me. Tank Co., 666 A.2d 90, 94 
(Me. 1995).  The court declined to give Burns’s proposed instruction that a seller 
has a duty to warn users of even obvious dangers “if it is ‘foreseeable that users of 
the product will proceed to encounter that hazard out of necessity, lack of a safe 
apparent alternative, or through momentary inadvertence.’”  Id. (quoting Marois v. 
Paper Converting Mach. Co., 539 A.2d 621, 624 (Me. 1988)).  The court also told 
the jury that the court had found, based on the law and the evidence presented, that 
                                                                                                                                                       
of liability during pre-trial proceedings, we cannot accurately identify every theory that he attempted to 
present. 
 
8 
ADW had provided no warning to Burns.  The court left to the jury the remaining 
questions presented by Burn’s product liability claim: duty to warn,2 causation, and 
damages. 
 
[¶15]  The jury was given a special verdict form with seven questions.  On 
the first question, the jury found that ADW did not have “a duty to warn [Burns] of 
a danger sufficiently serious to require a warning on the garage door.”  Because the 
jury reached this determination, the verdict form did not require the jury to answer 
any additional questions regarding causation or damages.  The court entered a 
judgment for ADW, and Burns timely appealed.  Burns has raised multiple issues 
on appeal.  
II.  DISCUSSION 
A. 
Identifying the Plaintiff’s Cause of Action 
 
[¶16]  Burns argues that he should not have been limited at trial to a product 
liability claim for failure to warn.  This argument implicates the reach of notice 
pleading in litigation.  See Johnston v. Me. Energy Recovery Co., 2010 ME 52, 
                                                
2  The court submitted the question of duty to the jury for it to determine, as a question of fact, whether 
the seller knew or should have known of a danger sufficiently serious to require a warning.  The court 
submitted this question to the jury in an excess of caution, noting a disagreement among legal authorities 
about whether the court or the jury should determine issues of foreseeability related to the existence of a 
duty to warn.  See George W. Flynn & John J. Laravuso, The Existence of a Duty to Warn: A Question for 
the Court or the Jury?, 27 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 633 (2000), and cases cited therein.  The record reveals 
that, before the court made its ruling, Burns had proposed jury instructions that included the question of 
duty and that neither party objected when the court ruled that the jury would have to resolve factual 
disputes about the existence of a duty to warn.  In their briefs, neither Burns nor ADW challenges the 
court’s submission of this question to the jury. 
 
9 
¶ 16, 997 A.2d 741, 746 (stating that Maine is a notice pleading state).  Notice 
pleading requires that a complaint give “fair notice of the cause of action,” id. 
(quotation marks omitted), by providing “a short and plain statement of the claim 
showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,” M.R. Civ. P. 8(a)(1). 
 
[¶17]  A complaint “need not identify the particular legal theories that will 
be relied upon,” but it must describe the essence of the claim and allege facts 
sufficient to demonstrate that the complaining party has been injured in a way that 
entitles him or her to relief.  Johnston, 2010 ME 52, ¶ 16, 997 A.2d at 746; 
see Champagne v. Mid-Me. Med. Ctr., 1998 ME 87, ¶ 18, 711 A.2d 842, 848 
(stating that notice pleading requires a party to “aver[] the essential elements” of a 
claim).  A party may not, therefore, proceed on a cause of action if that party’s 
complaint has failed to allege facts that, if proved, would satisfy the elements of 
the cause of action.  See Johnston, 2010 ME 52, ¶ 16, 997 A.2d at 746; 
Champagne, 1998 ME 87, ¶ 18, 711 A.2d at 848. 
 
[¶18]  Here, Burns pleaded a single count of product liability against ADW.  
The court’s conclusion in limine that Burns had not properly pleaded a negligence 
claim, a defective-design-as-installed claim, or a component-parts claim is a legal 
determination that is subject to de novo review.  See Bean v. Cummings, 
2008 ME 18, ¶ 7, 939 A.2d 676, 679.  To be clear, we are not called upon to 
determine whether any of the alternate theories could have been tried had they 
 
10 
been properly pleaded and been the subject of discovery.  Rather, we address 
several, but not all, of Burns’s alternate theories to determine whether the trial 
court properly limited the evidence and argument that Burns could present to the 
jury based on the facts that he did plead. 
 
[¶19]  Burns first argues that he should have been permitted to offer 
evidence and argument of a design defect, see Bernier, 516 A.2d at 537 n.3, 
because the garage door that struck him was defective “at the time it le[ft] the 
seller’s hands,” quoting comment g of the  Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A 
(1986).  As comment g makes clear, however, an injured person can prevail in 
such a design defect claim only if the product left the seller’s hands “in a condition 
not contemplated by the ultimate consumer.”  Id. § 402A cmt. g.  Burns made no 
such allegation.  Rather, he alleged and produced evidence to show that ADW, 
with Whited’s knowledge, left the door operator—a separate product—in the same 
condition that existed before ADW replaced the door and that Burns understood 
how the door operator functioned throughout his employment at Whited.  Pursuant 
to Burns’s complaint, therefore, the door did not leave ADW’s hands “in a 
condition not contemplated by the ultimate consumer.”  Id. 
 
[¶20]  As to his theories related to the installation of the door, although 
evidence that ADW should not have installed the door on Whited’s operator could 
have been relevant and admissible in establishing a negligence claim, see Belyea v. 
 
11 
Shiretown Motor Inn, LP, 2010 ME 75, ¶ 6, 2 A.3d 276, 278; M.R. Evid. 401, 402, 
Burns did not allege negligence but instead pleaded only a product liability claim.  
To the extent that Burns’s product liability claim can be viewed as alleging a 
design defect, again the relevant question is whether there was a flaw in the design 
of the challenged product—the door.3  Burns offered no argument or evidence 
concerning any design defect in the door itself, however, but instead focused on the 
alleged defective condition of the door operators to which the door was connected 
and sought to cast his product liability claim as alleging a design defect “as 
installed.”  That late attempt to insert a component parts claim, which would be a 
new theory in Maine law, was similarly appropriately rebuffed by the court.4 
 
[¶21]  Maine’s notice pleading standard may be forgiving, see M.R. 
Civ. P. 8(a)(1); Johnston, 2010 ME 52, ¶ 16, 997 A.2d at 746; it does not, 
however, permit a party to shift his cause of action at any point in the 
proceedings.  Although an initial pleading may be presented in general terms, 
certainly by the time the parties are addressing a motion for summary judgment, a 
                                                
3  Although we have recognized that liability imposed upon a failure to warn bears some resemblance 
to a negligence action, see Lorfano v. Dura Stone Steps, Inc., 569 A.2d 195, 196-97 (Me. 1990), we have 
drawn no such parallel between a design defect claim and a negligence claim. 
 
4  Burns additionally sought to establish that he could have become a better advocate for safety with 
his employer if he had been “warned” by ADW that a different installation mechanism would be safer, 
that other safety mechanisms were available, or that it was not very expensive or time consuming to 
change the mechanism.  It is not clear what cause of action is asserted with this claim, however, as it 
appears that much of Burns’s complaint lies with his employer, which chose to have the door installed on 
the existing mechanism.  Burns’s claims against the employer were appropriately addressed through the 
Workers’ Compensation system. 
 
12 
plaintiff must be prepared to clearly identify the asserted cause or causes of action 
and the elements of each claim.  When the plaintiff has failed to do so, it is well 
within the court’s authority to provide such clarification by defining the claims 
that will be presented at trial.  Without such definition, the parties may waste time 
and money litigating extraneous issues not generated by the pleadings. 
 
[¶22]  Accordingly, the court acted properly in clarifying through its 
summary judgment order the nature of the cause of action that would be tried to 
the jury.  Neither before nor after the summary judgment was entered did Burns 
take steps to add a claim to his complaint or otherwise amend his complaint to 
clarify his cause of action.5  Nonetheless, he sought to offer proof at trial of 
several alternate claims, despite the court’s consistent reminders about the nature 
of the cause of action being tried.6  The court properly denied Burns’s efforts to 
circumvent the effect of the court’s clarification in the summary judgment order. 
                                                
5  Nor is it likely that the court would have allowed such an amendment at that stage of the litigation, 
almost two years after the filing of the complaint. 
 
6  The presentation to the jury was made unnecessarily complicated by counsel’s persistence in 
ignoring the court’s clarification of the claim as a product liability claim for failure to warn, causing the 
court at one point to announce at sidebar, “it’s going to stop.” 
 
 
13 
B. 
The Product Liability Claim for Failure to Warn 
 
[¶23] We move then to consider the court’s rulings during trial regarding 
Burns’s product liability claim.7  To establish a claim that a product was defective 
due to a failure to warn, a party must prove three elements in addition to those 
explicitly stated in the defective product statute: (1) the defendant had a duty to 
warn the plaintiff of the product hazard; (2) any actual warning on the product was 
inadequate; and (3) the inadequate warning or absence of a warning proximately 
                                                
7  To allege a product liability claim in Maine, a plaintiff must state facts that satisfy the elements of 
the claim set forth by statute: 
 
One who sells any goods or products in a defective condition unreasonably 
dangerous to the user or consumer or to his property is subject to liability for physical 
harm thereby caused to a person whom the manufacturer, seller or supplier might 
reasonably have expected to use, consume or be affected by the goods, or to his 
property, if the seller is engaged in the business of selling such a product and it is 
expected to and does reach the user or consumer without significant change in the 
condition in which it is sold. This section applies although the seller has exercised all 
possible care in the preparation and sale of his product and the user or consumer has not 
bought the product from or entered into any contractual relation with the seller. 
 
14 M.R.S. § 221 (2010).  Based on this statutory language, the elements of a defective product cause 
of action asserted against a seller are:  
 
(1) the named defendant sold the goods or products;  
 
(2) those goods or products were in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to 
the user or consumer or the user or consumer’s property;  
 
(3) the plaintiff might reasonably have been expected to use, consume, or be affected 
by the goods or products;  
 
(4) the defendant was engaged in the business of selling the goods or products;  
 
(5) the goods or products were expected to, and did, reach the user or consumer 
without significant change in the condition in which they were sold; and  
 
(6) the plaintiff or the plaintiff’s property suffered physical harm. 
 
See id. 
 
14 
caused the plaintiff’s injury.  See Bouchard v. Am. Orthodontics, 661 A.2d 1143, 
1145 (Me. 1995).  The court concluded, without objection from either party, that 
no evidence of a warning had been presented, therefore determining that the 
plaintiff had met his burden regarding the second element.  That left the questions 
of duty, proximate cause, and damages for adjudication. 
 
[¶24]  Burns asserts that the court erred in denying his requested instruction 
that a seller has a duty to warn of a danger, even if the danger is obvious and 
apparent to users of the product, if “it is foreseeable that users of the product will 
proceed to encounter that hazard out of necessity, lack of a safe apparent 
alternative, or through momentary inadvertence.” Marois, 539 A.2d at 624.  The 
court concluded that this instruction was not required because Burns had been 
aware for years of the specific danger posed by the product at issue.  See id. at 
624-25; Hatch, 666 A.2d at 94-95 (holding that the Marois instruction was not 
required when the deliberate misuse of a product produced a danger that was 
obvious, known, and continuous over the course of several months). 
 
[¶25]  We need not determine whether the court erred in declining to give 
the additional instruction in this case because, even if ADW had a duty to warn 
Burns of the crush risk, Burns offered no evidence at trial that ADW’s failure to 
place a warning on the door caused Burns’s injury.  See Bouchard, 661 A.2d at 
1145.  Burns testified that he knew of the danger but nevertheless entered the 
 
15 
garage while the door was closing.  In those circumstances, no warning placed 
anywhere on the door would have prevented Burns’s injury. 
 
[¶26]  Accordingly, even if ADW had a duty to warn Burns of the product 
hazard, ADW was entitled to judgment in this matter because Burns failed to 
establish causation for the single claim that he properly pleaded.  See M.R. 
Civ. P. 50, 61; cf. Koken v. Black & Veatch Constr., Inc., 426 F.3d 39, 43, 49-51 
(1st Cir. 2005) (affirming summary judgment when the plaintiff offered no 
evidence that the failure to give certain warnings caused the alleged injury to its 
property). 
 
[¶27]  In sum, the court did not err in limiting the evidence and argument 
presented by Burns, it did not err in its extensive trial rulings, and any error in the 
jury instructions regarding the duty to warn was harmless, see M.R. Civ. P. 61.  
Burns’s remaining arguments are unpersuasive. 
 
The entry is: 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Attorneys for Craig Burns: 
 
Arthur J. Greif, Esq.   (orally) 
Julie D. Farr, Esq. 
Gilbert & Greif, P.A. 
82 Columbia Street 
PO Box 2339 
Bangor, Maine  04402-2339 
 
16 
 
Attorney for Architectural Doors and Windows: 
 
Stephen A. Bell, Esq.   (orally) 
Mundhenk & Bell, LLC 
222 St. John Street, Suite 321 
PO Box 792 
Portland, Maine  04104-0792 
 
 
 
 
Penobscot County Superior Court docket number CV-2007-282 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY