Title: Conder v. Hull Lift Truck, Inc.
Citation: 435 N.E.2d 10
Docket Number: 582S186
State: Indiana
Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court
Date: May 13, 1982

435 N.E.2d 10 (1982)
Raymond CONDER and Wanda Conder, Appellants,
v.
HULL LIFT TRUCK, INC., and Allis-Chalmers Corporation, Appellees.
No. 582S186.

Supreme Court of Indiana.
May 13, 1982.
*12 Alexander Lysohir, Thomas H. Singer, Lysohir &amp; Singer, South Bend, for appellants.
Roland Obenchain, South Bend, for Hull Lift Truck, Inc.
R. Kent Rowe, Rowe &amp; Lederer, South Bend, for Allis-Chalmers Corp.
PIVARNIK, Justice.
This cause comes to us on Allis-Chalmers Corporation's petition to transfer from the Court of Appeals Fourth District. Appellants Raymond and Wanda Conder sued Allis-Chalmers and Hull Lift Truck, Inc., in Elkhart Circuit Court for injuries sustained by Raymond when a forklift truck he was operating overturned. Raymond was riding the forklift truck in connection with his employment by Globemaster Mobile Homes. The lift truck had been leased from Hull Lift Truck and was manufactured by Allis-Chalmers Corporation. The jury's verdict was in favor of both defendants, Hull Lift Truck and Allis-Chalmers. The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in favor of Hull Lift Truck but reversed the judgment in favor of Allis-Chalmers because of allegedly improper instructions given by the trial court. Conder v. Hull Lift Truck, Inc., (1980) Ind. App., 405 N.E.2d 538. We find that the trial court was correct in all respects; accordingly we grant transfer and vacate the opinion of the Court of Appeals.
The facts and circumstances of this cause were well enumerated in the Court of Appeals opinion and we adopt that portion of the opinion and incorporate it herein as follows:
Further evidence showed that Robert L. Hull, General Manager of Hull Lift Truck, Inc., as a witness for the plaintiffs, testified that sometime around August, 1970, the forklift truck in question was converted by Hull Lift Truck from a gasoline powered engine to a liquid propane gas (L.P. gas) engine. Hull Lift Truck originally rented out the forklift truck on December 1, 1970. The conversion kit which was used by Hull to convert this unit from a gasoline fuel system to an L.P. gas fuel system was obtained either from Allis-Chalmers Parts Central or L.P. Gas Equipment Co., in Franklin Park, Illinois. Hull had purchased conversion kits from both sources and Mr. Hull had no way of knowing which one supplied the conversion kit in question. He testified that his company did take these carburetors apart, which would include taking the letters off the carburetors. The springs that are placed on these carburetors are not purchased from Allis-Chalmers but instead from L.P. Gas Equipment Co.
We agree with the Court of Appeals in its analysis of the trial court judgment *14 in favor of Hull and adopt its language and make it part of this opinion as follows:
Not only did Graber fail to call Hull and request maintenance for the forklift, he also failed to even warn Conder of the problem of over-acceleration, despite the fact he knew Conder was using the machine.
The position of Allis-Chalmers is well taken that the same unforeseeable intervening cause of Conder's accident that insulated Hull from liability also insulated Allis-Chalmers. In fact, Allis-Chalmers is even further removed from the point of cause since not only was there the intervening acts of Globemaster but there was evidence *16 that Hull had committed acts that could be considered intervening since the equipment was put on the market by Allis-Chalmers. Hull leased the equipment to Globemaster in the defective condition that caused the injuries. Hull converted the carburetion system from gasoline to L.P. gas which may or may not have had Allis-Chalmers conversion kit parts and which required the dismantling and rebuilding of the carburetor in the parts that were pertinent to the defects here. Springs were used that were not manufactured by Allis-Chalmers and that were prone to break quite frequently according to the evidence.
Robert Slabaugh, a mechanic employed by Hull Lift Co., was in charge of periodic maintenance on the forklift vehicle involved in this accident. Mr. Slabaugh testified that prior to Conder's accident he replaced a broken governor spring and on another occasion installed a rebuilt carburetor, adjusted the carburetor and checked to make sure that the governor linkage was properly adjusted. He said he never attended any of the service schools offered by Allis-Chalmers, although they did come out to the job site and give instructions, but Slabaugh did not remember any schooling dealing with adjusting the carburetor system or with the L.P. gas system. Slabaugh learned how to adjust the carburetor system on these units from Warren Kline, a fellow employee, and that he knew how to adjust the carburetor linkage to the carburetor. During his testimony he described the proper method of adjustment and stated that that was the way he adjusted the governor linkage on the carburetor. He also knew that if the governor lever was in a horizontal position and the spring was broken, the arm would fall below center and the vehicle would run wide open as it did for Conder in this accident. He said this was a matter of simple mechanics that he knew and that he did not need a warning sign on the engine or any literature published by Allis-Chalmers or anyone else to know it. He further testified that in periodic maintenance inspections, he would find that people who used the machines had unhooked the governors, removed stops, wired the governors open or lengthened the linkage to give them more speed. He found this happened often in the field.
The jury had all of this evidence before it. The jury therefore could well have found that the failure to act on the part of Globemaster and Hull constituted an unforeseeable intervening cause of the plaintiff's accident and therefore no act, nor failure to act, on the part of Allis-Chalmers, was a proximate cause in this case. The evidence was that Allis-Chalmers had never been advised by Hull, Globemaster, or anyone else concerning the linkage problem involved here.
In view of the above facts and circumstances, the problems found by the Court of Appeals to exist in the instructions to the jury regarding Allis-Chalmers, if in fact they were improper, cannot be said to have contributed to the verdict and, therefore, were, at most, harmless error.
Allis-Chalmers' instruction No. 5, which was given by the court, stated:
Plaintiff's objection to this instruction was that it was improper for the court to tell the jury that Allis-Chalmers was not an insurer or guarantor in regard to the quality of its product. Plaintiff seems to equate quality of the product with the ability of that product to be reasonably safe for its *17 intended use. Perhaps it was a poor choice of words as quality is a rather general term and can be given different meanings depending on the connotations of the context in which it is used. It is true, however, that a manufacturer or seller is not liable for every failure of its product which results in injury and is liable only if the product contains a defective condition rendering it unreasonably dangerous. Shanks v. A.F.E. Industries, Inc., (1981) Ind., 416 N.E.2d 833, 834; Ayr-Way Stores, Inc. v. Chitwood, (1973) 261 Ind. 86, 93, 300 N.E.2d 335, 339; Cornette v. Searjeant Metal Products, Inc., (1970) 147 Ind. App. 46, 52, 258 N.E.2d 652, 656.
Other instructions given by the court covered this area well, including plaintiff's tendered instruction No. 2 given as follows: "Although a manufacturer of a fork lift truck has no duty to make an accident proof fork lift truck, he is legally bound to use reasonable care to design and build a fork lift truck which is reasonably fit and safe for the purpose for which it was intended... ."
Allis-Chalmers' instruction No. 7 instructed the jury that if plaintiff's injuries were solely and proximately caused by the conduct of defendant Hull Lift Truck, Inc., or Raymond Condor himself or that of his employer or any combination of these, then the verdict should be for Allis-Chalmers Corporation. It is plaintiff's contention here that this instruction was tantamount to telling the jury that contributory negligence was a defense to strict liability theory of products liability. This instruction, however, told the jury that if the sole proximate cause of the accident was from sources other than Allis-Chalmers, then the verdict should be in favor of Allis-Chalmers. The court further instructed the jury in plaintiff's requested instruction No. 10 that contributory negligence was not a defense to a defective product theory of recovery. Therefore, the instructions considered together, as they are supposed to be, properly instructed the jury on this subject. Palmer v. Decker, (1970) 253 Ind. 593, 601, 255 N.E.2d 797, 801; School City of Gary v. Claudio, (1980) Ind. App., 413 N.E.2d 628, 636; American Optical Co., v. Weidenhamer, (1980) Ind. App., 404 N.E.2d 606, 622.
Allis-Chalmers' instruction No. 10 was as follows:
This instruction must also be considered with all other instructions given to the jury. Instruction number 8 given by the court informed the jury that if changes are foreseeable then liability would attach notwithstanding the fact that changes were made by others. Defendant's instruction No. 4 advised the jury that Allis-Chalmers did not have to foresee substantial changes. It would be an impossible task to require a manufacturer to give warnings to a user of all the ways in which a unit or any component of that unit might be misused. In Perfection Paint and Color Company v. Kondouris, (1970) 147 Ind. App. 106, 258 N.E.2d 681, quoting from Cornette v. Searjeant Metal Products, supra, the Court of Appeals wrote "... defense of misuse is available when the product is used `for a purpose not reasonably foreseeable to the manufacturer' or when the product is used `in a manner not reasonably foreseeable for a reasonably foreseeable purpose.'" It is only when a change or modification could be reasonably foreseen by the manufacturer to be a safety hazard and would not be apparent to the consumer or user that there could be liability of the manufacturer. Court's instruction No. 8, together with the other instructions given, advise the jury of this.
We agree with the analysis of the Court of Appeals in regard to plaintiff's instruction No. 9 and plaintiff's instruction No. 19 and adopt its language and make it part of this opinion as follows:
Appellants argue there was sufficient evidence to support this instruction and it therefore should not have been refused. Allis-Chalmers argues this instruction was an incorrect statement of the law concerning willful and/or wanton misconduct. We agree.
Two elements must be established by the evidence to fix liability for willful and wanton misconduct. First, the defendant must have knowledge of an impending danger or have been conscious of a course of misconduct calculated to result in probable injury. Second, the defendant's actions must have exhibited his indifference to the consequences of his conduct. Clouse v. Peden, (1962) 243 Ind. 390, 186 N.E.2d 1; Brown v. Saucerman, (1957) 237 Ind. 598, 145 N.E.2d 898. It is the probability or likelihood of injury which justifies the labeling of the defendant's conduct as reckless or wanton, as opposed to merely negligent.
Plaintiff's Instruction No. 9 would have informed the jury that liability for willful and wanton misconduct could attach if Allis-Chalmers knew "a hazard ... could result from foreseeable misadjustments during the course of anticipated maintenance." However, conduct which merely could, or might possibly result in injury does not amount to willful and wanton misconduct. Therefore, plaintiffs' instruction No. 9 was an inaccurate statement of the law and was properly refused.
Appellants also argue the trial court erred by refusing plaintiffs' Instruction No. 19 on substantial change. We hold the instruction was properly denied.
Instruction 19 read as follows:
We acknowledge the general rule that it is error for a trial court to refuse to define in its instructions technical and legal phrases in connection with material issues of the lawsuit if property requested to do so. Love v. Harris, (1957) 127 Ind. App. 505, 143 N.E.2d 450. The term "substantial change" is undoubtedly a word of art in the law of strict liability. Cornette, supra. However, subsection (1) of Instruction No. 19 was redundant, and potentially confusing. It would have told the jury that in order for a change to be considered a substantial change, it had to be *19 "substantial." Subsections (2) and (3) of the instruction properly define substantial change without this verbiage. Therefore the trial court was justified in refusing the instruction as tendered by the plaintiffs."
Transfer is granted, the opinion of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the judgment of the trial court is in all things affirmed.
GIVAN, C.J., and PRENTICE, J., concur.
HUNTER, J., dissents with opinion in which DeBRULER, J., concurs.
HUNTER, Justice, dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent from the majority opinion. The opinion and decision of the Court of Appeals, found at Conder v. Hull Lift Truck, Inc., (1980) Ind. App., 405 N.E.2d 538, should not be disturbed. Therein, the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment entered in favor of Hull Lift Truck, Inc., but reversed the judgment entered in favor of Allis-Chalmers Corporation and remanded the cause for a new trial on the basis of various errors in the final instructions given to the jury.
Prior to its analysis of the instructional errors upon which the Court of Appeals predicated its decision, the majority concludes that "if in fact they [the instructions] were improper," the instructions "cannot be said to have contributed to the verdict and, therefore, were, at most, harmless error." See Majority Opinion, supra. The majority's conclusion stems from its extensive recitation of testimony elicited from Robert Slabaugh, a mechanic employed by Hull Lift. As the majority points out, Hull Lift had leased the forklift vehicle to Globemaster, plaintiff Conder's employer; pursuant to the lease agreement, Hull Lift retained all responsibility for maintenance of the forklift vehicle.
Slabaugh was in charge of periodic maintenance on the forklift vehicle involved in the accident; as the majority acknowledges, he would often find that people had adjusted the carburetor in various manners, such as unhooking the governor, wiring the governor open, lengthening the linkage, or removing stops, all designed to provide more speed. While Slabaugh would discover these adjustments during his periodic maintenance inspections of the vehicle, the record also reveals, as the Court of Appeals emphasized, that Slabaugh was not the person who last serviced the vehicle before Conder's accident. Conder v. Hull Lift Truck, Inc., supra at 547.
Slabaugh's testimony consequently cannot be regarded as conclusive of the question whether Allis-Chalmers negligently failed to warn of the hazards associated with the carburetor assemblage. Whether proper warnings might have prevented the accident remained in doubt, a factual question for the jury to resolve. To properly resolve the issue, it was necessary that the jury be properly instructed on the law it should apply; we cannot say that any error in the final instructions was necessarily harmless. Harper v. James, (1965) 246 Ind. 131, 203 N.E.2d 531; Birdsong v. I.T.T. Continental Baking Company, (1974) 160 Ind. App. 411, 312 N.E.2d 104; Summers v. Weyer, (1967) 141 Ind. App. 176, 226 N.E.2d 904.
The majority further errs in its analysis of the instructional questions which prompted the Court of Appeals to reverse the judgment entered in favor of Allis-Chalmers. The Court of Appeals properly found the trial court erred in giving Allis-Chalmers's instructions numbered 5, 7, and 10.
Instruction number 5 informed the jury that Allis-Chalmers "was not and is not an insurer or guarantor in regard to the quality of its product and is not required to manufacture or produce a product which is perfect or accident proof." The majority describes the language as "perhaps ... a poor choice of words," yet tacitly approves its substance on the rationale that "a manufacturer or seller is not liable for every failure of its product which results in injury."
Nobody would properly argue that a manufacturer or seller is liable for every *20 injury suffered in connection with a product. The "failure" of a product, however, whether it be caused by improper design or a defect in quality, is precisely what triggers product liability  assuming the failure was the cause of the injury. The majority's language, as well as the instruction, as the Court of Appeals noted, strikes directly at one of the most fundamental considerations underlying Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts  that the manufacturer represents to the public that its product is reasonably safe for its intended or reasonably foreseeable use, and that the public justifiably relies on that expectation. Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 402A, Comment c; see also, Prosser, The Assault on the Citadel, 69 Yale L.J. 1099 (1960); Shapo, A Representational Theory of Consumer Protection: Doctrine, Function, and Legal Liability for Product Disappointment, 60 Va.L.Rev. 113 (1974).
The Court of Appeals recognized that the instruction was wholly at odds with the law of products liability and more than a mere poor choice of words. It properly held that the instruction should not have been given.
Allis-Chalmers's instruction number 7 informed the jury that if the conduct of either Raymond Conder, his employer, or Hull Lift Truck was the cause of the accident, Allis-Chalmers was not liable. As the Court of Appeals noted, there was absolutely no evidence that Conder's own conduct contributed to the accident. There is no indication that he misused the machine or that he altered it in any way. The instruction was inappropriate to the evidence, confusing to the jury, and should not have been given.
Allis-Chalmers's instruction number 10 informed the jury that Allis-Chalmers "was not required to warn of potential dangers resulting from the misuse or substantial change of such products by others." On the basis that the instruction failed to incorporate the element of foreseeability with respect to misuse of the product, the Court of Appeals found it improper. Judge Chipman spoke for the unanimous court:
This analysis reflects recognition of the rationale behind products liability law.
The majority of this Court, however, finds no error in the statement that a manufacturer is "not required to warn of potential dangers resulting from misuse." It finds the statement acceptable on the basis that the element of foreseeability was incorporated into other instructions. Those instructions, however, related to "substantial changes," not "misuse." The defenses are distinct in product liability analysis.
In addition, the majority suggests "It would be an impossible task to require a manufacturer to give warnings to a user of all the ways in which a unit or any component of that unit might be used." Majority Opinion, supra. Yet, as the majority acknowledges, if a misuse is foreseeable and the resultant danger is not apparent, then the manufacturer's responsibilities are triggered. The instruction failed to embody those rules of law, and for that precise reason the Court of Appeals properly found that it was an improper instruction.
Finally, it is noted that with respect to each of the instructions found erroneous by the Court of Appeals, the majority has relied on other instructions to support its conclusions that the instructions were proper. It is true, of course, that instructions are to be construed together. Palmer v. Decker, (1970) 253 Ind. 593, 255 N.E.2d 797. This Court has also recognized that an improper instruction cannot necessarily be cured by the giving of a proper instruction, for the result leaves the jury to determine which of the contradictory propositions of law it should apply. Harper v. James, supra. In implementing other instructions to buttress its conclusions with respect to Allis-Chalmers's instructions 5 and 10, the majority has violated the rule of Harper v. James, supra, for those instructions were cast in terms wholly contrary to both the letter and spirit of products liability law, as the Court of Appeals emphasized.
I dissent; Allis-Chalmers's petition to transfer should be denied.
DeBRULER, J., concurs.