Opinion ID: 1187135
Heading Depth: 1
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Heading: Prior Development.

Text: Legal developments before the enactment of the present ORS 18.470 in 1975 can be briefly summarized. This court recognized a tort action for injuries caused by a dangerously defective product in a series of cases beginning with Heaton v. Ford Motor Co., 248 Or. 467, 435 P.2d 806 (1967). In 1971, the Legislative Assembly enacted the first version of ORS 18.470 as a comparative negligence statute. [2] In 1973, the court held that recovery on a products liability theory was not barred by a plaintiff's negligence in failing to discover the defect or to take precautions against its possible existence, as distinct from unreasonably using a product known to be defective. Findlay v. Copeland Lumber Co., 265 Or. 300, 509 P.2d 28 (1973) (citing Restatement of Torts 2d, § 402 A, comment n ). The question in Findlay was whether contributory negligence, either of the ordinary kind or of the type sometimes characterized as implied assumption of the risk, was a complete defense to a strict products liability claim. There was no occasion to consider ORS 18.470, which by its terms applied only to negligence actions. A later decision enumerated the elements of assumption of the risk that would make out such a complete defense. Johnson v. Clark Equipment Co., 274 Or. 403, 547 P.2d 132 (1976). [3] After the decision in Findlay, the 1975 legislature made two significant changes in the relevant law. ORS 18.470 was amended to read: Contributory negligence shall not bar recovery in an action by any person or his legal representative to recover damages for death or injury to person or property if the fault attributable to the person seeking recovery was not greater than the combined fault of the person or persons against whom recovery is sought, but any damages allowed shall be diminished in the proportion to the percentage of fault attributable to the person recovering. This section is not intended to create or abolish any defense. The same chapter of the 1975 laws also enacted ORS 18.475, which abolished the doctrines of last clear chance and implied assumption of the risk. [4] Or. Laws 1975, ch. 599. We reviewed the foregoing developments and the legislative history of the 1975 amendment in Baccelleri v. Hyster Co., 287 Or. 3, 597 P.2d 351 (1979), in which a forklift truck which lacked an automatic warning signal had backed over the legs of a kneeling worker. A verdict for defendant was reversed because the trial court erroneously submitted a defense of assumption of the risk to the jury. This court went on to state that on a possible retrial, the conduct of the injured worker that was charged as an implied assumption of the risk might instead be a form of contributory negligence to be pleaded and compared as fault for purposes of the amended proportionate fault statute, ORS 18.470.