Opinion ID: 556603
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the risk/utility interface

Text: 24 Appellant challenges the entry of summary judgment on her design defect claims. In gauging the district court's stewardship of Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c), our review is plenary. See Mack v. Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co., 871 F.2d 179, 181 (1st Cir.1989). Furthermore, in elucidating state law for purposes of this diversity action, we must keep in mind that [o]ur function is not to formulate a tenet which we, as free agents, might think wise, but to ascertain, as best we can, the rule that the state's highest tribunal would likely follow. Porter v. Nutter, 913 F.2d 37, 40-41 (1st Cir.1990) (quoting Kathios v. General Motors Corp., 862 F.2d 944, 949 (1st Cir.1988)). It is not a diversity court's proper place to torture state law into strange configurations or precipitously to blaze new and unprecedented jurisprudential trails. See id.; see also Ryan v. Royal Ins. Co., 916 F.2d 731, 744 (1st Cir.1990). 25 The district court considered a design defect claim not preempted by the Labeling Act if the claim was independent of an alleged failure to warn. Accord Kyte v. Philip Morris, Inc., 408 Mass. 162, 556 N.E.2d 1025, 1029-30 (1990) (denying defendant's summary judgment motion inasmuch as plaintiffs' design defect claim [was] not based on the proposition that all cigarettes are inherently defective). It initially concluded that appellant, on the pleadings, had stated such a claim under Massachusetts law by averring that the tobacco was bad. Kotler I, 685 F.Supp. at 19-20. Later on, the court granted brevis disposition because appellant failed to develop proof that appellees' products were defective in some way apart from their inherent characteristics; appellant, in short, had insufficient evidence as a matter of law to show that the defendants' tobacco was not 'good tobacco.'  Kotler II, 731 F.Supp. at 55; see also id. at 51-52. 26 On appeal, Kotler does not harangue the district court's assessment of the evidence. Rather, she takes exception to the court's synthesis of Massachusetts law, urging that liability for a design defect is cognizable even absent any showing that the product was defective in a way above and beyond its inherent characteristics. Put succinctly, appellant's argument is that, when one balances risk against utility, cigarettes per se are so unreasonably dangerous as to be actionably defective. 27 Since Massachusetts does not recognize actions in strict liability for products, see Mason v. General Motors Corp., 397 Mass. 183, 490 N.E.2d 437, 442 (1986), a risk/utility approach cannot be shoehorned into a strict liability espadrille. See Mavilia v. Stoeger Indus., 574 F.Supp. 107, 109 (D.Mass.1983). Plaintiff's argument must, therefore, stand or fall in terms of breach of warranty--a remedy intended, in Massachusetts, to be fully as comprehensive as the strict liability theory of recovery ... adopted by a great many other jurisdictions. Back v. Wickes Corp., 375 Mass. 633, 378 N.E.2d 964, 968 (1978). The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) has described the state's law of warranty as being congruent in nearly all respects with the principles expressed in Restatement (Second) of Torts Sec. 402A (1965). Id. at 969; see also Hayes v. Ariens Co., 391 Mass. 407, 462 N.E.2d 273, 277 (1984). 7 The pivotal question, then, is whether, in the absence of a non-inherent defect, breach of warranty can be found based solely on a risk/utility analysis. We think this question must be answered in the negative. 28 Liability for breach of warranty is premised on the principle that [t]he seller warrants that the product is 'fit for the ordinary purposes for which such goods are used.'  Hayes, 462 N.E.2d at 277 (quoting U.C.C. Sec. 2-314(2)(c)). Thus, a breach of warranty can occur if either (1) the product is defectively designed, or (2) foreseeable users are not adequately warned of the dangers associated with its use. Id. For claims of the first type--design defect claims--Massachusetts requires a plaintiff to show that the manufacturer has breached its duty to design products 'so that they are reasonably fit for the purposes for which they are intended.'  Marchant v. Dayton Tire & Rubber Co., 836 F.2d 695, 698 (1st Cir.1988) (quoting Smith v. Ariens Co., 375 Mass. 620, 377 N.E.2d 954, 957 (1978)). This does not mean a product must be risk-free; rather, it means that any risk created mut be reasonable. See id. In this context, reasonableness is a flexible concept. To evaluate the adequacy of a product's design, the factfinder should consider, inter alia: 29 the gravity of the danger posed by the challenged design, the likelihood that such danger would occur, the mechanical feasibility of a safer alternative design, the financial cost of an improved design, and the adverse consequences to the product and to the consumer that would result from an alternative design. 30 Back, 378 N.E.2d at 970 (citation omitted). Weighing these competing factors requires an inquiry essentially the same as the negligence inquiry. See id. 31 Here lies the rub. We are aware of no Massachusetts case in which liability attached in the absence of evidence that some different, arguably safer, alternative design was possible. In a design defect case premised on negligence, the existence of a safer alternative design is a sine qua non for the imposition of liability. See, e.g., Colter v. Barber-Greene Co., 403 Mass. 50, 525 N.E.2d 1305, 1310-11 (1988); Uloth v. City Tank Corp., 376 Mass. 874, 384 N.E.2d 1188, 1193 (1978). It follows, we think, that a design defect case premised on breach of warranty is, in Massachusetts, similarly dependent on proof of the existence of a safer alternative design--a design which reasonably could, or should, have been adopted. Cf. Collins v. Ex-Cell-O Corp., 629 F.Supp. 540, 543 (D.Mass.1986) (the feasibility of alternative and possibly safer designs is a relevant inquiry in the warranty context under Massachusetts law), aff'd mem., 815 F.2d 691 (1st Cir.1987). 32 In this case, no such proof was advanced. Appellant's design initiative rested not on the contention that appellees' cigarettes could have been made safer, but solely on the considerably different contention that the cigarettes were defective because the risks inherent in their consumption, good tobacco notwithstanding, outweighed their social utility. Under the decided cases, more was required. 33 We decline appellant's invitation to expand Massachusetts law past its present borders and into hitherto unexplored terrain. It is illogical to say that a product is defective in its generic form when defect has historically been measured in reference to the availability, or at least the feasibility, of safer alternatives. As the court below noted, Kotler II, 731 F.Supp. at 53, the caselaw furnishes no encouragement for so venturesome a step. Accord Viola v. American Brands, Inc., 85-2496-WD, 1989 WL 234525, slip op. at 2 (D.Mass. July 14, 1989); Herlihy v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 85-3888-MA, slip op. at 5, 1988 WL 73434 (D.Mass. June 27, 1988); see also Roysdon, 849 F.2d at 236 (defendant's cigarettes must present risks greater than those known to be associated with smoking in order to be defective under Tennessee law); Restatement (Second) of Torts, Sec. 402A, comment (i) (Good tobacco is not unreasonably dangerous merely because the effects of smoking may be harmful.); cf. Kyte, 556 N.E.2d at 1029-30. Summary judgment was appropriately granted with respect to the design defect claims.