Opinion ID: 1498002
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: misuse as a defense when a concurring cause

Text: It is often said that misuse is a defense in products liability suits. Generally speaking this is true, because there are a variety of points upon which the unintended or reasonably unforeseeable use or alteration of a product may be relevant to the liability of the supplier of the product. The misuse may bear upon the issue of whether the product was defective when it left the hands of the supplier or the misuse may bear on the issue of what caused the harm. We cannot charge the manufacturer of a knife when it is used as a toothpick and the user complains because the sharp edge cuts. A harness hook is not necessarily defective simply because it breaks while being used to hold up a 1700 pound weight. Dosier v. Wilcox & Crittendon Co., 45 Cal.App.3d 74, 119 Cal.Rptr. 135 (1975). There are a number of cases where the manufacturer installed or supplied a safety guard or shield but injury occurs after the purchaser of the machine removes or casts aside the safety device. The foreseeability of that deviation in the manufacturer's intended use of the product is relevant to the basic question of whether the product was unreasonably dangerous when and as it was marketed. McGrath v. Wallace Murray Corp., 496 F.2d 299 (10th Cir. 1974). It is because of cases in these areas that the draftsmen of the Restatement wrote the following in Comment (h) following § 402A: (h) A product is not in a defective condition when it is safe for normal handling and consumption. If the injury results from abnormal handling, as where a bottled beverage is knocked against a radiator to remove the cap, or from abnormal preparation for use, as where too much salt is added to food, or from abnormal consumption, as where a child eats too much candy and is made ill, the seller is not liable. Restatement of Torts 2d § 402A(h) (1965). Misuse in this application has been defined by the Oregon Supreme Court as a use or handling so unusual that the average consumer could not reasonably expect the product to be designed and manufactured to withstand ita use which the seller, therefore, need not anticipate and provide for. Findlay v. Copeland Lumber Co., 265 Or. 300, 509 P.2d 28, 31 (1973). There is a related question of the proof of the condition of a product as of the time when the product left the hands of the defendant supplier. If the plaintiff has no evidence of a specific defect in the design or manufacture of the product, he may offer evidence of its malfunction as circumstantial proof of the product's defect. See Williams v. Ford Motor Co., 411 S.W.2d 443 (Mo.App.1966); Greco v. Bucciconi Engineering Co., 407 F.2d 87 (3rd Cir. 1969). The age and use of that product during the time intervening between the purchase and malfunction will tend to support or defeat the circumstantial weight of the malfunction as proof of original defect. In a Pennsylvania case a load of steel pipe fell on the plaintiff when the brake locking mechanism of a crane failed. The record contained no proof of the crane's defect except the malfunction itself, and the plaintiff contended that it was not necessary for him to present evidence of a specific defect to explain why the brake failed. His difficulty in this contention was that the machine had been in use for 20 years, that it was originally a shovel and had been converted into a dragline and then into a crane, and that many changes and adjustments had been made in the brake bands and pedals and lock. The Court there speaks of identifying the cause of the failure, but it could just as well speak of the question of proof of original defect of the machine. Under the record both questions could not be answered except by speculation. The case was remanded, however, because the trial court erroneously excluded expert testimony as to a design defect of the brake mechanism. Kuisis v. Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corp., 457 Pa. 321, 319 A.2d 914 (1974). In many cases the question is solely one of causation. Whether an original defect is proved or whether that too depends upon the effect of subsequent use as in the Pennsylvania crane case above, causation must be established. Where plaintiff had added a fifth wheel to his tractor, the dispositive question was whether that change had caused the accident. Dennis v. Ford Motor Co., 471 F.2d 733 (3rd Cir. 1973). Where a pipe-bending shoe broke after structural changes in the shoe and while being used on a press different from the type for which it was designed, the trier of fact was required to resolve the causation problem. Mazzi v. Greenlee Tool Co., 320 F.2d 821 (2nd Cir. 1963). Where a gas heater which exploded had been converted for propane gas, the question was the cause of the defect and explosion. Hales v. Green Colonial, Inc., 490 F.2d 1015 (8th Cir. 1974). When a crane collapsed while lifting without the use of outriggers, the plaintiff admitted that he knew the manufacturer's directions were to use the outriggers in lifting the heavy load, but he insisted that the outriggers were only for stability and would play no part in the manner in which the crane collapsed. The trial court had directed a verdict for the manufacturer for the reason that the crane was not used in the way it was intended to be used. The case was remanded for trial on the causation question. Kudelka V. American Hoist & Derrick Co., 541 F.2d 651 (7th Cir. 1976). The foregoing are illustrative of most of the cases where unforeseeable use or misuse are relevant to the liability of product suppliers. This is not to suggest that all statements of judges and writers can be so easily organized and summarized. To some courts misuse and contributory negligence are very similar. One opinion seems to hold that the use of strong drink by the driver of an automobile was a complete defense to a products liability suitthat being misuse though contributory negligence would be no defense. Kirkland v. General Motors Corp., 521 P.2d 1353 (Okl.1974); cf. Fields v. Volkswagen of America, Inc., 555 P.2d 48 (Okl.1976). Again, whether foreseeable or not, cars are not intended to be used in collision with other objects; it has been held that this exonerates the manufacturer despite damages due to a danger of his product which played no part in causing the collision. Evans v. General Motors Corp., 359 F.2d 822 (7th Cir. 1966). A larger list and discussion of the cases will be found in the following: 1 Frumer and Friedman, Products Liability § 15 (1971); Noel, Defective Products: Abnormal Use, Contributory Negligence and Assumption of Risk, 25 Vanderbilt L.Rev. 93 (1972); Anno. Products Liability: Alteration of Product After It Leaves Hands of Manufacturer or Seller as Affecting Liability for ProductCaused Harm, 41 A.L.R.3d 1251 (1972); Anno. Products Liability: Strict Liability in Tort, 13 A.L.R.3d 1057 (1967). This brings us to our case: where an unreasonably dangerous defect of the product and its unforeseeable misuse are concurring causes of the damaging event. Does the injured user recover all or none or a portion of his damages? We do not find the answer in precedents in Texas or elsewhere. Nor does the Restatement give us any guidance; section 402A comment h, quoted above, applies only where the product is safe for normal handling and consumption. That is not the case where the facts are that the product was defectivebecause of an unreasonably dangerous design, for example and the defect is a producing cause of the injury. We reject misuse as a defense where the product is dangerous for its foreseeable use and that danger is a producing cause of the injury of a bystander or a user who has not himself made some unforeseeable use of the product. On the other hand, product liability was never intended to take the place of insurance, and we see no justification for making the supplier reimburse the plaintiff for that portion of his own damages as he caused by a use of the product which the supplier would not have foreseen and which use the plaintiff should have foreseen would create or increase the attendant danger. Reduction of the plaintiff's recovery should be ordered where the misuse is a concurning proximate cause of the damaging event. The defect of the supplier's product need be only the producing cause [3] of the harm for the supplier to be held liable. C. A. Hoover & Son v. O. M. Franklin Serum Co., 444 S.W.2d 596 (Tex.1969). His liability is not rested upon what he knew or should have known when he manufactured or sold the product; it rests on his placing into the stream of commerce a product which is demonstrated at trial to have been dangerous. The damaging event may not have been reasonably foreseeable at the time of manufacture or sale because the dangerous factor of the product might not then have been even reasonably knowable. The supplier would thus be free of culpability, but a price of his doing business is to protect people from danger from his productsor to pay. That is a heavy burden on the supplier, but the exposure is not infinite. The supplier is not liable so long as the product is safe for its foreseeable uses. He is not ordinarily required to bear the loss of a user who knows and appreciates the danger, has the opportunity to avoid the harm, but proceeds to use the product and thereby assumes the risk. Henderson v. Ford Motor Co., 519 S.W.2d 87 (Tex.1974). We decide now that the supplier should not be required to pay for all of the damages suffered by a user who contributed to the cause of his harm by unforeseeable handling of the product. As indicated in the discussion above, contentions by the supplier relative to unforeseeable misuse of the product by the consumer usually bear upon the primary issues of defect and/or cause-in-fact of the damaging event. Where the supplier is unsuccessful in the contentions on those issues, he may interpose an affirmative defense and attempt to prove that the consumer plaintiff altered or misused the product in an unforeseen manner, that the misuse was a proximate cause of the damaging event, and that the misuse contributed to the cause of the event by a certain percent or fraction of the total contribution as between the product defect and the misuse. It is essential that the supplier prove, as an element of this defense, that the consumer plaintiff should have reasonably anticipated as consequences of the misuse that the malfunction or injury, or some similar malfunction or injury, would occur. The harm must be reasonably foreseeable [4] to the user if he is to be penalized. Suppose, for example, a young automobile buff such as R. M. Hopkins, Jr. makes an alteration in his carburetor which, though unforeseeable to the manufacturer, could be reasonably expected by one with Hopkins' knowledge to risk some difficulties in the operation of his vehicle: for example, slow starts or flooding or sluggish acceleration. But suppose that this alteration does far more: the alteration makes it more likely that a defect of design or manufacture, which constitutes a danger in the normal and expected operation of the carburetor, will be activated and cause the vehicle to speed out of control. If the malfunction and damaging event are not reasonably foreseeable to the user, his misuse should not limit his recovery. To recapitulate, if the product is found to have been unreasonably dangerous when the defendant placed it in the stream of commerce, and if that defect is found to have been a producing cause of the damaging event, and if the plaintiff has misused the product in the sense as defined by the trial court in its charge in the present case, and if that misuse is a proximate cause of the damaging event, the trier of fact must then determine the respective percentages (totalling 100%) by which these two concurring causes contributed to bring about the event. This comparison and division of causes is not to be confused with the statutory scheme of modified comparative negligence which bars all recovery to the plaintiff if his negligence is greater than the negligence of the parties against whom recovery is sought. Art. 2212a, Vernon's Ann.Civ.St. (P.P. 1976-1977). The defense in a products liability case, where both defect and misuse contribute to cause the damaging event, will limit the plaintiff's recovery to that portion of his damages equal to the percentage of the cause contributed by the product defect. In the present case the defendant GM did not plead misuse of the product as a proximate cause, nor did GM object to the inquiry in special issue No. 4 of producing cause, nor has GM made any complaint in the course of the appeal on this ground. Further, GM sought no findings of the percent of the cause of the accident to be attributed to the misuse. Even if we were to say that from the defendant's standpoint the case was tried on the wrong theory (or that GM might have pursued a different theory or contention with the present writing in hand), we cannot order a reversal and remand for a new trial unless we also find error in the trial court's judgment. Halepeska v. Callihan Interests, Inc., 371 S.W.2d 368 (Tex.1963). Finding no error in the judgments of the District Court and Court of Civil Appeals, they are affirmed. YARBROUGH, J., not sitting.