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 springloaded 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 

 

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The 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 accidentproof 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 JeldWen’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 JeldWen’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 

 

2

We 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 JeldWen 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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