Title: Fulbright v. Klamath Gas Company

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

533 P.2d 316 (1975)
Wilson E. FULBRIGHT, Appellant,
v.
KLAMATH GAS COMPANY, a Corporation, and Norcal Gas Company, a Corporation, Respondents.

Supreme Court of Oregon.
Argued and Submitted September 6, 1974.
Decided April 1, 1975.
Glenn D. Ramirez, Ramirez & Hoots, Klamath Falls, argued the cause and filed a brief for appellant.
*317 Stanley C. Jones, Giacomini, Jones & Zamsky, Klamath Falls, argued the cause and filed a brief for respondents.
Before O'CONNELL, C.J., and McALLISTER, HOLMAN, TONGUE, BRYSON and SLOPER, JJ.
HOLMAN, Justice.
Plaintiff brought an action to recover damages resulting from personal injuries suffered while using defendants' potato vine burner. The action is in two counts, one in negligence and the other in products liability. The trial court granted a nonsuit in the products liability count and a directed verdict in the negligence count. Plaintiff appeals.
As is required in such situations, the facts will be recounted in a manner as favorable to plaintiff as the evidence will permit. Plaintiff was employed as a farm hand by a potato farmer in Klamath County. Defendants were in the business of selling propane gas, related gas appliances, and assorted camping equipment. Defendants furnished potato vine burners to farm customers free of charge as a means of promoting their sale of propane gas. Vine burners are used to burn vegetation prior to digging potatoes to prevent the potato vines from clogging the mechanical diggers.
A potato vine burner is a portable unit which consists of two large pressurized propane tanks mounted side by side in an open trailer frame. To the rear and connected to the pressurized tanks are located four burning units which direct an open flame towards the ground much like four large blow torches. Separating the propane tanks from the burners is a heat shield made of galvanized steel sheets, the purpose of which is to protect the tanks from direct contact with the high temperature of the open flame of the four burner units. The tanks are equipped with a safety pressure relief valve which was designed to open automatically when the internal tank pressure exceeded approximately 250 PSI. The valve would open if such pressures were attained and cause the release of propane gas and liquid into the air until the pressure fell below the valve's designed safety margin, at which point the valve would then close and reestablish the integrity of the pressurized tanks. This unit was located approximately on the trailer centerline on the top of the two propane tanks.
The burner was towed up and down the field by a tractor operated by plaintiff. While the burner was being used in this manner, pressure in the propane tanks increased because of heat from the burners. When the pressure reached a critical level, the safety valve on top of the tanks was activated, and propane was released into the air and was ignited by the burners. Plaintiff was enveloped in the resulting flame.
The issue concerning the sufficiency of the evidence of negligence will be considered first. Plaintiff's allegations of negligence are as follows:
There was no evidence from which the jury could have found that a failure to inspect or test the burner in any way caused the accident. Nor was there any evidence from which the jury could have found that it was practicable or possible to furnish a *318 more adequate heat shield between the burners and the tanks, a shield for the operator or a device to shut off the burners in case the tanks became overheated.
However, there was evidence that a potato vine burner should not be used in a strong wind because of the presence and proximity of the highly flammable propane gas, the open flame, the high heat, and the general nature and character of the machine. There also was evidence that the wind was strong, and that no warning had been given to plaintiff or to his employer concerning its use under such a circumstance. Plaintiff was using the machine for the first time and there was evidence from which it could be found that the manager of plaintiff's employer had no great familiarity with such a machine. It is the court's conclusion that the evidence was sufficient to raise a question of fact whether the defendants were negligent in providing the machine without warning of the potential danger associated with its use on windy days. The court believes a jury could find that there was sufficient chance of use by inexperienced persons on a windy day to justify a warning in the exercise of reasonable care. For this reason the judgment of the trial court must be reversed and the case remanded for a new trial.
The more difficult question in the case is whether this is the kind of a situation which falls within the ambit of the products liability rationale. Plaintiff alleged the burner was defective because it was designed to release the propane gas into the air where it could become ignited when the tanks became overheated. Defendants contend there is no evidence that the vine burner was defective in that there was no proof that it could have been designed in any manner which would have made it safer. Although there was no such evidence, there was proof by defendants that the burner should not have been used on a windy day and that there was no warning given concerning the danger of its use under such a condition. A failure to warn may make a product unreasonably dangerous. Comment j., Section 402A, Restatement (Second) of Torts. Phillips v. Kimwood Machine Co., 269 Or. 485, ___, 525 P.2d 1033 (1974). We believe there was evidence from which it could be found that the machine was dangerously defective because the defendants were charged with knowledge of its dangerous propensity and failed to warn plaintiff or his employer of its tendency to heat up on windy days and to discharge propane gas into the air. Defendants cannot escape because of lack of proof of defectiveness.
However, the more crucial problem is whether such lending of the burner comes within the rationale of products liability. Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, which we have adopted with some minor modifications, provides:
Defendants were not in the business of selling vine burners and did not sell one to plaintiff's employer. Plaintiff was not injured by anything which his employer purchased. The use of the vine burners was a bailment for mutual benefit because defendants promoted the sale of their product through the burner's use and *319 plaintiff's employer was able to burn his potato vines. There are cases which hold that persons who are in the business of bailing for hire are subject to the rational of strict liability because there is no substantial difference between moving defective products into the stream of commerce by sale and doing so by leases. In Cintrone v. Hertz Truck Leasing and Rental Service, 45 N.J. 434, 212 A.2d 769 (1965), the court stated:
And the court went on to say:
In Price v. Shell Oil Co., 2 Cal. 3d 245, 251-53, 85 Cal. Rptr. 178, 182, 466 P.2d 722, 726 (1970), where a fuel truck was leased to plaintiff's employer, the court said as follows:
Also see Stewart v. Budget Rent-A-Car Corp., 52 Haw. 71, 470 P.2d 240 (1970) (rented automobile); contra, Speyer, Inc. v. Humble Oil and Refining Co., 275 F. Supp. 861 (D.Pa. 1968), aff'd, 403 F.2d 766 (3d Cir.1968), cert. denied, 394 U.S. 1015, 89 S. Ct. 1634, 23 L. Ed. 2d 41 (1969) (strict interpretation of word "seller").
There is also another line of authority which holds that the containers in which products are sold are so closely identified with the sale of the product that the container's dangerous propensities are the equivalent of the dangerous propensities of the product itself. Comment h. to § 402A Restatement (Second) of Torts states as follows:
Professor Prosser in his work Law of Torts 659, Products Liability § 99 (4th ed 1971), has the following to say:
The futility of trying to separate the two in implied warranty situations is demonstrated by Vallis v. Canada Dry Ginger Ale, Inc., 190 Cal. App. 2d 35, 39, 11 Cal. Rptr. 823 (1961), and Haller v. Rudmann, 249 App.Div. 831, 292 N.Y.S. 586, 587 *321 (1937). The case of Kroger Co. v. Bowman, 411 S.W.2d 339, 341-43 (Ky. 1967) is in agreement insofar as products liability cases are concerned.
It is our conclusion that although the vine burner was not bailed for hire by defendants nor did the burner meet the usual definition of a package, nevertheless, the sale of the propane gas cannot logically be separated from the loan of the vine burner in which the gas was to be used. The two analogies are appropriate and their combination is the basis for this decision. We do not have to decide in this case whether one or the other by itself would be sufficient to justify the result. In a field of evolving law, it is sometimes wise to move no faster than is necessary to dispose of the immediate question.[1]
The policy reasons given for the products liability cause of action, which are compensation (ability to spread the risk), satisfaction of the reasonable expectations of the purchaser or user (implied representational aspect), and over-all risk reduction (the impetus to manufacture a better product, are all as equally present in this transaction as if the vine burner itself were being sold.[2] If a product is sold and it is to be used by the purchaser in a particular device furnished by the seller, the device itself has been placed in the stream of commerce as effectively as has the product and the two are theoretically inseparable. We therefore find that the trial court erred in granting a nonsuit on the products liability count.
The case is reversed and remanded for a new trial on both the negligence and the products liability counts.
Reversed and remanded.
TONGUE, Justice (concurring).
I concur in the result, but not in the reasoning of the majority. In my opinion, the allegations of the complaint, as well as the evidence, were sufficient to entitle plaintiff to have his case submitted to the jury on the theory that the condition of this equipment was so unsafe as to result in an ultrahazardous condition or nuisance and thus to bring this case within the rule of Wights v. Staff Jennings, 241 Or. 301, 310-11, 405 P.2d 624 (1965), regardless of whether or not this case is subject to the rule as stated in § 402A of the Restatement of Torts 2d.
[1]  "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Matthew 6:34.
[2]  Each of these three policy bases is essential to the imposition of strict products liability. Moreover, it must be remembered that these policies are operative only where the challenged product is placed in the stream of commerce in the usual course of a defendant's business.