Opinion ID: 2149776
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Duty to Third Persons

Text: [13] Section 388 of the Restatement also makes clear that the duty extends to third persons, not just to those in privity of contract with the supplier of the chattel. Comment a. provides in part: The words those whom the supplier should expect to use the chattel and the words a person for whose use it is supplied include not only the person to whom the chattel is turned over by the supplier, but also all those who are members of a class whom the supplier should expect to use it or occupy it or share in its use with the consent of such person, irrespective of whether the supplier has any particular person in mind. Thus, one who lends an automobile to a friend and who fails to disclose a defect of which he himself knows and which he should recognize as making it unreasonably dangerous for use, is subject to liability not only to his friend, but also to anyone whom his friend permits to drive the car or chooses to receive in it as passenger or guest, if it is understood between them that the car may be so used. [19] In Gall v. McDonald Indus., [20] the Washington Court of Appeals applied § 388 to a third person. There, a construction company leased a dump truck. One of the company's employees was driving the truck when its brakes failed and the truck crashed, injuring the employee. The employee sued the leasing company, and the trial court entered summary judgment against him. In reversing the trial court's decision and remanding the cause, the Washington court cited the comments to § 388. The court held that a rational trier of fact could find that the employee was a foreseeable user of the truck, protected under § 388. [14] U-Haul Center cites Danler v. Rosen Auto Leasing [21] in support of its argument that it owes no common-law duty to Shari. In Danler, we addressed a vehicle-leasing company's duty to a third-party victim. The lessee, while driving the leased vehicle, damaged a third party's parked car; the third party then sued the leasing company. [22] We determined that [a] contractual relationship between two parties, one of which is a tort-feasor, does not justify the imposition of an affirmative duty upon the other party to the contract to protect a third-party victim with whom no such relationship exists. [23] That is, without a relationship between the leasing company and the third-party motorist, the leasing company had no affirmative duty to protect the third party. We, however, believe that the rule in Danler does not apply here because a fact finder could determine that Shari was a foreseeable user of the leased goods, unlike the third-party victim in Danler. The duty owed by U-Haul Center is not to protect Shari from its lessee's negligence, but to protect her from danger stemming from her own use of the leased truck. She, therefore, could fall within the class of protected individuals under § 388.