Court Opinion

ID: 9471526
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:34:42.356784+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:27.103195
License: Public Domain

JAMES C. HILL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Rhodes instituted this action asserting negligence and strict liability on the part of the battery manufacturer and distributor. His pleadings and supporting affidavits contain no hint of negligence on the part of either defendant. Thus, the only issue is whether the battery was a “defective product” as contemplated by the Georgia law of strict liability. Official Ga.Code Ann. § 51-1-11 (1982); Center Chemical Co. v. Parzini, 234 Ga. 868, 218 So.2d 580 (1975).
Rhodes does not contend that the battery was, in lay parlance, a “defective product.” Nevertheless, inherent in this product is some degree of danger: batteries contain sulfuric acid, a chemical which tends to ignite or explode if exposed to fire; therefore, batteries possess inherently dangerous characteristics. In these circumstances, a battery would qualify as a “defective product” if consumers are not adequately warned of such dangers. As the Georgia Supreme Court put the matter:
Strict liability is not imposed under [§ 51-1-11] merely because a product may be dangerous. Many products can not be made completely safe for use and some can not be made safe at all. However, such products may be useful and desirable. If they are properly prepared, manufactured, packaged and accompanied with adequate warnings and instructions, they can not be said to be defective. To hold otherwise would discourage the marketing of many products because some danger attended their use.
Center Chemical Co. v. Parzini, 234 Ga. at 870, 218 So.2d at 582. Thus, a “defective product” under Georgia law is some product with inherent dangers and without adequate warnings.
The warning embossed on the battery involved in this case is set out in the majority opinion. It not only warned of danger; it cautioned users of the exact danger from which Rhodes’ injuries flowed — i.e., the warning importuned users that the battery contained explosive gases which would ignite if exposed to flame.
In order to submit himself to this danger, Rhodes had to remove the battery’s vent caps, on which were embossed the explicit warnings. Rhodes admitted that he did not read the warning. Furthermore, in response to questions by the defendants, Rhodes testified:
Q. Have you ever looked at a car battery?
A. I don’t mess with batteries.
Q. Well, you’ve looked at a battery before, haven’t you?
A. I’ve looked at them, but even if there was a warning on it, I wouldn’t have paid attention to it.
Q. You wouldn’t have paid attention to it?
A. Well, it would have to be a big warning.
Q. What form would the warning have to take for you to pay attention to it?
*1522A. I would say if it said “Warning” and it was in big enough letters, something that I could see, I may pay attention to it, I don’t know if I would pay attention to it then.
(R. 21-22) It thus appears that any product manufacturer would have been hard pressed to bring its warning message home to Rhodes.
The law to be applied to these facts is clear. Without exception, the Georgia courts hold that, as a matter of law, a plaintiff’s failure to read a warning printed on an injury-producing product constitutes contributory negligence and precludes plaintiff from recovering against the product manufacturer and distributor. Cobb Heating and Air Conditioning Co. v. Hertron Chemical Co., 139 Ga.App. 803, 229 S.E.2d 681 (1976); Parzini v. Center Chemical Co., 129 Ga.App. 868, 201 S.E.2d 808, rev’d on other grounds, 234 Ga. 868, 218 S.E.2d 580 (1975); McCIeskey v. Olin Mathieson Chemical Corp., 127 Ga.App. 178, 193 S.E.2d 16 (1972). Rhodes, having failed to read the warning embossed on the battery vent caps, is thus barred from recovering against the battery manufacturer and distributor.
In spite of the fact that Rhodes suggests some exotic methods whereby the warning might have been better forced upon him— e.g., using letters printed with phosphorescent paint, etc. — the Georgia cases cited above do not require more of defendants than was done here.1 Simply stated, the extent of a product manufacturer’s exposure to strict liability is not, and can not be, limited only by the scope of a litigant’s imagination.
For this very reason, the rule must be that product manufacturers are required to employ warnings that are “reasonably calculated” to reach potential users. West v. Broderick & Bascom Rope Co., 197 N.W.2d 202, 212 (Iowa 1972); Noel, Products Defective Because of Inadequate Directions or Warnings, 23 Sw.L.J. 256, 281-85 (1969); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 388(c) (1965). In most cases, whether a warning is “reasonably calculated” to reach the product’s users will present a factual issue precluding summary judgment. For such a determination “depends on the language used and the impression that it is calculated to make upon the mind of the average user of the product and involves questions of display, syntax and emphasis.” Stapleton v. Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd., 608 F.2d 571, 573 n. 4 (5th Cir.1979), modified on other grounds, 612 F.2d 905 (1980), quoting, D’Arienzo v. Clairol, Inc., 125 N.J.Super. 224, 230-31, 310 A.2d 106, 112 (1973).
However, summary judgment may be entered in any negligence action where the uncontested facts demonstrate that only one result could be supported and that one party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Gross v. Southern Railway Co., 414 F.2d 292 (5th Cir.1969); Atlantic Coast Line Rwy. v. Key, 196 F.2d 64 (5th Cir.1952). Here, the undisputed facts establish that the battery carried a warning of its dangers, that the warning clearly appeared on the top of the battery (the portion exposed to anyone attempting to service the battery), and that the warning in no uncertain terms cautioned users to keep flame away from the battery. The district court, on these facts, was entitled to hold that, as a matter of law, this warning was “reasonably calculated” to reach potential users.
Under established Georgia law, this action should have ended with the district court granting summary judgment to defendants. On countless occasions, the judiciary has justifiably protested that it is overburdened with litigation. See, e.g., Chubb v. City of New York, 324 F.Supp. 1183, 1189 (E.D.N.Y.1971) (Weinstein, J.) (“Since courts are composed of mere mortals they can decide matters only on the basis of probability, never on certainty. The ‘slightest doubt’ test if it is taken seri*1523ously, means that summary judgment is almost never to be used — a pity in this critical time of overstrained legal resources.”) Congress responded to such protests by enacting Rule 56, thereby authorizing district courts to spare both parties, as well as the court, the expense and unnecessary delay of trying cases that admit of only one result. Marsden v. Patane, 380 F.2d 489, 493 (5th Cir.1967). While few members of the judiciary would suggest that Rule 56 provides a completely adequate response to protests over crowded dockets, it seems clear that Congress has provided courts with “a valuable tool in the law’s effort to stem the tide of flooding litigation.” DeBardeleben v. Cummings, 453 F.2d 320, 326 (5th Cir.1971).
However, “It may be that what we do speaks so loudly that no one will hear what we say.” Wilson v. First National Investment Corp., 566 F.2d 1235, 1244-45 n. 1 (5th Cir.1978) (Hill, J., dissenting), vacated, 444 U.S. 959, 100 S.Ct. 442, 62 L.Ed.2d 371 (1979). That is, we as appellate judges, show no hospitality to the means given to us to avoid inappropriate devotion of judicial time and resources to meritless litigation when, as is the case here, we are so inhospitable to the use of Rule 56 by district courts. For as I view the majority opinion in this case, it stands for the proposition that there can be no summary judgment in an action alleging inadequate communication of a product’s warning. In order to survive this opinion, a district court granting summary judgment in such a case would be required to encounter a claimant’s attorney who is devoid of imagination.
Rule 56 serves a vital function in our litigious society. If courts are to continue to function efficiently and to consider and resolve those serious disputes that are presented, they must be allowed to dispose of cases without substantial dispute by summary judgment. Certainly, courts should not be put to the task of conducting a trial each time a litigant suggests that, under some remotely conceivable set of facts, he could recover on his claim or maintain a satisfactory defense to the action. For if left to the fertile imaginations of those scrambling to avoid summary judgment, the standard governing a Rule 56 motion would soon prove to be insurmountable. Fearing that we are fast approaching that standard, I
DISSENT.

. We need not decide whether phosphorescent paint on the vent caps of a battery confined in darkness beneath the closed hood of an automobile would absorb enough radiated light to return it visibly in the dark of night. Rhodes probably does not suggest that battery manufacturers employ paint containing radium or other sources of self-illumination said to be carcinogenic.