Opinion ID: 522150
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the sole proximate cause issue

Text: 8 Allen's employer, Dean & Flynn Fiesta Shows--the proprietor of the amusement park--was, understandably, not a party to this case. See Mass.Gen.Laws ch. 152, Secs. 23, 24 (1986) (employee eligible for Workers' Compensation may not sue employer). Under the Massachusetts comparative negligence law, Mass.Gen.Laws ch. 231, Sec. 85 (1986), a jury must apportion negligence between only the plaintiff and the defendant; the fault of non-parties like the employer is not to be taken into account. See Correia, 388 Mass. at 346-52, 446 N.E.2d at 1035-38. Warranty liability, similarly, is not ordinarily affected by non-parties' negligence. 9 It is also clear, however, that a defendant can be held liable for a tort only if its conduct or product was a proximate cause of the injury. Thus, a defendant is relieved from all liability if it can show that the injury was legally caused in its entirety by other persons or entities--that is, that the sole proximate cause of the injury was elsewhere, and not in the defendant. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recognized this possibility in Correia, when it noted that the negligence of a non-party can be taken into account when the [non-party's] negligence, either standing alone or combined with the negligence of [the plaintiff's decedent], was the sole proximate cause of [decedent's] injuries. Correia, 388 Mass. at 352, 446 N.E.2d at 1039. See also In re Massachusetts Asbestos Cases, 639 F.Supp. 1, 1 (D.Mass.1985) (following Correia ). On the authority of Correia, Chance requested the following jury instruction: 10 If you find that the conduct of someone other than Chance Manufacturing Co. was the sole proximate cause of the plaintiff's accident, then you must return a verdict for Chance Manufacturing Co. This conduct may be the negligence of Dean & Flynn Fiesta Shows [Allen's employer], and/or negligence of the plaintiff. 4 11 The district court declined to give such an instruction, and Chance made a timely objection. In addition, the district court ordered Chance not to argue the employer's negligence in its closing argument to the jury. The court stated: I won't permit you to argue that. If you do, I will interrupt you. The court based this order on its view that no evidence of the employer's negligence had been presented. After the court had informed defense counsel that he could not argue that the employer's negligence proximately caused the accident, the following discussion took place between the court and counsel: 12 THE COURT: Where is the evidence of negligence on the part of the employer?MR. PIERCE [Chance's counsel]: Well, the ride superintendent, he believed that everybody should be wearing safety glasses. 13 THE COURT: So what? And if the workers didn't, where is the evidence that he didn't tell them every morning. There is no evidence that he didn't tell them every morning. 14 MR. PIERCE: The evidence elicited by Mr. Swartz [Allen's counsel] was that there was no policy at Dean & Flynn regarding the wearing of safety glasses. 15 THE COURT: I don't recall that evidence. 16 MR. SWARTZ: I don't either. 17 THE COURT: I don't recall such evidence. I recall the evidence coming out that there were--I mean, from his own witness, as a matter of fact, the guy said that he thought that they should wear glasses. But the bottom line was it's hard to get them to do it because they're awkward to put on. They're awkward to work with. 18 MR. PIERCE: Just so I am clear, your ruling is that I may not argue employer negligence to the jury? 19 THE COURT: Yes, because I don't think there was any evidence of employer negligence. 20 The court's--and plaintiff's counsel's--memory of the evidence was faulty. Raymond LaCourse was the ride superintendent for the employer, Dean & Flynn, responsible (by his own testimony) for supervising all the rides and all the men. LaCourse testified that he had read the Skydiver manual and had seen the warning that safety glasses should be worn. He added that he knew, even without being told by the manufacturer, that safety glasses should be worn while hammering pins. But despite his knowledge that safety glasses should be worn, LaCourse testified that Dean & Flynn had no policy of requiring their use. The following exchange took place between Allen's counsel and LaCourse: 21 Q It was up to each ride man to decide whether or not he was going to use safety glasses, wasn't it? 22 A Right. 23 Q And you didn't have any policy about who should use them, did you? 24 A No, because you didn't know which way one man was going to work a certain specified time. 25 Q And each man got a helmet, right? 26 A Each man did get a helmet, right. 27 Q But each man didn't get glasses, did he? 28 A No, because there wasn't that many that you need on the show. 29 Plaintiff Allen confirmed in his own testimony that his employer never issued safety glasses to him. At another point, Chance's counsel and LaCourse had the following exchange: 30 Q So it's up to each rideman then? It's his own individual responsibility as to when he needs this eye protection, correct? 31 A His eyes, right. 32 Not only did the evidence indicate that the employer had no policy of requiring safety glasses, but there was testimony that might even have implied that the employer discouraged their use. LaCourse testified that many of the ride workers just didn't wear [safety glasses] because they were a nuisance. They couldn't work with them. He explained that 33 If a man's up in the air and he was pinning it--right?--they didn't want to come down and get the glasses.... They didn't all want to, after all, say, Gee, my shoelace is untied. I got to climb down to tie it. 34 A juror might have inferred from these comments that LaCourse himself--even though he knew that safety glasses should be worn while hammering--held the view that the glasses were a nuisance or would slow down the work, and that this attitude was inevitably, if subtly, conveyed to the workers. In addition, William Thorne, the ride foreman for the Skydiver and Allen's direct supervisor, testified that he never wore safety glasses when dismantling the Skydiver. A jury might reasonably infer that, given such attitudes and role models, Allen--who was only 20 years old at the time of the accident--was effectively discouraged from wearing safety glasses. 35 All this is significant because the jury might have decided that if Dean & Flynn had required or encouraged its workers to wear safety glasses while hammering pins, Allen would have done so and would not have suffered his injury. Both the plaintiff's and the defendant's metallurgical experts testified that people hammering metal pins should wear safety glasses. Allen himself testified that he had worn safety goggles at a previous job, where such use was required by his employer. The jury might have decided that the employer's failure to adopt such a policy, despite its knowledge that safety glasses were called for, was a negligent act and a proximate cause of Allen's injury. 36 There was also substantial evidence that Allen's own negligence contributed to his injury. The evidence indicated that Allen failed to wear safety glasses while hammering pins, even though a supply of safety glasses was kept in the ride's trailer. Allen testified at trial that on previous occasions, while hammering the ride's pins, he had been struck by metal chips in the hands and arms. In a deposition that was read at trial, Allen said that he and other workers had been struck many times by flying chips. Thus, the jury could have found that Allen was negligent when he failed to wear safety glasses while hammering, despite his previous experience with chipping. Allen's negligence was argued to the jury, and he was found to be 25 percent responsible for his injury. 37 The evidence also suggested that Allen, who helped supervise local hired hands in dismantling the Skydiver, typically dismantled the ride in something of a rush. Allen testified that he and his crew typically dismantled the Skydiver in three-and-a-half to four hours, even though the ride manual said that the job took four-and-a-half or five hours. When Chance's counsel asked whether this speed was attributable to the way you and Walter [Allen's coworker] worked and the way that you pushed your crew, Allen answered, Yes. The jury might have inferred that this apparent haste--whether self-imposed or imposed by Allen's employer--made the accident more likely. If Allen was rushing, he might have been less likely to go to the trailer and get safety glasses before hammering. Moreover, William Thorne, the ride foreman for the Skydiver, testified that the pins were most likely to chip when they were not hit square on. According to Thorne, this was the result of being in a rush. The jury might have viewed this rush as indicative of negligence by Allen, his employer, or both. 38 Based on our examination of the trial transcript as a whole, we conclude that the evidence of employer negligence was sufficient to require the sole proximate cause instruction that Chance requested. In addition, Chance's counsel should have been given the opportunity to argue the employer's negligence and the sole proximate cause theory to the jury. It was error for the district court to deny this instruction and opportunity for argument. See Gillentine v. McKeand, 426 F.2d 717, 724 n. 24 (1st Cir.1970) (an instruction must be given on a material issue if requested and supported by evidence) (citing Massachusetts cases). 39 Having concluded that the district court erred, we must decide whether the error was of sufficient magnitude to require a new trial. An erroneous jury instruction necessitates a new trial only if the error could have affected the result of the jury's deliberations. See, e.g., Elwood v. Pina, 815 F.2d 173, 177 (1st Cir.1987) (judgment will be reversed when the erroneous instruction has affected 'the essential fairness of the trial,' or would have changed the outcome) (citations omitted); Connors v. McNulty, 697 F.2d 18, 21 (1st Cir.1983) (error in jury instructions will mandate reversal of judgment only if the error is found to be prejudicial, based on review of the record as a whole) (citations omitted). See generally Fed.R.Civ.P. 61 (error in trial court's ruling does not justify a new trial unless necessary to achieve substantial justice). Where the jury's verdict or its answers to special questions makes clear that its findings were not affected by the erroneous instructions, a new trial is not appropriate. See Elwood, 815 F.2d at 177-78. 40 Plaintiff Allen argues that the jury's special findings that Chance's conduct and product were proximate causes of the injury makes clear that the jury would not have found that the conduct of the employer--whether standing alone, or combined with the conduct of the plaintiff--was the sole proximate cause. Although this argument appears at first blush to make logical sense, such a logical analysis is not necessarily applicable to jurors' thought processes. People's assessments of the causes of events are inevitably influenced by the array of possible causes that are made salient to them. 5 The jury did find Chance's conduct to have proximately caused the injury, but only in a context in which it was not told that it could attend to the conduct of the employer, and in which the evidence of employer negligence was not argued to them at all. As Chance argues in its brief, When the jury found that defendant's conduct caused the accident, the jury did not know that it could find that the accident was proximately caused by the conduct of the employer. Thus, even though the jury found Chance to have proximately caused the injury, we cannot say that it would have reached the same conclusion if it had been properly instructed and had had its attention focused upon the employer's negligence. 6 41 We conclude that the district court's failure to instruct the jury on the sole proximate cause issue, as well as its refusal to allow Chance's counsel to refer to the employer's negligence in his closing argument, were errors that may have unfairly affected the jury's conclusions. We therefore vacate the judgment and remand for a new trial. Cf. Ferino v. Palmer, 133 Conn. 463, 52 A.2d 433 (1947) (trial court erred, and new trial required, when court failed to submit to jury, with appropriate instructions, defendant's claim that a non-party's negligence was the sole proximate cause of accident). 7 42 In holding that there must be a new trial, we reject Allen's argument that any new trial on the sole proximate cause issue should be restricted to the breach of warranty claim, and that the jury's negligence finding should stand. The requirement that a defendant be found to have proximately caused a plaintiff's injury is not restricted to breach of warranty claims. To the contrary, a defendant's demonstration that the sole proximate cause of the injury lies elsewhere is a complete defense against both negligence and warranty claims. Indeed, the portion of Correia that discussed the sole proximate cause issue, 388 Mass. at 352, 446 N.E.2d at 1038-39, related to a manufacturer's negligence. We have no reason to suppose, therefore, that the sole proximate cause doctrine does not apply to negligence claims. 43 Allen quotes language from a recent Supreme Judicial Court opinion that on its face appears to support his argument that any error in instructing the jury on sole proximate cause is relevant only to the breach of warranty claim: 44 An examination of the principles underlying liability in negligence and liability in warranty indicates that, while sole proximate cause is a component of the warranty inquiry, negligence liability does not focus on a sole cause of the plaintiff's injuries. 45 Colter v. Barber-Greene Co., 403 Mass. 50, 61, 525 N.E.2d 1305, 1312-13 (1988). But we do not read the discussion in Colter as modifying the general rule that a defendant's demonstration that the sole proximate cause of an injury lies elsewhere is a defense against negligence claims. The discussion in Colter is offered specifically to explain why the knowing and unreasonable use defense, discussed in Part II, infra, applies only to breach of warranty and not to negligence claims. In negligence cases, the Massachusetts comparative negligence statute, Mass.Gen.Laws ch. 231, Sec. 85, governs the apportionment of responsibility as between plaintiff and defendant, and thus a plaintiff's knowing and unreasonable use of a product does not in itself preclude a finding that defendant was negligent. In explaining this state of affairs, the Supreme Judicial Court commented that in this comparative negligence context the plaintiff's knowing and unreasonable use is not viewed as the sole proximate cause of the injury. We do not believe, however, that the court meant to say that the sole proximate cause doctrine is never applicable to negligence. Not only would such a holding be intuitively implausible, it would also undermine the court's discussion of sole proximate cause in Correia, something that the Colter court in no way suggested that it was doing. Therefore, the new trial must be held on both the negligence and the warranty claims. 46