Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-85-02216/USCOURTS-ca10-85-02216-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Darrell Courtemanche
Appellant
Donna Courtemanche
Appellant
Manchester Tank & Equipment Company
Appellee

Document Text:

.. FI LED 

Uoiced Sraces Court of Appeals 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS T"!".th t.'~'1~! t 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

DARRELL COURTEMANCHE; 

DONNA COURTEMANCHE, 

Plaintiffs-Appellants, 

v. 

MANCHESTER TANK & EQUIPMENT COMPANY, 

a California corporation, 

Defendant-Appellee. 

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ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

AUG 11 1989 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 85-2216 

(D.C. No. 83-M-1261) 

(D. Colo.) 

Before SEYMOUR and SETH, Circuit Judges, and SEAY, Chief Judge.** 

**Honorable Frank H. Seay, Chief Judge, United States District 

Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, sitting by 

designation. 

This is an appeal from the dismissal of a diversity action 

seeking damages for injuries resulting from a propane explosion. 

Plaintiff Darrell Courtemanche, a licensed plumber, removed a 

propane tank attached to a barbecue. Pursuant to the instructions 

*This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall not 

be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, except 

for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of the case, 

res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

Appellate Case: 85-2216 Document: 01019975673 Date Filed: 08/11/1989 Page: 1 
of his employer, Mr. Courtemanche then took the propane tank into 

the crawl space of a house in which he was working, inverted the 

tank, and emptied the propane onto a water pipe. This procedure 

was intended to freeze the flow of water through the pipe, 

enabling Mr. Courtemanche to work on the pipe without turning off 

the water in the building. Because the propane tank did not 

contain a sufficient amount of propane to completely freeze the 

pipe, Mr. Courtemanche had to refill the tank with propane before 

continuing the procedure. Eventually the propane froze the water 

flow in the pipe. Mr. Courtemanche then attempted to light a 

welding torch with a striker, triggering an explosion of the 

propane gas that had accumulated near the floor of the crawl 

space. Plaintiffs' injuries resulted from the explosion. 

Plaintiffs commenced this action against the manufacturer of 

the propane tank, asserting five theories of relief: 1) misrepresentation of the safety, character, or quality of the propane 

tank; 2) breach of the implied warranty of merchantability; 

3) breach of the implied warranty of fitness for a particular 

purpose; 4) product liability; and 5) negligence. The district 

court granted defendant's motion for summary judgment and 

dismissed all claims. Plaintiffs appeal only the dismissal of the 

product liability and negligence claims. 

Summary judgment is appropriate only where there is no 

genuine issue as to any material fact and 

entitled to judgment as a matter of law. 

Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 

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the moving party is 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c); 

(1986). On appeal, 

Appellate Case: 85-2216 Document: 01019975673 Date Filed: 08/11/1989 Page: 2 
plaintiffs argue that defendant is liable on a theory of product 

liability for failure to warn of the dangers inherent in 

Mr. Courtemanche's use of the propane tank. Under Colorado law, a 

manufacturer of a product that is defective and unreasonably 

dangerous will be strictly liable to consumers for injuries 

resulting from the defect. Blueflame Gas, Inc. v. Van Hoose, 679 

P.2d 579, 589 (Colo. 1984); Hiigel v. General Motors Corp., 544 

P.2d 983, 986-87 (Colo. 1975) (adopting Restatement (Second) of 

Torts§ 402A). Plaintiffs assert the propane tank manufactured by 

defendant was defective because it lacked warning labels 

concerning the danger of discharging propane gas into an enclosed 

area. A product may be defective and unreasonably dangerous to 

users if placed in the stream of commerce without suitable and 

adequate warnings or instructions. Camacho v. Honda Motor Co., 

741 P.2d 1240, 1248 (Colo. 1987), cert. dismissed, 108 S. Ct. 1067 

(1988). 

Our review of the trial court's Order Granting Defendant's 

Motion for Summary Judgment reveals that it misapplied Colorado 

products liability law in dismissing this claim. The trial court 

dismissed the claim on the basis of its conclusion that, as a 

matter of law, "the danger was an open and obvious one to any 

person of reasonable awareness." Order at 1-2. Under Colorado 

law, however, a duty to warn may exist even where the danger is 

obvious if the warning might reduce the risk of harm associated 

with the use of the product. Camacho, 741 P.2d at 1245 and 1248 

n.9; Union Supply Co. v. Pust, 583 P.2d 276 (Colo. 1978). The 

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Appellate Case: 85-2216 Document: 01019975673 Date Filed: 08/11/1989 Page: 3 
focus in a products liability action is on the condition and 

characteristics of the product itself and not on whether the 

danger was obvious to an ordinary consumer. Camacho, 741 P.2d at 

1246. 

In his affidavit attached to plaintiffs' Brief in Opposition 

to Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, Mr. Courtemanche 

asserted that had the propane tank contained a warning, "I would 

have refused to perform the plumbing task which my superiors 

instructed me to do on the day I was injured." Affidavit at 2. 

Given the circumstances surrounding the incident, we find that a 

jury could reasonably believe this assertion and find that the 

accident could have been prevented had the product contained a 

warning. The trial court's determination that the danger 

presented by Mr. Courtemanche's use of the product was open and 

obvious is irrelevant in this context. Thus the trial court erred 

in granting summary judgment on this claim. 

In addition, the trial court granted summary judgment on the 

plaintiffs' claim for negligence on the basis that the procedure 

at issue created an open and obvious danger that would have 

apparent to an ordinary person faced with the same situation. 

been 

We 

decline to hold that the danger inherent in Mr. Courtemanche's use 

of the product was "open and obvious" as a matter of law. Given 

the instructions Mr. Courtemanche received from his employer and 

the assurances of safety related by his employer's father, a jury 

might reasonably infer that an "ordinary" person placed in 

Mr. Courtemanche's shoes could have concluded that the procedure 

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Appellate Case: 85-2216 Document: 01019975673 Date Filed: 08/11/1989 Page: 4 
had been utilized in the past without incident. Further, the 

potential danger of the procedure was enhanced by a number of 

variable factors, including the enclosed nature of the crawl 

space, the accumulation of the propane gas near the floor of the 

crawl space, and the quantity of propane poured on the pipe. At 

what point and in what manner these variable factors combined to 

create the danger of an explosion seems to us to be less than 

obvious. Thus the plaintiffs' claim for negligence was also 

improperly dismissed by the trial court on summary judgment. 

The judgment of the trial court is therefore REVERSED and the 

cause REMANDED for further proceedings. 

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

PER CURIAM 

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