Court Opinion

ID: 9746388
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:14:14.995127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:12.680082
License: Public Domain

FLAHERTY, Justice,
dissenting.
While I join the dissenting opinion authored by Mr. Justice Hutchinson, I write separately to indicate that I would go further and admit appellant’s proffered evidence that 90% of the industry uses a hoist switch like the one involved in appellee’s accident.
*345In Azzarello v. Black Bros. Co., Inc., 480 Pa. 547, 391 A.2d 1020 (1978), this Court noted that imposition of strict liability does not make suppliers insurers against all injuries suffered while using a product.
What do we mean when we speak of strict liability of a manufacturer for harm caused by his product? It is sufficient for a plaintiff to show that he used the defendant’s product and that he was injured? The answer to this is no____ If the theory is strict liability in tort, the plaintiff must still prove that the article was unsafe in some way. Thus, the liability is not that of an insurer; it is not absolute in the literal sense of that word.
Wade, Strict Tort Liability of Manufacturers, 19 S.W.L. T.J. 13 (1965).
Id., 480 Pa. at 553-554 n. 5, 391 A.2d at 1024 n. 5. (Emphasis supplied.) Thus, suppliers are not liable for all injuries, only those caused by a product that is unsafe.
An unsafe product was defined in Azzarello as one which “left the supplier’s control lacking any element necessary to make it safe for its intended use____” Id., 480 Pa. at 559, 391 A.2d at 1027. This standard imposes on suppliers liability for putting an unsafe product on the market. It does not impose liability for failing to make an already safe product somewhat safer, or for failing to utilize the safest of all possible designs. We are simply not dealing with conceptual Platonic ideals of perfection when a jury considers whether any given product is “safe.”
The question for the jury was whether the switch was safe, and appellant was entitled to produce evidence tending to prove the product’s safety. This is not a case where the presence of a safety defect is self-evident to a layperson; thus, expert testimony on the existence of a safety defect should have been admitted to assist the jury in its determination. Additionally, in my view, appellants were entitled to admit other evidence tending to prove that the particular switch involved herein was safe, including the fact that the switch is widely used in the industry — not conclusive by any means but at least probative to the issue.
*346Since admittedly evidence that 90% of the industry uses a similar switch is far from conclusive, it is indeed possible, as Mr. Justice Larsen implies in his concurring opinion, that widespread use shows nothing more than an industry-wide disregard for safety. The evidence would certainly be weightier coupled with evidence of a low rate of accidents, if, in fact, such exists. However, merely because a piece of evidence by itself has little probative value, is not reason to exclude it so long as it has some probative value. Moreover, considering evidence of industry-wide acceptance in connection with the position of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers that, in fact, the switch was safely designed, the jury could properly conclude that the widespread use is at the least probative of the industry’s acceptance of appellant’s design as a safe one. For these reasons, I would admit the evidence, not to show the reasonableness of appellant’s use of the switch, but to show that users of the switch widely regard it as safe and so perhaps it is.