Opinion ID: 350927
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Bean's contention on misuse by others

Text: 21 Bean alleges that the trial court erred in refusing an instruction that misuse by persons other than the plaintiff could defeat Bryan's recovery. Although Bean correctly cites Helene Curtis Industries, Inc. v. Pruitt, 385 F.2d 841 (CA5, 1967), cert. denied, 391 U.S. 913, 88 S.Ct. 1806, 20 L.Ed.2d 652 (1968), for the proposition that a third party's misuse that causes the plaintiff's injury will bar recovery in strict liability, that case does not require reversal here. In Helene Curtis a third party misused the product in a manner injurious to the plaintiff. The decision held that the third party's misuse of the product, rather than a product defect, caused the plaintiff's injury. Bean's contention is different. Bean does not contend that a third party's active misuse brought about the accident. Rather, Bean argues that prior misuse and mishandling by employees of the company had made the clevis fragile and likely to break. Bean's fear that others had misused and deformed the clevis prior to Bryan's injury was adequately allayed by the trial judge's explicit instruction that Bean did not incur liability unless the product reached Bryan in a condition substantially unchanged from its condition when Bean placed it in the streams of commerce. Under the instructions given by the trial judge, to return a general verdict against Bean the jury had to find the clevis substantially unchanged by usage prior to Bryan's accident. Therefore, the jury must have considered and rejected the evidence of prior misuse and wear and tear. The court committed no reversible error in failing to grant Bean's requested instruction.