Title: Jeld-Wen Inc. v. Gamble

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

Present:  All the Justices 
 
JELD-WEN, INC. 
 
 
 
OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 972103 
JUSTICE LAWRENCE L. KOONTZ, 
JR. 
 
 
 
June 5, 1998 
ANTHONY KENT GAMBLE, BY HIS MOTHER 
 AND NEXT FRIEND, LaDONNA GAMBLE 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF FAIRFAX COUNTY 
J. Howe Brown, Jr., Judge 
 
 
This is an appeal of a judgment entered on a jury verdict 
for the plaintiff in a products liability action.  Upon well 
settled principles we will review the evidence in the light most 
favorable to the party prevailing in the trial court and recount 
only those facts relevant to our resolution of this appeal. 
 
On April 25, 1993, Anthony Kent Gamble (Gamble), then 
thirteen months old, fell though an open second floor window in 
the living room of the townhome rented by his parents after the 
window’s screen fell out of the window frame.  As a result of 
his fall, Gamble suffered severe, permanent injuries. 
 
Thereafter, Gamble, by his mother and next friend, LaDonna 
Gamble, filed a motion for judgment against Jeld-Wen, Inc. 
(Jeld-Wen), the manufacturer of the window and screen; the 
building contractor that purchased these products from Jeld-Wen 
and used them in the construction of the townhome; and the 
parents’ landlord.  The contractor and the landlord were 
subsequently nonsuited following settlement of the claims 
against them, leaving Jeld-Wen as the sole defendant.  The 
motion for judgment asserted alternative theories of Jeld-Wen’s 
liability, alleging both negligence in the manufacture of the 
window frame and screen and breach of implied warranty of 
merchantability. 
 
At trial, the evidence established that this tragic 
incident arose under the following relevant facts.  The window 
was approximately six feet in height and its sill was eight 
inches above the surface of the living room floor.  The window 
screen was an ordinary wire mesh screen1 and covered the entire 
opening of the window.  It was designed to be held in place by 
two fixed pins at the top and two spring-loaded pins at the 
lower left and right of the window frame.  The left spring-
loaded pin and the groove in the window frame into which the pin 
was intended to be inserted contained manufacturing defects that 
prevented the screen from being held securely in place unless 
light pressure was applied to the screen from the outside rather 
than from the inside of the window where the pin was located.  
While not clear from the evidence, we will assume that this pin 
and, thus, the screen appeared to be, but was not, secured on 
                     
 
1The parties do not dispute that the screen was neither 
designed nor constructed of special materials so as to permit it 
to function as a body restraint beyond the incidental contact 
that might result from the intended use and function of an 
ordinary window screen. 
 
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the day in question, resulting in a “false latch” as alleged by 
Gamble. 
 
Gamble was approximately twenty-eight inches in height and 
weighed seventeen pounds, thirteen ounces.  According to his 
father’s testimony, Gamble was standing on the cushions of a 
loveseat that backed up to the window.  Gamble’s father had 
opened the blinds and raised the lower sash of the window to 
allow fresh air into the home and to permit Gamble to “wave 
good-bye” to his mother who was outside the home.  When the sash 
began to slip down, Gamble’s father left the loveseat in order 
to adjust it.  At that point, Gamble reached out and “barely 
touched” the screen.  The screen fell away from the window and 
Gamble fell through the open window, falling approximately ten 
feet to the concrete driveway below. 
 
The jury awarded Gamble $15,000,000 in damages.  The trial 
court confirmed the jury’s verdict, reducing it by the amounts 
already received through settlement of the claims against the 
other defendants.  We awarded Jeld-Wen this appeal. 
 
We have not previously addressed the dispositive issue in 
this appeal which involves the determination, as a matter of 
law, of the duty of a manufacturer of an ordinary window screen 
that is neither designed nor manufactured to act as a body 
restraint to safeguard against the misuse of the screen for that 
purpose.  Without a legal duty there can be no cause of action 
 
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for an injury.  See C&P Telephone Co. v. Dowdy, 235 Va. 55, 61, 
365 S.E.2d 751, 754 (1988).  We have, however, established 
principles that guide our analysis of this novel issue. 
 
“[A] manufacturer is not required to supply an accident-
proof product.”  Besser Company v. Hansen, 243 Va. 267, 276, 415 
S.E.2d 138, 144 (1992).  Rather, “[t]he standard of safety of 
goods imposed on . . . the manufacturer of a product is 
essentially the same whether the theory of liability is labeled 
warranty or negligence.  The product must be fit for the 
ordinary purposes for which it is to be used.”  Logan v. 
Montgomery Ward, 216 Va. 425, 428, 219 S.E.2d 685, 687 (1975).  
In order to recover under either of these theories against the 
manufacturer of a product, “a plaintiff must show (1) that the 
[product was] unreasonably dangerous either for the use to which 
[it] would ordinarily be put or for some other reasonably 
foreseeable purpose, and (2) that the unreasonably dangerous 
condition existed when the goods left the manufacturer’s hands.”  
Morgen Industries, Inc. v. Vaughan, 252 Va. 60, 65, 471 S.E.2d 
489, 492 (1996).  While a manufacturer may not be held liable 
for every misuse of its product, it may be held liable for a 
foreseeable misuse of an unreasonably dangerous product.  
Featherall v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Company, 219 Va. 949, 964, 
252 S.E.2d 358, 367 (1979); Sloan v. General Motors Corp., 249 
Va. 520, 526, 457 S.E.2d 51, 54 (1995).  
 
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Applying these principles, we think it is clear that Jeld-
Wen’s duty to Gamble was to manufacture a window screen and 
frame “fit for the ordinary purposes for which it is to be used” 
and safe for a reasonably foreseeable misuse that could cause 
injury.  Gamble concedes that the ordinary purposes of Jeld-
Wen’s window screen are to keep insects out while letting in 
light and fresh air and would not include this screen serving as 
a childproof restraint.2  Gamble asserts, however, that because 
the evidence supports a finding that Jeld-Wen knew or should 
have known of the existence of the defect that permitted the 
screen to have a “false latch” appearance and that a child could 
make casual contact with this screen and cause the screen to 
fall out of the frame, Jeld-Wen should have foreseen that the 
child could lose his balance and fall through the open window. 
 
The initial difficulty with Gamble’s theory is that it 
fails to draw the necessary distinction between the 
foreseeability of the screen being dislodged by the child’s 
                     
 
2We recognize that we have previously stated that “[w]hile 
screens are installed to keep bugs out, they do afford some 
protection to little children; and . . . [may cause] a false 
sense of security.”  Crosswhite v. Shelby Operating Corp., 182 
Va. 713, 718-19, 30 S.E.2d 673, 675 (1944), appeal following 
remand, 185 Va. 585, 37 S.E.2d 7 (1946)(affirmed by an equally 
divided Court).  The issue in Crosswhite, however, was not 
manufacturer’s products liability, but negligent maintenance of 
the window by an inn-keeper.  The legal duties involved in 
Crosswhite are not the same as those at issue here. 
 
 
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touch and the foreseeability of the child’s losing his balance 
and falling through the open window.  Inherent in this theory is 
the necessary assumption that the screen was being used to 
provide balance and restraining support for the child’s body 
weight, and, thus, to prevent a fall through the open window.  
As previously noted, this screen was not intended for this 
purpose, and therefore this was a misuse of the screen.  
Accordingly, it is not the occurrence of the “gentle touch,” but 
the misuse of the screen to provide balance and restraining 
support that is the focus of our inquiry, and we must determine 
whether this misuse was reasonably foreseeable such that Jeld-
Wen had a duty to safeguard against it.  
 
In addition, Gamble’s theory rests on the contention that 
because the danger of falling through open windows with screens 
is widely known, the “false latch” defect in Jeld-Wen’s screen 
distinguishes this case from cases involving such falls where 
non-defective window screens may in fact provide a modest level 
of restraint.  In short, Gamble is asserting that because the 
defect in Jeld-Wen’s screen would allow it to fall away from the 
window more readily than a screen without a defect, it was 
reasonable that Jeld-Wen would have foreseen the danger of the 
misuse of the defective screen.  We disagree. 
 
Common knowledge of a danger from the foreseeable misuse of 
a product does not alone give rise to a duty to safeguard 
 
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against the danger of that misuse.  To the contrary, the purpose 
of making the finding of a legal duty as a prerequisite to a 
finding of negligence, or breach of implied warranty, in 
products liability “is to avoid the extension of liability for 
every conceivably foreseeable accident, without regard to common 
sense or good policy.”  Pineda v. Ennabe, 72 Cal. Rptr. 2d. 206, 
209 (Cal. Ct. App. 1998).  In this respect, manufacturers of 
ordinary window screens are not charged with a duty to safeguard 
against the misuse of their products as body restraints as this 
misuse is not considered reasonably foreseeable despite, or 
perhaps even because of, the obvious nature of the danger the 
misuse presents.  See, e.g., Lamkin v. Towner, 563 N.E.2d 449, 
458 (Ill. 1990); Drager v. Aluminum Industries Corporation, 495 
N.W.2d 879, 884 (Minn. Ct. App. 1993).  The same rationale is 
extended in many cases to landlords and property owners.  See, 
e.g., Henstein v. Buschbach, 618 N.E.2d 1042, 1045 (Ill. App. 
Ct. 1993); Vazquez v. City of New York, 596 N.Y.S.2d 115, 116 
(N.Y. App. Div. 1993); Soproni v. Polygon Apartment Partners, 
941 P.2d 707, 709-710 (Wash. Ct. App. 1997). 
 
It then does not logically follow that the alleged defect 
in Jeld-Wen’s screen would impose a different or greater duty to 
manufacture the screen so that it would act as a childproof 
restraint if misused for that purpose.  Although the existence 
of a defect is a factor in determining whether a product is 
 
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unreasonably dangerous for the use to which it would ordinarily 
be put, Morgen Industries, 252 Va. at 65-66, 471 S.E.2d at 492, 
it is not the dispositive factor in determining the duty, if 
any, to be imposed on the manufacturer to reasonably foresee a 
particular misuse of its product.  See Turner v. Manning, 
Maxwell & Moore, Inc., 216 Va. 245, 251, 217 S.E.2d 863, 868 
(1975).  Therefore, here it is irrelevant that, absent this 
defect, Jeld-Wen’s screen might have provided some level of 
restraint, since, as we have already determined, the misuse of 
the screen for balance and restraining support, however modest, 
was not reasonably foreseeable. 
 
For these reasons, we hold, as a matter of law, that no 
duty extended to Jeld-Wen to manufacture the screen in question 
so that it would act as a childproof restraint.  Accordingly, we 
will reverse the judgment of the circuit court and enter final 
judgment for Jeld-Wen. 
Reversed and final judgment. 
 
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