Opinion ID: 391163
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Skyride is Used in Recreation

Text: 36 Both plaintiffs assert that the Skyride is used only as a means of transportation, not as a form of recreation. The district court found that the ride was intended for the enjoyment of recreation-minded consumers. 481 F.Supp. at 1077. Plaintiffs have not shown that this finding is clearly erroneous. See Robert K. Bell Enterprises, Inc. v. United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, 484 F.Supp. 1221, 1225 (N.D.Okl.1980), rev'd on other grounds, 645 F.2d 26 (10th Cir. 1981), which quotes promotional literature describing the Skyride as an attraction in itself. 37 The plaintiffs then pose a more challenging argument. They construe in recreation to modify the immediately preceding language rather than to provide an additional basis for considering an item as a consumer product. The relevant portion of Section 2052(a)(1)(ii) states that a consumer product is used, enjoyed or consumed: 38 in or around a permanent or temporary household or residence, a school, in recreation, or otherwise.... 39 This interpretation reads the phrase in recreation to refer only to household or school products used in recreation ( ) or otherwise. Plaintiffs urge that, if in recreation provides an independent basis whereby a product becomes consumer, then the word otherwise also provides an independent basis whereby the statute includes every product imaginable. (Plaintiffs provide a parade of spectres for our edification.) Further, according to the plaintiffs, the references to household or residence would be rendered surplusage, subsumed by otherwise. 40 With the court in Chance Manufacturing, we find this interpretation unduly strained. 441 F.Supp. at 233. The insertion of a comma after recreation indicates that the word was part of the preceding series, rather than functioning with otherwise as an independent adjectival phrase and thus limiting consumer products to those used in recreation or otherwise in a household, residence or school. Further evidence that use in recreation provides a separate basis for including a product comes from the list of exceptions to Section 2052(a)(1)'s definition of consumer product. That Congress explicitly exempted aircraft and boats, see 15 U.S.C. § 2052(a)(1)(F)-(G), indicates congressional belief that these products, having no connection with school or household, would otherwise have fallen within the general definition. 41 We imply no insight as to the precise meaning of the term otherwise in this context. As a matter of diction, it is not redundant with the items in the preceding series because, by definition, it refers only to other items. However, we are not required to read this statute as if it were a wonderfully constructed jig-saw puzzle, with each word having only one precise place, yielding, when assembled, an unambiguous picture. The statute was not so constructed, as the legislative history indicates. It seems likely that otherwise was inserted as an assurance of comprehensiveness, to use Judge Leventhal's phrase. ASG, 593 F.2d at 1328. This case does not require us to announce that any non-industrial product 12 posing hazards to individuals constitutes a consumer product. That issue is simply not before us because the Skyride falls within one of the stated bases of the Commission's jurisdiction. 42