Opinion ID: 2283422
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Moores Made a Submissible Case of Negligent Failure to Warn.

Text: The Moores also contend that they made a submissible failure to warn claim under a negligence theory. Although negligence and strict liability theories are separate and distinct, the same operative facts may support recovery under either theory, particularly in a failure to warn case. Hill v. Air Shields, Inc., 721 S.W.2d 112, 118 (Mo.App.1986). A failure to warn claim sounding in negligence focuses on what the manufacturer knew rather than on the product. The elements of a claim for failure to warn based in negligence are: (1) the defendant designed the product at issue; (2) the product did not contain an adequate warning of the alleged defect or hazard; (3) the defendant failed to use ordinary care to warn of the risk of harm from the alleged defect or hazard; and (4) as a direct result of the defendant's failure to adequately warn, the plaintiff sustained damage. MAI 25.09. As to the first element, Ford stipulated that it designed, manufactured and sold the Explorer involved in this case. With respect to whether the Explorer contained an adequate warning of the alleged hazard, the Moores' testimony established that the Explorer lacked any warnings as to whether the seats were designed for a person of Ms. Moore's weight or that they were designed to collapse backward in rear-end impact collisions. With respect to whether the Moores produced evidence that they sustained damage as a direct result of Ford's failure to warn adequately, the causation elements are the same for both strict liability and negligent failure to warn. Smith v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 275 S.W.3d 748, 788 n. 107 (Mo.App.2008). For the reasons noted above, the Moores made a submissible case of causation. The critical issue, then, was whether Ford failed to use ordinary care to warn of harm from the alleged defect in the Explorer. [10] There was sufficient evidence for this question to go to the jury. That someone weighing as much as Ms. Moore would be driving the vehicle was foreseeable; Ford admitted it was predictable that persons weighing more than 220 pounds would use its vehicles. It was also foreseeable that the seats would yield in a rearward manner; one of Ford's experts testified that the Explorer's seats are designed to yield rearward and that the seat in which Ms. Moore was sitting during the crash performed as expected by Ford. The Moores' expert, Mr. D'Aulerio, testified that Ford's design of the Explorer's seat was negligent because it was not capable of remaining upright in a rear-end crash. Based on this evidence, the Moores made a submissible case that the Explorer posed potential dangers and that Ford was negligent in failing to warn of them.