Court Opinion

ID: 9716548
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:43:33.590193+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:46.829798
License: Public Domain

N. PATRICK CROOKS, J.
¶ 84. {concurring). I join the majority opinion, but I write separately in response to Justice Gableman's concurrence, in which he urges the adoption of Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability § 2(b) in design defect cases. Justice Gableman's concurrence, ¶ 104. In the briefing that was provided for this case, references to § 2(b) were made in passing in three places. There are two footnotes in the petitioners' reply brief, one of which refers to the rationale underlying § 2(b), cmt. 1. and suggests that it supports a bystander contemplation test, and one of which suggests that the risk-utility test would be appropriate in bystander cases, though inappropriate in consumer cases. (At oral argument, the Horsts' attorney stated, "I didn't argue for the adoption of a risk-utility test." See Justice Bradley's dissent, ¶ 130 n.l.) There is also a paragraph in a non-party brief where amicus argues that as to the bystander question the case would come out the same under either the Restatement (Second) or Restatement (Third) because neither treats the bystander's expectations differently from the ordinary consumer's expectations.
¶ 85. These glancing references to Restatement (Third) provide an exceedingly flimsy basis for reaching the question of whether the court should adopt § 2(b) in design defect cases. Because any consideration of such a fundamental change in Wisconsin law should not be done without a full and thorough briefing followed by oral arguments before this court, I believe we should decline to reach beyond the controversy the parties ask *186us to resolve, which in this case is whether Wisconsin law recognizes a bystander contemplation test. It does not. That is as far as we should go. As I state in my concurrence in Godoy v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co.,1 released today, we need briefing and oral arguments before deciding to make a sea change in Wisconsin law — one that could result in throwing out forty-two years of precedent beginning with Dippel v. Sciano, 37 Wis. 2d 443, 155 N.W.2d 55 (1967).
¶ 86. I therefore respectfully concur.

 Godoy v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 2009 WI 78, _ Wis. 2d _, 768 N.W.2d 674.