Opinion ID: 1387335
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Heading: Does comparative negligence apply when Defendant raises the defense of misuse in a products liability action?

Text: We first consider whether applying the rules of comparative fault to product misuse confuses that defense with a form of contributory negligence or whether the misuse defense is a different species. We begin by distinguishing misuse from contributory negligence and assumption of the risk, defenses that have been subject to the rules of comparative fault since UCATA's original enactment in 1984. See A.R.S. § 12-2505(A).
Arizona adopted the doctrine of strict products liability to address the problem of consumer injury caused by unreasonably dangerous products, allocating the risk of loss to the manufacturers and sellers of these products. See Torres v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 163 Ariz. 88, 91, 786 P.2d 939, 942 (1990). A prima facie case of strict products liability is established by showing that when the product left the defendant's control, it was in a defective condition that made it unreasonably dangerous and the defect was a proximate cause of plaintiff's injuries. Gosewisch, 153 Ariz. at 403, 737 P.2d at 379; see also O.S. Stapley Co. v. Miller, 103 Ariz. 556, 559-60, 447 P.2d 248, 251-52 (1968) (adopting strict liability rule of RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 402A (1965), hereinafter RESTATEMENT). We have recognized two affirmative defenses in products liability that, if proven, bar a plaintiff's recovery: assumption of risk and product misuse. O.S. Stapley, 103 Ariz. at 561, 447 P.2d at 253. However, along with most if not all other courts, we have rejected contributory negligence as a products liability defense. Id.; see also Gary D. Spivey, Annotation, Products Liability: Contributory Negligence or Assumption of Risk as Defense Under Doctrine of Strict Liability in Tort, 46 A.L.R.3D 240 (1972 & Supp. 1994). In O.S. Stapley we explained the differences between contributory negligence, assumption of risk, and misuse: (1) [F]ailure to discover a defect in the product which the plaintiff should, if he was reasonably diligent, have discovered is contributory negligence; (2) notwithstanding the discovery of such a defect, [if] the plaintiff nevertheless uses the article it is assumption of risk; and (3) the plaintiff's use of the product for certain purposes or in a manner not reasonably foreseen by the manufacturer is misuse. 103 Ariz. at 561, 447 P.2d at 253. Contributory negligence is not applicable to strict liability because, under the doctrine of strict liability, no duty rests upon the ultimate consumer or user to search for or guard against the possibility of product defects. Id. On the other hand, a plaintiff who voluntarily and unreasonably encounters a known danger has assumed the risk and cannot recover on a strict liability claim. Id. (quoting RESTATEMENT § 402A cmt. n). Misuse differs from assumption of risk in that knowledge of a product's defect is not necessary to establish misuse but is essential for assumption of risk. Randy R. Koenders, Annotation, Products Liability: Product Misuse Defense, 65 A.L.R.4TH 263 § 33, at 333 (1988). Misuse has been variously referred to as use for a purpose or in a manner that, from the manufacturer or seller's view, was unintended, unforeseeable, unanticipated, unexpected, non-customary, or abnormal. See id. These concepts distinguish misuse from contributory negligence, which involves careless use for a proper purpose. See RESTATEMENT § 402A cmt. n (1965); D.W. Noel, Defective Products: Abnormal Use, Contributory Negligence and Assumption of Risk, 25 VAND.L.REV. 93 (1972). At common law, misuse was intervening conduct so rare and unusual, and thus unforeseeable, that it was treated as a superseding cause to the product defect. W. PAGE KEETON, ET AL., PROSSER & KEETON ON THE LAW OF TORTS § 102, at 711 (5th ed. 1984). Because of the extraordinary nature of such conduct, courts tended to view unforeseeable misuse as breaking the chain of causation between the defect and injury. Id. Thus, and perhaps counterintuitively, misuse was a superseding cause that, if proved, barred recovery because the defendant's fault in distributing a defective product did not cause the plaintiff's injuries. Id. [3] As with assumption of the risk, misuse was an absolute defense to liability. In 1978, the legislature codified the common-law defense of misuse under A.R.S. § 12-683(3). Torres, 163 Ariz. at 96, 786 P.2d at 947. In pertinent part, § 12-683(3) provides that a defendant shall not be liable when the proximate cause of the accident was a use ... of the product which was for a purpose, in a manner or in an activity other than that which was reasonably foreseeable. (Emphasis added.) The text of this statute  using the term the proximate cause  arguably preserved the common-law all-or-nothing consequence of misuse and its essential common-law character, in the sense of use for a purpose or in a manner or for an activity neither intended nor reasonably foreseeable by the manufacturer. See Kavanaugh v. Kavanaugh, 131 Ariz. 344, 348-49, 641 P.2d 258, 262-63 (App. 1981) (quoting WILLIAM KIMBLE & ROBERT O. LESHER, PRODUCTS LIABILITY § 244, at 270 (1979)). In Gosewisch, we held that under § 12-683(3) misuse is a complete defense only if (1) the plaintiff misused the product and (2) misuse was the sole proximate cause of the injury. 153 Ariz. at 407, 737 P.2d at 383. We construed [t]he proximate cause language of § 12-683(3) to mean the sole proximate cause rather than a proximate or contributing cause of the incident that gave rise to the action. Id. Thus, under our interpretation of § 12-683(3) in Gosewisch, if there was evidence of misuse, it would have been correct to instruct the jury, as in the present case, that misuse bars recovery if it was the sole cause of the plaintiff's injury. Id. at 407, 737 P.2d at 383. Under the comparative fault rules of the 1987 version of UCATA, however, a jury can reduce a plaintiff's damages in an amount proportionate to the relative degree of the plaintiff's fault that proximately caused the injury. A.R.S. § 12-2505(A). If applicable to product liability cases, this of course recognizes the misuse defense in cases in which it is a contributing cause rather than the sole cause of injury. Thus, the jury would be instructed to determine whether the plaintiff's misuse contributed to the plaintiff's injuries and, if so, to compare the plaintiff's share of misuse-causation with the causal contribution of the product's defect. The judge would then reduce the plaintiff's damage recovery by the percentage of cause the jury attributed to the plaintiff. We turn next, therefore, to the question of whether our comparative fault statutes encompass the defense of product misuse. 2. Does the statute contemplate applying comparative fault to misuse? The 1987 UCATA amendments both abolished joint-and-several liability and apparently broadened the scope of torts subject to the rules of comparative fault. Section 12-2506(F)(2) was added to define apportionable fault: Fault means an actionable breach of legal duty, act or omission proximately causing or contributing to injury or damages sustained by a person seeking recovery, including negligence in all of its degrees, contributory negligence, assumption of risk, strict liability, breach of express or implied warranty of a product, products liability and misuse, modification or abuse of a product. (Emphasis added.) Defendant claims that the inclusion of the emphasized language in the 1987 UCATA definition of fault is a clear legislative mandate to make misuse as described in § 12-683(3) a comparative defense, even if it falls short of the sole cause of the accident. Thus, Defendant argues, § 12-2506 requires that the jury be instructed on comparative fault in a products liability case in which misuse is a factual issue. Plaintiffs contend that absent a specific legislative pronouncement abolishing the common-law and statutory rule, misuse must continue to be an all-or-nothing defense. They argue that the inclusion of misuse in the laundry list of defenses in the UCATA definition of fault does not by itself sufficiently show a change in the legislative policy. They suggest that we ignore those portions of UCATA that refer to the product liability defenses contained in § 12-683 until the legislature expressly modifies or amends the statutes to clarify the interplay of §§ 12-2506(F)(2) and 12-683(3). Although we agree with Plaintiffs that we should not conjure up legislative intent without some clear pronouncement from the legislature, we reject the suggestion that we should give no effect to the explicit text of a statute that modifies our interpretation of a different but earlier statute dealing with the same matter. Even if the text of the later statute is not clear, in determining whether a statute modifies or repeals another statute, a well-established and most important principle of statutory construction dictates that we interpret a statute in such a way as to achieve the general legislative goals that can be adduced from the body of legislation in question. Dietz v. General Elec. Co., 169 Ariz. 505, 510, 821 P.2d 166, 171 (1991). We have recognized that the general goal of the present version of UCATA is to make each tortfeasor responsible for only its share of fault. Id. at 510, 821 P.2d at 171. It is true that making misuse a comparative defense when it is not the sole proximate cause of the accident contradicts our interpretation of § 12-683(3) in Gosewisch. But the current version of § 12-2506 became effective after Gosewisch was decided, and we must interpret in light of the words of the later statute even if the result nullifies the interpretation Gosewisch gave an earlier statute. Gosewisch did not consider the pending amendments to § 12-2506 [4] and interpreted § 12-683(3) in light of the 1984 UCATA version then in effect. The legislature is free, of course, to rewrite statutes. By later including misuse as a category of fault to be apportioned in a products liability case and by abolishing joint-and-several liability, the legislature made misuse a species of comparative fault as surely as it had made contributory negligence and assumption of the risk subject to comparative fault when it included those defenses in the 1984 version of the same act. A.R.S. § 12-2505(A); see Hall v. A.N.R. Freight System, Inc., 149 Ariz. 130, 135, 717 P.2d 434, 439 (1986). Moreover, § 12-2505(A), the comparative negligence statute, does not limit the application of comparative fault principles to negligence theories. This section instead instructs that [i]n an action for personal injury, ... liability of the person who caused the injury shall be allocated ... in direct proportion to that person's percentage of fault. (Emphasis added.) When read together, § 12-683(3) and UCATA §§ 12-2505 and 12-2506 require a factual determination of the plaintiff's misuse as a relative degree of fault in allocating causal responsibility in a strict products liability claim. See Gibbs, 177 Ariz. at 348, 868 P.2d at 363 (Voss, J., dissenting). Such an interpretation furthers the general legislative goal embodied in UCATA of allocating fault and thus arguably promoting a tort system fair to both plaintiffs and defendants. See Shelby v. Action Scaffolding, Inc., 171 Ariz. 1, 6, 827 P.2d 462, 467 (1992). Under § 12-2506 as it now stands, each tortfeasor responsible for causing injury to the plaintiff is liable only for its causal contribution and no more. Dietz, 169 Ariz. at 510, 821 P.2d at 171. This does not interfere with the objectives of the strict products liability theory because the harm attributable to the product defect continues to be allocated to those who market the product and the cost of compensation is spread among all consumers. See Coney v. J.L.G. Indus., Inc., 97 Ill.2d 104, 73 Ill.Dec. 337, 342, 454 N.E.2d 197, 202 (1983). We therefore interpret the present version of § 12-2506(F)(2) to encompass product misuse in the jury's allocation of comparative fault. To this extent, we disapprove Gibbs. In so concluding, we are supported by substantial authority. Our state is not alone in applying comparative fault principles to strict liability defenses. The drafters of the third revision of the RESTATEMENT OF TORTS recommend that defenses against product liability plaintiffs be subject to the apportionment rules in jurisdictions that have adopted the comparative responsibility rules. RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF TORTS § 10, at 261, and § 12, at 300 (Tentative Draft No. 2, 1995). Despite some theoretical criticism of applying comparative fault to strict liability claims, [5] many courts have used comparative fault in strict products liability cases. See RESTATEMENT § 12, Reporters' Note at 304-08; Romualdo P. Eclavea, Annotation, Applicability of Comparative Negligence Doctrine to Actions Based on Strict Liability in Tort, 9 A.L.R.4TH 633 (1988 & Supp. 1994); but see Koenders, supra, A.L.R.4TH at 273, 291-97 (1988) (stating that majority of courts have held that misuse operates as a complete bar to recovery but not squarely addressing comparative fault issue). Plaintiffs argue that misuse is subject to comparative fault only if both negligence and strict liability theories are advanced in the same action, but not if only strict liability is claimed. This argument is based on the interpretation given § 12-2509(B) by the Gibbs majority. Section 12-2509(B) provides: If an action involves claims for relief alleging both negligence and strict liability in tort, and if § 12-2505 [comparative negligence] is applied with respect to the negligence claims for relief, the reduction in damages under § 12-2505 shall be applied to the damages awarded against all defendants, except that contributory negligence, as distinguished from assumption of risk, is not a defense to a claim alleging strict liability in tort, including any product liability action, as defined in § 12-681, except claims alleging negligence. Because the plaintiff alleged strict products liability but not negligence, the Gibbs majority concluded that comparative fault for misuse did not apply and held that the trial court did not err in refusing to give comparative misuse instructions. 177 Ariz. at 346, 868 P.2d at 359. We do not agree with this interpretation of § 12-2509(B) and disapprove Gibbs on this point also. We read § 12-2509(B) only as a badly-worded but successful attempt at preserving the common-law rule that contributory negligence is not a defense in strict liability. The statute expressly prohibits reduction of damages for the plaintiff's contributory negligence in a strict liability claim and allows such reduction in a negligence claim. Thus, a comparative fault instruction for misuse, as well as one for assumption of risk, would be proper even if negligence theories have not been alleged, as in Gibbs and the present case.