Opinion ID: 2382536
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Brown Formula

Text: United States Army reservist Robert Brown sustained injuries allegedly caused by the defective design and inadequate warnings of a bulldozer manufactured by defendant Caterpillar Tractor Company for the Army. Brown sued under Pennsylvania law on theories including strict products liability for defective design and failure to warn. Caterpillar countered that it was insulated from suit by the government contract defense because it had built the bulldozer to Army specifications. Brown I, 696 F.2d at 246. In Brown I, the Third Circuit reversed the District Court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Caterpillar, based on the government contract defense  finding that there were significant unresolved factual issues which precluded summary judgment. Brown I, 696 F.2d at 256. Brown II remanded the case for a new trial because the jury instructions on both defective design and adequacy of warnings erroneously stated the elements of the government contract defense. Brown II, 741 F.2d at 661. The Third Circuit held that, under Pennsylvania law, the government contract defense places no greater obligation on a contractor than to execute the government's specifications `carefully.' Brown I, supra at 254. The court found the Agent Orange approach to delineation of the elements of the government contract defense attractive, and suggested that it might be persuaded that a contractor must prove some element of compulsion [in following the allegedly defective specifications] in order to successfully raise the government contractor defense, were the court not constrained by existing Pennsylvania law. Brown I, supra at 254. Two additional recent federal district court decisions on the government contract defense to a strict products liability action apply Pennsylvania law: Price v. Tempo, Inc., 603 F.Supp. 1359 (E.D.Pa. 1985) (municipal firefighting gear); and In re Air Crash Disaster at Mannheim, Germany, 586 F.Supp. 711 (E.D.Pa. 1984) revd. 769 F.2d 115 (3rd Cir. 1985) (military equipment). Price v. Tempo, Inc . illustrates the potential problems with the simple version of the government contract defense contained in the Brown decisions; that the contractor need only demonstrate careful compliance with the contract. Philadelphia city fire fighter David Price was seriously burned while wearing fire fighter's gloves and a coat manufactured by the defendants. Expert testimony on his behalf indicated that his injuries would have been avoided if the linings of the gear had been made of other materials. Defendants claimed that their products met the city's specifications, but plaintiffs countered that the city's specifications were written in reliance on representations made by the companies. A critical problem in the Price decision is whether the companies shared their knowledge with the city so that the city could make an informed decision on the quality of the gear it wished to purchase. Price, 603 F.Supp. at 1363. Another, allied, issue, is whether the defendant is able to establish that the specifications for its product originated with the government. Price, quoting from In re Air Crash Disaster at Mannheim, Germany, 586 F.Supp. 711, 717 (E.D.Pa. 1984). The Third Circuit was particularly troubled by the scenario in which the specifications are skeletal, the contract is negotiated, and the contractor, knowing of a high risk of serious harm, fails to install a relatively inexpensive safety device. Brown I, 696 F.2d at 254. We, too, would be troubled by this scenario if we concluded, as the Third Circuit did, that the law in Pennsylvania compelled immunity for such a contractor. But we do not. Rather, that scenario is one in which the contractor should not be allowed the defense because the specifications which caused the plaintiff's injury were not the result of the government's discretionary decisions in making the contract. [2] We join the Third Circuit in finding the Agent Orange formulation of the government contract defense attractive, and also would consider some element of compulsion essential if there is a genuine issue concerning which party originated the design. However, we differ in that we do not consider this a departure from the present law in Pennsylvania. The government contract defense has always only protected contractors carrying out the discretionary decisions of the government from the damages caused by the government's own planning or engineering decisions. If the engineering decisions were made by the contractor, or if the government made the decisions without the benefit of the contractor's technical knowledge, then the contractor should not be protected. [3]