Opinion ID: 1757576
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Crashworthiness Doctrine

Text: The concept of defect is central to a products liability action brought on a strict tort liability theory, whether the defect be in conscious design, or in the manufacture of the product, or in the marketing of the product. See, Henderson v. Ford Motor Co., 519 S.W.2d 87 (Tex.1974); Darryl v. Ford Motor Co., 440 S.W.2d 630 (Tex.1969); McKisson v. Sales Affiliates, Inc., 416 S.W.2d 787 (Tex.1967). [2] Citing McKisson v. Sales Affiliates, Inc., 416 S.W.2d 787 (Tex.1967), we wrote in Pittsburg Coca-Cola Bottling Works of Pittsburg v. Ponder, 443 S.W.2d 546 (Tex. 1969), of our final yield to the irrefutable logic that the rule of strict liability is the only practical vehicle for protecting the public against harm caused by defective products. We recognized that McKisson committed the Court to the rule of strict liability expressed in Section 402A of The American Law Institute's Restatement of the Law of Torts (2d Ed.). We wrote further: The prime requirement for imposing liability on a seller under the rule of strict liability is proof by the plaintiff that he was injured because of a defective condition in the product when it left the hands of the particular seller. Jack Roach-Bissonet, Inc. v. Puskar, 417 S.W.2d 262, at 278 (Tex.1967). This is not to say that proof of the defect must be made by direct or opinion evidence; it usually can only be made by circumstantial evidence. As an example, see Darryl v. Ford Motor Co., [440 S.W.2d 630 (Tex. 1969)]. 443 S.W.2d at 548. Later, in Henderson v. Ford Motor Co., 519 S.W.2d 87, at 92, we wrote: The car manufacturer and its dealer are liable for unreasonably dangerous productswhether designed defectively or improperly and produced as designed, or whether designed perfectly but improperly or defectively produced. A logical extension of the rationale of these decisions is succinctly stated in Huff v. White Motor Corp., 565 F.2d 104, 109 (7th Cir. 1977): One who is injured as a result of a mechanical defect in a motor vehicle should be protected under the doctrine of strict liability even though the defect was not the cause of the collision which precipitated the injury. There is no rational basis for limiting the manufacturer's liability to those instances where a structural defect has caused the collision and resulting injury. This is so because even if a collision is not caused by a structural defect, a collision may precipitate the malfunction of a defective part and cause injury. In that circumstance the collision, the defect, and the injury are interdependent and should be viewed as a combined event. Such an event is the foreseeable risk that a manufacturer should assume. In each case, i. e., where the product causes the accident and resulting injuries and where the product causes damage or injury only, the causative defect is one of conscious design and there is no valid distinction in strict liability between a conscious design defect causing an accident and a conscious design defect causing an injury. By the same token, there is no rational basis for a difference in the manner of submission of the issues to be determined by the fact finder. We have not required a balancing of enumerated factors in jury submission by our previous writings, and, as stated earlier, we disapprove the ruling of the Court of Civil Appeals that such is required in a crashworthiness case. The difficulty of formulating a series of specific factors which the fact finders will be instructed to balance is obvious. The majority of the Court of Civil Appeals enumerated four factors it would require to be balanced in determining the fact issue of defective design; the dissenting justice would require a fifth factor. These suggested factors were apparently derived from two cited law review articles: that of Dean Wade, Strict Tort Liability of Manufacturers, 19 Sw.L.J. 5, 17 (1965) suggesting seven factors; and that of Dean Keeton, Manufacturer's Liability: The Meaning of Defect in the Manufacture and Design of Products, 20 Syracuse L.Rev. 559, 565 (1969), suggesting four factors. Dean Wade, in a later article, On the Nature of Strict Tort Liability for Products, 44 Miss. L.J. 825, 838, 840 (1973), offered a revised list of seven factors which seemed to him to be of significance in applying the unreasonably dangerous standard. He posed the question of how the proposed standards are actually to be used in the trial of a case and wrote that It is here [unsafe design] that the policy issues become very important, and the factors which were enumerated above must be collected and carefully weighed. It is here that the courtwhether trial or appellatedoes consider these issues in deciding whether to submit the case to the jury.... Should the jury be told about the list of seven factors which were set forth above? The answer should normally be `no.' His conclusion is that the analysis is most helpful and can be used by appellate and trial judges, and by students and commentators, but that it is not normally given to the jury. Many other commentators have suggested factors to be utilized. See, Dickerson, Products Liability: How Good Does A Product Have To Be?, 42 Ind.L.J. 301, 331 (1967) (five factors); Fischer, Products LiabilityThe Meaning of Defect, 39 Mo.L.Rev. 339, 359 (1974) (fifteen factors); Montgomery & Owen, Reflections On The Theory And Administration of Strict Tort Liability For Defective Products, 27 S.C.L.Rev. 803, 818 (1976) (four factors); Shapo, A Representational Theory of Consumer Protection: Doctrine, Function and Legal Liability for Product Disappointment, 60 Va.L.Rev. 1109, 1370-71 (1974) (thirteen factors). In speaking to the question of whether there was evidence to support the jury finding that the product was unreasonably dangerous, we wrote in Rourke v. Garza, 530 S.W.2d 794, 799 (Tex.1975): Thus, the jury was justified in concluding that the risk of harm outweighed the utility of the cleatless scaffold boards and that they were therefore unreasonably dangerous. There was no suggestion in Rourke, however, that the jury should have been instructed to balance specific factors of risk of harm against utility. It has been pointed out that the evidence necessary to address the appropriate elements of balancing criteria should be overtly advanced by both parties in a strict liability action; but that this does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the jury should be specifically instructed concerning these considerations. See, Donaher, Piehler, Twerski and Weinstein, The Technological Expert in Products Liability Litigation, 52 Tex.L.Rev. 1303, 1307-08 (1974). See also, Green, Strict Liability Under Sections 402A and 402B: A Decade of Litigation, 54 Tex.L.Rev. 1185, 1203-06 (1976).