Court Opinion

ID: 9767577
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:21:43.604374+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:31.807217
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
SAM D. JOHNSON, Justice
(dissenting).
The motion for rehearing filed by petitioner Henderson points out additional deficiencies in the reasoning of the majority. It is incumbent upon this writer to point out the most serious of those deficiencies.
First, it is clearly established that in determining the sufficiency of the evidence to support a jury finding, the court should consider the entire body of evidence and must not look to or avert to the negative findings on other issues. City of Beaumont v. Graham, 441 S.W.2d 829 (Tex.1969); C. & R. Transport, Inc. v. Campbell, 406 S.W.2d 191 (Tex.1966). It is apparent, despite this rule, that the majority, in its consideration of the evidence, attempts to entwine that evidence relating to “installation defect” with evidence pertaining to “design defect.” It is in this fashion that the majority both alludes to the evidence on “installation defect” and refers to the jury’s negative answers on “installation defect” in an attempt to avoid the affirmative evidence on “design defect,” and to also bolster its defeat of the jury’s finding on “design defect.” The majority points out that the jury did not find for the plaintiffs on the installation defect issues, and inferentially indicates that because of this, such evidence could not be considered in support of the issues of design defect. In doing so, the majority wholly fails to consider evidence which is directly relevant to the issue of design defect; evidence which is replete in the record and a part of which is reflected m this writer’s dissent.
Perhaps even more unfortunate than the majority’s consideration of the evidence is its substantial retreat from the strict liability standard announced by this court in Shamrock Fuel & Oil Sales Co. v. Tunks, 416 S.W.2d 779 (Tex.1967) and McKisson v. Sales Affiliates, Inc., 416 S.W.2d 787 (Tex.1967). It has accomplished this retreat by the formulation and application of a new and inconsistent test never before appearing in this state. It is a bifurcated test for establishing whether a product is unreasonably dangerous and thus defective — the “prudent manufacturer aware of the risk” or “reasonable expectations of the ordinary consumer” test. In determining whether the air filter housing in the instant case is unreasonably *101dangerous, the majority asks the following question:
“Did some feature of the form or material or operation of the housing threaten harm to persons using the automobile to the extent that any automobile so designed would not be placed in the channels of commerce by a prudent manufacturer aware of the risks involved in its use or to the extent that the automobile would not meet the reasonable expectations of the ordinary consumer as to its safety?” [Emphasis added.]
Thus, according to this new test adopted by the majority, a product will not be considered unreasonably dangerous unless either (1) a reasonably prudent manufacturer aware of the risks involved in its use would not place it in the channels of commerce, or (2) the product would not meet the reasonable expectations of the ordinary consumer as to its safety. In other words, in the same case, the question of whether a product is defective will apparently be viewed both from the perspective of the manufacturer and from the perspective of the consumer. It is entirely possible that the proof of the consumer will fully establish that the product would not meet the reasonable expectations of the ordinary user, while the proof of the manufacturer will equally establish that a prudent manufacturer might market the product notwithstanding the risks involved in its use. In such a case, will there be recovery since one element of the majority’s bifurcated test has been met, or will recovery be defeated since the other element of the majority’s bifurcated test has been negated? Is the trial court, on being confronted with jury answers equally establishing the theory of the consumer and the manufacturer, free to give judgment to the party it feels developed the stronger case? If so, the practical effect is that it is incumbent upon the consumer to show both that the product would disappoint the reasonable expectations of the ordinary consumer and that a prudent manufacturer would not market the product. The onerous and unwarranted burden thus put upon the consumer to prove a product is defective is obvious.
These problems in the application of the majority’s new test are compounded by its application in the instant case. Though the test established by the majority would ostensibly view the question of the defectiveness of a product from either the perspective of the manufacturer or the consumer, the majority’s application of the test in the instant case stresses only the view of the manufacturer. The analysis of the majority is wholly directed toward whether a prudent manufacturer aware of the risks involved in the use of the product would market the air filter housing involved. There is not the slightest discussion directed toward whether an automobile equipped with the type of air filter housing involved would meet the reasonable expectations of the ordinary consumer as to its safety.
Certainly an automobile equipped with an air filter gasket which has a propensity to come loose and fall in the carburetor barrel, threatening human life, “would not meet the reasonable expectations of the ordinary consumer as to its safety.” On the contrary, the ordinary consumer would undoubtedly reasonably expect an automobile which had traveled only 9,000 miles to carry the occupant safely to his destination. When that automobile malfunctions due to a cause not in control of the occupant, the reasonable expectations of that occupant as to the automobile’s safety are, of course, disappointed.
If the majority, as indicated by the fact that it stresses the. perspective of the manufacturer in the application of its test in the instant case, means to suggest that the decisive portion of its test for finding a design defect is whether a prudent manufacturer would market the product, additional problems are created. Not only does this approach violate the majority’s own test by ignoring the perspective of the consumer, but it also misperceives the basis *102of the strict liability concept that a seller will be liable even though he has “exercised all possible care in the preparation and sale of his product.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A. If strict liability is, as indicated by the Restatement, to be predicated upon the condition of the product regardless of the exercise of “all possible care in the preparation and sale” of it by the seller, then questions of whether a “prudent manufacturer” would market a product have no place in the strict liability field. To inquire whether a prudent manufacturer would have marketed the product had he known of the risks involved injects an inappropriate element of negligence into the strict liability question. A “prudent manufacturer” is, after all, simply a manufacturer which exercises ordinary care. Strict liability, however, is imposed despite the use of all possible care in the preparation and the distribution of the product by the manufacturer. The objective consideration of whether a prudent, or ordinarily careful, manufacturer would market a product bespeaks of negligence, and not strict liability.
If the majority, in purporting to consider the question of design defect from both the viewpoint of the manufacturer and the expectations of the consumer, is attempting to articulate a risk versus utility balancing approach to design defect questions,1 it has failed in its application of such an approach to the facts of the instant case. Any risk versus utility approach for determining the acceptability of a product should consider, among others, the following factors:
“(1) the usefulness and desirability of the product, (2) the availability of other, safer products to meet the same need, (3) the likelihood and probable seriousness of injury, (4) the obviousness of the danger, (5) common knowledge and normal public expectation of the danger (particularly for established products), (6) the avoidability of injury by care in use of the product (including the effect of instructions or warnings), and (7) the ability to eliminate the danger without seriously impairing the product’s usefulness or making it unduly expensive.” W. Donaher, et ah, The Technological Expert in Products Liability Litigation, 52 Texas L.Rev. 1303, at 1307-08 (1974).
An analysis of the majority opinion reveals no indication that an objective balancing of the foregoing considerations is attempted.
This writer remains firmly convinced that the evidence in the instant case adequately establishes a design defect within the theory of strict liability adopted by this court in Shamrock Fuel & Oil Sales Co. v. Tunks, supra, and McKisson v. Sales Affiliates, Inc., supra. This is true regardless of the standard applied in establishing whether a product is defective. Thus, petitioners’ motion for rehearing should be granted and judgment should be entered on the jury verdict for petitioners. At the very least, in view of the majority’s adoption of a new and heretofore unexpressed standard for design defect cases, the case should be remanded to the trial court for retrial in the interest of justice. Tex.Rev.Civ.P. rule 505. See Sobel v. Jenkins, 477 S.W.2d 863 (Tex.1972); United States Fire Insurance Company v. Carter, 473 S.W.2d 2 (Tex.1971), Texas Sling Company v. Emanuel, 431 S.W.2d 538 (Tex.1968); Scott v. Liebman, 404 S.W.2d 288 (Tex.1966). Even a cursory glance at this record reveals that the case has not been fully developed under the present theory of design defect adopted by the court in the instant case. In view *103of the fact that the majority, on the ultimate appeal of this case, has formulated a new standard for determining the defectiveness of a product, justice requires that the case be retried in light of the new standard.
POPE, McGEE and DANIEL, JJ., join in this dissent.

. This writer would, personally, favor such an approach. See Ross v. Up-Right, Inc., 402 F.2d 943, 946 (5th Cir. 1968); Helene Curtis Indus., Inc. v. Pruitt, 385 F.2d 841, 850 (5th Cir. 1967); Metal Window Products Co. v. Magnusen, 485 S.W.2d 355 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1972, no writ); Keeton, Product Liability and Meaning of Defect, 5 St. Mary’s L.J. 30, 38 (1973) ; Keeton, Products Liability—Inadequacy of Information, 48 Texas L.Rev. 398 (1970); and Wade, Strict Tort Liability of Manufacturers, 19 Sw.L.J. 5 (1965).