United States Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit ____________

No. 22-30147

____________

Jeremiah Womack, 

Plaintiff—Appellant, 

versus

Dometic Corporation; Skeeter Products, Incorporated, 

doing business as Skeeter Performance Fishing Boats, 

Defendants—Appellees. 

______________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Western District of Louisiana

USDC No. 3:20-CV-76

______________________________

Before Graves, Ho, and Duncan, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam:*

I.

Jeremiah Womack bought a Skeeter bass boat with a Dometic 

hydraulic steering system. To break the boat in after the purchase, Womack 

took it out for five hours on a small, inland lake in Louisiana. During that first 

use of the boat, Womack noticed a bit of a skip to the left.

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* This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

July 18, 2023

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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No. 22-30147

2

A few days later, Womack took the boat out on the lake again, 

intending to continue breaking it in. Before this second use of the boat, 

Womack familiarized himself with the user manual and its various warnings. 

The water on the lake was calm, apart from a slight chop.

Womack was only on the lake for about ten minutes, when he began 

making a gradual turn to the right. As he made this gradual turn, the boat 

suddenly turned sharply and hooked around. This threw Womack from his 

seat, injuring him.

Three days later, Womack took the boat to a local dealer in Louisiana 

to inspect the steering system. The local dealer thought there was a problem, 

so it sent the boat to Skeeter, the boat manufacturer, for further testing. 

Skeeter was unable to identify a problem with the steering system, but it still 

replaced the entire steering system. Skeeter then sent the old steering system 

to Dometic, the steering system manufacturer, which claimed it found no 

problem with the system.

Womack brought this suit against Skeeter, the boat manufacturer, and 

Dometic, the steering system manufacturer, seeking damages for his injuries 

from the boat accident. Womack raises two claims under the Louisiana 

Products Liability Act: (1) for dangerous construction and (2) for failure to 

warn. The district court granted summary judgment to Defendants on both 

claims. We affirm.

II.

We “review[] a grant of summary judgment de novo and appl[y] the 

same standard as the district court.” Lyles v. Medtronic Sofamor Danek, USA, 

Inc., 871 F.3d 305, 310 (5th Cir. 2017) (citing Amerisure Ins. Co. v. Navigators 

Ins. Co., 611 F.3d 299, 304 (5th Cir. 2010)). For us to grant them summary 

judgment, Defendants must “show[] that there is no genuine dispute as to 

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any material fact,” such that they are “entitled to judgment as a matter of 

law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).

A.

Womack argues that Defendants are liable under a theory of 

unreasonably dangerous construction. The Louisiana Products Liability Act 

defines unreasonably dangerous construction as follows: “A product is 

unreasonably dangerous in construction or composition if, at the time the 

product left its manufacturer’s control, the product deviated in a material 

way from the manufacturer’s specifications or performance standards for the 

product or from otherwise identical products manufactured by the same 

manufacturer.” La. Stat. Ann. § 9:2800.55. The “plaintiff must prove that 

a product is unreasonably dangerous in order to prevail in a products liability 

action.” Lawson v. Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America, Inc., 938 So. 2d 35, 47 

(La. 2006). 

Louisiana has adopted the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur as a way for the 

plaintiff to prove unreasonably dangerous construction even in the absence 

of direct evidence. See id. at 49 (Plaintiff can “use circumstantial evidence 

in order to make the inference that a product was unreasonably dangerous 

when that product left a manufacturer’s control.”). See also Lyles, 871 F.3d 

at 312 (“The Louisiana Supreme Court has specifically held that res ipsa 

loquitur can be applied in products liability actions . . . .”). “[T]he 

circumstantial evidence presented must exclude other reasonable hypotheses 

with a fair amount of certainty.” Lawson, 938 So. 2d at 48 (cleaned up).

Invoking res ipsa loquitur, Womack references the testimony of expert 

witness Ken Smith, a trained naval engineer who works as a consultant on 

mechanical systems. As Womack interprets it, Smith’s testimony shows that 

there are only three reasonable hypotheses to explain the accident: (1) “a 

passing wave,” (2) “user input,” or (3) “a failure in the system.” Womack 

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cites his own sworn testimony that there were no waves on the water that 

day. This rules out a passing wave as the cause of the accident. And Womack 

also cites his own testimony that he was turning the boat slowly when he was 

thrown off his feet. This rules out user input, leaving only system failure. 

Thus, Womack concludes, “Smith’s theory that th[e] most likely cause of 

the end-swap was a failure of the steering system creates a material issue of 

fact that should go before a jury.”

If this were an accurate characterization of Smith’s statements, then 

Womack might be right about res ipsa loquitur, entitling a jury to hear this 

case. But Smith’s statements make clear that no reasonable jury could 

conclude that res ipsa loquitur applies. That’s because Womack has failed to 

exclude all the reasonable possibilities that Smith’s report identifies as 

potentially causing the accident. If you read Smith’s report, you’ll see that 

he identifies four potential causes rather than three: (1) a wave, (2) user input, 

(3) “air entrained in the hydraulic system,” (4) “a mechanical problem with 

the system components.” Like Womack, Smith rules out the first two 

explanations—a wave and user input—based on Womack’s “experience and 

the reported water conditions.” This means the cause of the accident was 

that “the boat suddenly and abruptly changed course.”

Nevertheless, Smith is unable to pin the accident on a product defect, 

as Womack would need to go before a jury on res ipsa loquitur. Smith explains 

that the accident could have happened due to a “mechanical problem with 

the system components.” Such a mechanical problem would likely amount 

to a construction defect. But Smith also notes that “air entrained in the 

system” could have caused the accident. “[E]ither of the most likely causes 

(air or mechanical failure) are possible and neither can be ruled out,” Smith 

concludes. Furthermore, Smith explains, air in the system “is a consequence 

of either insufficient hydraulic fluid in the system, or of air [sic] is not properly 

purged from the steering system hydraulics.”

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So insufficient hydraulic fluid could have caused the accident. 

Although insufficient hydraulic fluid could certainly count as a product 

defect in some other case, we conclude that Womack’s claim must fail here. 

That’s because the plaintiff must “demonstrate not only what a 

manufacturer’s specifications or performance standards are for a particular 

product, but how the product in question materially deviated from those

standards so as to render it ‘unreasonably dangerous.’” Morris v. United 

Servs. Auto. Ass’n, 756 So. 2d 549, 558 (La. Ct. App. 2nd Cir. 2000) (citations 

omitted). See also Lyles, 871 F.3d at 311 (same). 

Womack has failed to show that a lack of hydraulic fluid counts a 

deviation from the manufacturer’s standards, rather than a routine 

maintenance issue for which Womack himself was responsible. In other 

words, Womack has failed to show that insufficient hydraulic fluid is a 

product defect at all. Nor has Womack ruled out insufficient hydraulic fluid 

as a reasonable explanation for the accident. When any reasonable 

explanation apart from a product defect remains, res ipsa loquitur cannot 

apply. 

Womack “has not met his burden to ‘exclude all other reasonable 

explanations for his injuries.’” Id. at 313 (quoting Lawson, 938 So.2d at 49). 

Womack’s invocation of res ipsa loquitur therefore fails. And Womack has no 

other way to prove that the unreasonably dangerous construction of the boat 

caused his injuries.1

 So we affirm the grant of summary judgment to 

Defendants on Womack’s unreasonably dangerous construction claim.

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1 A jury could not find that “sticky valves” caused the accident. As Dr. Wendy 

Sanders, a mechanical engineer, explains in her uncontradicted expert testimony, “a sticky 

valve would . . . not manifest in the same fashion as the incident described by Mr. 

Womack.” That’s because a sticky valve would “result in a locked steering wheel, 

feedback in the steering wheel, or the wheel would turn in one direction,” as Dometic 

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B.

Womack also seeks to establish liability under a theory of failure to 

warn. The Louisiana Products Liability Act defines inadequate warning as 

follows: “A product is unreasonably dangerous because an adequate warning 

about the product has not been provided if, at the time the product left its 

manufacturer’s control, the product possessed a characteristic that may 

cause damage and the manufacturer failed to use reasonable care to provide 

an adequate warning of such characteristic and its danger to users and 

handlers of the product.” La. Stat. Ann. § 9:2800.57(A). An “adequate 

warning” is one that “would lead an ordinary reasonable user . . . to 

contemplate the danger in using . . . the product and either to decline to use

. . . the product or, if possible, to use . . . the product in such a manner as to

avoid the damage . . . .” La. Stat. Ann. § 9:2800.53(9). 

To survive summary judgment under a failure-to-warn theory in a 

Louisiana case, the plaintiff must show “that the product in question has a 

potentially damage-causing characteristic” and “that the manufacturer 

failed to use reasonable care to provide an adequate warning about this 

characteristic.” Stahl v. Novartis Pharms. Corp., 283 F.3d 254, 264 (5th Cir. 

2002). “To [satisfy] this test, . . . a plaintiff must provide evidence about the 

cause, frequency, severity, or consequences of the dangerous characteristic 

in question.” Id. (quotation omitted). See also Reynolds v. Bordelon, 172 So. 

3d 607, 614 (La. 2015) (Plaintiff must “specify what warning was 

inadequate,” must “provide a proposed adequate warning,” and must 

“provide . . . evidence to support this claim.”).

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argues, citing Sanders. Yet, according to Womack’s testimony, the steering was normal 

until the accident happened, and it also worked after the accident, though it had some slack.

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In Krummel v. Bombardier Corp., 206 F.3d 548 (5th Cir. 2000), the 

plaintiff sued a boat manufacturer under a Louisiana-law duty-to-warn 

theory. The plaintiff won in district court, yet we reversed. The plaintiff had 

failed to “provide evidence regarding the frequency of the accidents.” Id. at 

552. Without evidence of the “severity of the risk,” the plaintiff could not 

show that the defendant had “failed to use reasonable care.” Id. Similarly, 

Womack provides no evidence that the risk of the type of accident he 

experienced was great enough to merit warnings more extensive or more 

prominent than the warnings that Defendants already provided.

Womack’s citation to Smith’s expert report does not help him. 

Womack’s opening brief argues “[t]here was an inherent danger in the 

normal use of the Dometic steering system that if too much air entered the 

steering system, then the steering system could fail which can result in 

injuries.” Smith’s report does contain conclusory complaints about the way 

Defendants warned users to check the fluid. For example, the font of the 

warning was not as large as the boat’s brand name. But Smith’s report 

nowhere provides evidence that the warnings were disproportionate to the 

risk of accident. Thus, Womack’s failure-to-warn claim fails as a matter of 

law. 

Consider also the statutory text at issue. Under the Louisiana 

Products Liability Act, “[a] manufacturer is not required to provide an 

adequate warning about his product when . . . [t]he user or handler of the 

product already knows or reasonably should be expected to know of the 

characteristic of the product that may cause damage and the danger of such 

characteristic.” La. Stat. Ann. § 9:2800.57(B)(2). 

In Morgan v. Gaylord Container Corp., 30 F.3d 586 (5th Cir. 1994), we 

invoked this statutory provision to grant a defendant summary judgment on 

a failure-to-warn claim. See id. at 591–92. In that case, the plaintiff was aware 

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that a pump would cause leaking, so the pump manufacturer “was not 

required to provide [plaintiff] an adequate warning concerning its pump.” 

Id. at 591. Similarly here, Womack was aware that operating the boat without 

checking the steering system could result in an accident. After all, Womack 

testified that, prior to taking the boat out, he “s[aw]” and “review[ed]” the 

manual’s various warnings to that effect. Because Womack knew that the 

steering system could cause the accident, Defendants were not required to 

warn him further. 

* * *

We affirm the grant of summary judgment to Defendants. 

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