Opinion ID: 1296743
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Test for design defect.

Text: (1) A manufacturer, distributor, or retailer is liable in tort if a defect in the manufacture or design of its product causes injury while the product is being used in a reasonably foreseeable way. ( Cronin v. J.B.E. Olson Corp. (1972) 8 Cal.3d 121, 126-130 [104 Cal. Rptr. 433, 501 P.2d 1153] ( Cronin ); Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc. (1963) 59 Cal.2d 57, 62 [27 Cal. Rptr. 697, 377 P.2d 897, 13 A.L.R.3d 1049] ( Greenman ).) Because traffic accidents are foreseeable, vehicle manufacturers must consider collision safety when they design and build their products. Thus, whatever the cause of an accident, a vehicle's producer is liable for specific collision injuries that would not have occurred but for a manufacturing or design defect in the vehicle. ( Cronin, supra, at p. 126.) In Cronin, supra, a bread van driver was hurt when the hasp retaining the bread trays broke during a collision, causing the trays to shift forward and propel him through the windshield. He sued the van's producer, alleging that the hasp had failed because of the defective metal used in its manufacture. The court instructed that the driver could recover if he proved a defect, unknown to him, which caused injury while the van was being used as intended or designed. The manufacturer appealed the subsequent damage award. It urged the court should have instructed that liability could not be imposed unless the defect rendered the product unreasonably dangerous. We rejected this contention, holding that the unreasonably dangerous test derived from the Restatement (see Rest.2d Torts, § 402A) is inapplicable in California. As we observed, the Restatement defines unreasonably dangerous as dangerous to an extent beyond that which would be contemplated by the ordinary consumer who purchases it, with the ordinary knowledge common to the community as to its characteristics.  ( Id., com. i, p. 352, italics added.) The original purpose of this formula, we explained, was to make clear that common products such as sugar, butter, and liquor are not defective simply because they pose inherent health risks well known to the general public. However, Cronin indicated, the formula had been applied so as to force injured persons to prove both an actual defect and unreasonable danger. (8 Cal.3d at pp. 132-133.) This double burden, Cronin reasoned, ran contrary to the purpose of Greenman, supra, to relieve persons injured by defective products from proof of elements that ring of negligence. Instead, Cronin concluded, an injured plaintiff should recover so long as he proves that the product was defective, and that the defect caused injury in reasonably foreseeable use. ( Cronin, supra, 8 Cal.3d at pp. 133-134.) In Barker v. Lull Engineering Co., supra, 20 Cal.3d 413 ( Barker ), the operator of a high-lift loader sued its manufacturer for injuries he received when the loader toppled during a lift on sloping ground. The operator alleged various design defects which made the loader unsafe to use on a slope. In a pre- Cronin trial, the court instructed that the operator could recover only if a defect in the loader's design made the machine `unreasonably dangerous for its intended use.' ( Id., at p. 417.) The operator appealed the defense verdict, citing the unreasonably dangerous instruction as prejudicial error. The manufacturer responded that even if the unreasonably dangerous test was inappropriate for manufacturing defects, such as the substandard fastener material in Cronin, it should be retained for design defects. This rule would not produce the undue double burden that concerned us in Cronin, the manufacturer insisted, because unreasonable danger is part of the definition of design defect, not an additional element of strict product liability. Without this limitation, the manufacturer contended, juries would lack guidance when determining if a defect had sprung not from a mistake in supply or assembly, but from a flaw in the product's specifications. The Barker court disagreed. It reasoned as follows: Our concerns in Cronin extended beyond double-burden problems. There we also sought to avoid the danger that a jury would deny recovery, as the Restatement had intended, so long as the product did not fall below the ordinary consumer's expectations as to [its] safety.... ( Barker, supra, 20 Cal.3d at p. 425, fn. omitted.) This danger was particularly acute in design defect cases, where a manufacturer might argue that because the item which caused injury was identical to others of the same product line, it must necessarily have satisfied ordinary consumer expectations. ( Id., at p. 426.) Despite these difficulties, Barker explained, it is possible to define a design defect, and the expectations of the ordinary consumer are relevant to that issue. (2) At a minimum, said Barker, a product is defective in design if it does fail to perform as safely as an ordinary consumer would expect. This principle, Barker asserted, acknowledges the relationship between strict tort liability for a defective product and the common law doctrine of warranty, which holds that a product's presence on the market includes an implied representation `that it [will] safely do the jobs for which it was built.' (20 Cal.3d at p. 430, quoting Greenman, supra, 59 Cal.2d at p. 64.) Under this [minimum] standard, Barker observed, an injured plaintiff will frequently be able to demonstrate the defectiveness of the product by resort to circumstantial evidence, even when the accident itself precludes identification of the specific defect at fault. [Citations.] (20 Cal.3d at p. 430, italics added.) However, Barker asserted, the Restatement had erred in proposing that a violation of ordinary consumer expectations was necessary for recovery on this ground. As Professor Wade has pointed out, ... the expectations of the ordinary consumer cannot be viewed as the exclusive yardstick for evaluating design defectiveness because `[i]n many situations ... the consumer would not know what to expect, because he would have no idea how safe the product could be made.' (20 Cal.3d at p. 430, quoting Wade, On the Nature of Strict Tort Liability for Products (1973) 44 Miss. L.J. 825, 829, italics added.) Thus, Barker concluded, a product may be found defective in design, even if it satisfies ordinary consumer expectations, if through hindsight the jury determines that the product's design embodies `excessive preventable danger,' or, in other words, if the jury finds that the risk of danger inherent in the challenged design outweighs the benefits of such design. [Citations.] (20 Cal.3d at p. 430, fn. omitted.) Barker held that under this latter standard, a jury may consider, among other relevant factors, the gravity of the danger posed by the challenged design, the likelihood that such danger would occur, the mechanical feasibility of a safer alternative design, the financial cost of an improved design, and the adverse consequences to the product and to the consumer that would result from an alternative design. [Citations.] ( Id., at p. 431.) Barker also made clear that when the ultimate issue of design defect calls for a careful assessment of feasibility, practicality, risk, and benefit, the case should not be resolved simply on the basis of ordinary consumer expectations. As Barker observed, past design defect decisions demonstrate that, as a practical matter, in many instances it is simply impossible to eliminate the balancing or weighing of competing considerations in determining whether a product is defectively designed or not.... (20 Cal.3d at p. 433.) An example, Barker noted, was the crashworthiness issue presented in Self v. General Motors Corp., supra, 42 Cal. App.3d 1. The debate there was whether the explosion of a vehicle's fuel tank in an accident was due to a defect in design. This, in turn, entailed concerns about whether placement of the tank in a position less vulnerable to rear end collisions, even if technically feasible, would have created a greater risk of injury in other, more common situations. ( Barker, supra, 20 Cal.3d at p. 433.) Because this complex weighing of risks, benefits, and practical alternatives is implicit in so many design-defect determinations, Barker concluded, an instruction which appears to preclude such a weighing process under all circumstances may mislead the jury. ( Id., at p. 434.) Campbell v. General Motors Corp. (1982) 32 Cal.3d 112 [184 Cal. Rptr. 891, 649 P.2d 224] ( Campbell ) provided additional strong hints about the proper use of the ordinary consumer expectations prong of Barker. Plaintiff Campbell, a bus passenger, was thrown from her seat and injured during a sharp turn. She sued GM, the manufacturer of the bus, alleging that the vehicle was defectively designed because there was no grab bar within easy reach of her seat. Campbell presented no expert testimony, but she submitted photographs of the interior of the bus, showing where safety bars and handles were located in relation to the seat she had occupied. At the conclusion of her case in chief, GM moved for nonsuit, arguing that her evidence of design defect and proximate cause was not sufficient. The trial court granted the motion, but we reversed. We emphasized that in order to establish a design defect under Barker's ordinary consumer expectations test, it was enough for Campbell to show the objective conditions of the product so that the jurors could employ [their] own sense of whether the product meets ordinary expectations as to its safety under the circumstances presented by the evidence. [Fn. omitted.] Since public transportation is a matter of common experience, no expert testimony was required to enable the jury to reach a decision on this part of the Barker inquiry. ( Campbell, supra, 32 Cal.3d at p. 126.) Indeed, it is difficult to conceive what testimony an `expert' could provide. The thrust of the first Barker test is that the product must meet the safety expectations of the general public as represented by the ordinary consumer, not the industry or a government agency. `[O]ne can hardly imagine what credentials a witness must possess before he can be certified as an expert on the issue of ordinary consumer expectations.' ( Campbell, supra, 32 Cal.3d at pp. 126-127, quoting Schwartz, Foreword: Understanding Products Liability (1979) 67 Cal.L.Rev. 435, 480, italics added.) Had we ended our discussion at this point, it would have been clear that a product violates ordinary consumer expectations only when the circumstances arouse such reasonable expectations based on common experience of the product's users. However, dictum in the next paragraph of Campbell injected ambiguity. We said, The quantum of proof necessary to establish a prima facie case ... under the first [i.e., ordinary consumer expectations] prong of Barker cannot be reduced to an easy formula. However, if the product is one within the common experience of ordinary consumers (italics added), it will generally be enough for the injured plaintiff to show the circumstances of the accident and the objective features of the product which are relevant to an evaluation of its safety.... (32 Cal.3d at p. 127.) One might infer from this passage that the ordinary consumer expectations prong of Barker is not limited to product performance within the common experience of the product's ordinary consumers. Several subsequent Court of Appeal cases considered the point. In Bates v. John Deere Co. (1983) 148 Cal. App.3d 40 [195 Cal. Rptr. 637], plaintiff caught his leg in a commercial cotton picker while clearing debris from the moving machinery. He claimed the machine should have included an emergency shutoff switch within reach of the remote position from which its sole operator periodically had to undertake this debris-clearing task. Defense experts suggested that such a feature might induce a false sense of security and make the machine even more dangerous. The trial court properly found a design defect under the risk-benefit test, but defendant challenged the court's additional use of the ordinary consumer expectations test. Although it saw no need to decide the issue, the Court of Appeal agreed that [w]e, too, find it difficult to apply the ... [consumer expectations] test to these facts, in part because it is difficult to conceive that an ordinary consumer would know what to expect concerning the safety design of a commercial cotton picker. [Citing Barker. ] (148 Cal. App.3d at p. 52.) In Lunghi v. Clark Equipment Co. (1984) 153 Cal. App.3d 485 [200 Cal. Rptr. 387], the Court of Appeal upheld the trial court's refusal to instruct on reasonable consumer expectations because unassisted lay jurors would not know what to expect about the safety design of a Bobcat model 440 loader, and no experts had testified on the issue. However, the Court of Appeal remarked that on retrial, appellants are free to present evidence in the form of expert opinions on the reasonable expectations of consumers of the product involved here.... ( Id., at p. 496.) In Akers v. Kelly Co. (1985) 173 Cal. App.3d 633 [219 Cal. Rptr. 513] ( Akers ), there was an accident involving a dockboard, a spring-loaded plate which attaches to a loading dock and adjusts to form a bridge between the dock and truck beds of different elevations. Several hours after the prongs of a forklift struck the dockboard, it suddenly flew apart, injuring a nearby worker. Experts debated at length whether the dockboard's components should have been designed to withstand forklift impacts, and whether a failure in design was a cause of the accident. Over defendant's objection, the trial court instructed only on the consumer expectations test for design defect. The Court of Appeal affirmed. It declined to read Campbell as limiting the consumer expectations test to products or accidents of common experience. ( Akers, supra, 173 Cal. App.3d at p. 650.) That test, said Akers, is entirely appropriate in a case such as this one. There are certain kinds of accidents  even where fairly complex machinery is involved  which are so bizarre that the average juror, upon hearing the particulars, might reasonably think: `Whatever the user may have expected from that contraption, it certainly wasn't that.' Here, a dockboard flew apart and injured [plaintiff]. A reasonable juror with no previous experience of dockboards could conclude that the dockboard in question failed to meet `consumer expectations' as to its safety.... ( Id., at p. 651.) This was so, the Court of Appeal concluded, even though expert testimony might be necessary to establish that the manufacturer was responsible for the flaw which caused the product to fail. ( Ibid. ) To similar effect is West v. Johnson & Johnson Products, Inc. (1985) 174 Cal. App.3d 831 [220 Cal. Rptr. 437, 59 A.L.R.4th 1] ( West ). The plaintiff in West became seriously ill in February 1980, during her menstrual period. At this time, there were increasing indications that tampon use sometimes causes toxic shock syndrome (TSS). After reading medical reports, plaintiff's physicians belatedly concluded that she had suffered TSS caused by tampons which defendant had designed and produced. At trial, experts debated the nature of plaintiff's illness, and they also disputed whether the tampon design and materials used by defendant encouraged TSS. The trial court instructed only on the consumer expectations prong of Barker. On appeal, defendant argued that the risk-benefit test alone was proper. However, West agreed with Akers that Campbell does not preclude the consumer expectations test in complex cases involving expert testimony. In a time before general awareness and warnings about TSS, the court reasoned, plaintiff had every right to expect that use of this seemingly innocuous product would not lead to a serious (or perhaps fatal) illness.... Hence, the consumer expectations instruction was appropriate. ( West, supra, 174 Cal. App.3d at p. 867.) Finally, in Rosburg v. Minnesota Mining & Mfg. Co. (1986) 181 Cal. App.3d 726 [226 Cal. Rptr. 299], plaintiff claimed she was entitled to judgment under the consumer expectations test because her own testimony that she believed her breast implants would last a lifetime without leaking was the only lay evidence of what consumers expected. However, the Court of Appeal ruled that breast implant performance is beyond common experience, and that expert testimony on what the consumer should expect was therefore relevant and admissible. Here, the court observed, both plaintiff's surgeon and another defense expert had insisted that failures were expectable and patients were not advised otherwise. Hence, there was substantial evidence to support the finding below that no defect was proven under the consumer expectations test. ( Id., at pp. 732-733.) [2] (3) In Barker, we offered two alternative ways to prove a design defect, each appropriate to its own circumstances. The purposes, behaviors, and dangers of certain products are commonly understood by those who ordinarily use them. By the same token, the ordinary users or consumers of a product may have reasonable, widely accepted minimum expectations about the circumstances under which it should perform safely. Consumers govern their own conduct by these expectations, and products on the market should conform to them. In some cases, therefore, ordinary knowledge ... as to ... [the product's] characteristics (Rest.2d Torts, supra, § 402A, com. i., p. 352) may permit an inference that the product did not perform as safely as it should. If the facts permit such a conclusion, and if the failure resulted from the product's design, a finding of defect is warranted without any further proof. The manufacturer may not defend a claim that a product's design failed to perform as safely as its ordinary consumers would expect by presenting expert evidence of the design's relative risks and benefits. [3] However, as we noted in Barker, a complex product, even when it is being used as intended, may often cause injury in a way that does not engage its ordinary consumers' reasonable minimum assumptions about safe performance. For example, the ordinary consumer of an automobile simply has no idea how it should perform in all foreseeable situations, or how safe it should be made against all foreseeable hazards. ( Barker, supra, 20 Cal.3d at p. 430.) An injured person is not foreclosed from proving a defect in the product's design simply because he cannot show that the reasonable minimum safety expectations of its ordinary consumers were violated. Under Barker's alternative test, a product is still defective if its design embodies excessive preventable danger (20 Cal.3d at p. 430), that is, unless the benefits of the ... design outweigh the risk of danger inherent in such design ( id., at p. 432). But this determination involves technical issues of feasibility, cost, practicality, risk, and benefit ( id., at p. 431) which are impossible to avoid ( id., at p. 433). In such cases, the jury must consider the manufacturer's evidence of competing design considerations ( id., at pp. 433-434), and the issue of design defect cannot fairly be resolved by standardless reference to the expectations of an ordinary consumer. (4) As we have seen, the consumer expectations test is reserved for cases in which the everyday experience of the product's users permits a conclusion that the product's design violated minimum safety assumptions, and is thus defective regardless of expert opinion about the merits of the design. It follows that where the minimum safety of a product is within the common knowledge of lay jurors, expert witnesses may not be used to demonstrate what an ordinary consumer would or should expect. Use of expert testimony for that purpose would invade the jury's function (see Evid. Code, § 801, subd. (a)), and would invite circumvention of the rule that the risks and benefits of a challenged design must be carefully balanced whenever the issue of design defect goes beyond the common experience of the product's users. [4] (5) By the same token, the jury may not be left free to find a violation of ordinary consumer expectations whenever it chooses. Unless the facts actually permit an inference that the product's performance did not meet the minimum safety expectations of its ordinary users, the jury must engage in the balancing of risks and benefits required by the second prong of Barker. Accordingly, as Barker indicated, instructions are misleading and incorrect if they allow a jury to avoid this risk-benefit analysis in a case where it is required. (20 Cal.3d at p. 434.). Instructions based on the ordinary consumer expectations prong of Barker are not appropriate where, as a matter of law, the evidence would not support a jury verdict on that theory. Whenever that is so, the jury must be instructed solely on the alternative risk-benefit theory of design defect announced in Barker. [5] (6) GM suggests that the consumer expectations test is improper whenever crashworthiness, a complex product, or technical questions of causation are at issue. Because the variety of potential product injuries is infinite, the line cannot be drawn as clearly as GM proposes. But the fundamental distinction is not impossible to define. The crucial question in each individual case is whether the circumstances of the product's failure permit an inference that the product's design performed below the legitimate, commonly accepted minimum safety assumptions of its ordinary consumers. [6] (7) GM argues at length that the consumer expectations test is an unworkable, amorphic, fleeting standard which should be entirely abolished as a basis for design defect. In GM's view, the test is deficient and unfair in several respects. First, it defies definition. Second, it focuses not on the objective condition of products, but on the subjective, unstable, and often unreasonable opinions of consumers. Third, it ignores the reality that ordinary consumers know little about how safe the complex products they use can or should be made. Fourth, it invites the jury to isolate the particular consumer, component, accident, and injury before it instead of considering whether the whole product fairly accommodates the competing expectations of all consumers in all situations (see Daly v. General Motors Corp., supra, 20 Cal.3d 725, 746-747). Fifth, it eliminates the careful balancing of risks and benefits which is essential to any design issue. In its amicus curiae brief, the Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc. (Council) makes similar arguments. The Council proposes that all design defect claims be resolved under a single risk-benefit analysis geared to reasonable safety. We fully understand the dangers of improper use of the consumer expectations test. However, we cannot accept GM's insinuation that ordinary consumers lack any legitimate expectations about the minimum safety of the products they use. In particular circumstances, a product's design may perform so unsafely that the defect is apparent to the common reason, experience, and understanding of its ordinary consumers. In such cases, a lay jury is competent to make that determination. Nor are we persuaded by the Council's proposal. In essence, it would reinvest product liability claims with the requirement of unreasonable danger that we rejected in Cronin and Barker. When use of the consumer expectations test is limited as Barker intended, the principal concerns raised by GM and the Council are met. Within these limits, the test remains a workable means of determining the existence of design defect. We therefore find no compelling reason to overrule the consumer expectations prong of Barker at this late date, and we decline to do so. [7] (8a) Applying our conclusions to the facts of this case, however, we agree that the instant jury should not have been instructed on ordinary consumer expectations. Plaintiff's theory of design defect was one of technical and mechanical detail. It sought to examine the precise behavior of several obscure components of her car under the complex circumstances of a particular accident. The collision's exact speed, angle, and point of impact were disputed. It seems settled, however, that plaintiff's Camaro received a substantial oblique blow near the left front wheel, and that the adjacent frame members and bracket assembly absorbed considerable inertial force. An ordinary consumer of automobiles cannot reasonably expect that a car's frame, suspension, or interior will be designed to remain intact in any and all accidents. Nor would ordinary experience and understanding inform such a consumer how safely an automobile's design should perform under the esoteric circumstances of the collision at issue here. Indeed, both parties assumed that quite complicated design considerations were at issue, and that expert testimony was necessary to illuminate these matters. Therefore, injection of ordinary consumer expectations into the design defect equation was improper. We are equally persuaded, however, that the error was harmless, because it is not reasonably probable defendant would have obtained a more favorable result in its absence. (E.g., Pool v. City of Oakland (1986) 42 Cal.3d 1051, 1069 [232 Cal. Rptr. 528, 728 P.2d 1163]; see Cal. Const., art. VI, § 13; Code Civ. Proc., § 475.) (9a) In assessing prejudice from an erroneous instruction, we consider, insofar as relevant, (1) the degree of conflict in the evidence on critical issues [citations]; (2) whether respondent's argument to the jury may have contributed to the instruction's misleading effect [citation]; (3) whether the jury requested a rereading of the erroneous instruction [citation] or of related evidence [citation]; (4) the closeness of the jury's verdict [citation]; and (5) the effect of other instructions in remedying the error [citations]. ( Pool, supra, 42 Cal.3d at pp. 1069-1070, quoting LeMons v. Regents of University of California (1978) 21 Cal.3d 869, 876 [148 Cal. Rptr. 355, 582 P.2d 946].) (8b) Here there were no instructions which specifically remedied the erroneous placement of the consumer expectations alternative before the jury. Moreover, plaintiff's counsel briefly reminded the jury that the instructions allowed it to find a design defect under either the consumer expectations or risk-benefit tests. However, the consumer expectations theory was never emphasized at any point. As previously noted, the case was tried on the assumption that the alleged design defect was a matter of technical debate. Virtually all the evidence and argument on design defect focused on expert evaluation of the strengths, shortcomings, risks, and benefits of the challenged design, as compared with a competitor's approach. Neither plaintiff's counsel nor any expert witness on her behalf told the jury that the Camaro's design violated the safety expectations of the ordinary consumer. Nor did they suggest the jury should find such a violation regardless of its assessment of such competing design considerations as risk, benefit, feasibility, and cost. The jury never made any requests which hinted it was inclined to apply the consumer expectations test without regard to a weighing of risks and benefits. Under these circumstances, we find it highly unlikely that a reasonable jury took that path. We see no reasonable probability that the jury disregarded the voluminous evidence on the risks and benefits of the Camaro's design, and instead rested its verdict on its independent assessment of what an ordinary consumer would expect. Accordingly, we conclude, the error in presenting that theory to the jury provides no basis for disturbing the trial judgment. [8]