Court Opinion

ID: 9525441
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:03:45.82705+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:14:47.988420
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE GEORGE J. MORAN, dissenting: In Dunham v. Vaughan & Bushnell Mfg. Co., 42 Ill. 2d 339, our supreme court held that those products are defective which are dangerous because they fail to perform in a manner reasonably to be expected in light of their nature and intended function. In this case the ladder collapsed, so it failed to perform in the manner reasonably to be expected in light of its use. Therefore, it is defective according to the reasoning of the supreme court. The court also went on to say that liability would be upheld although there was no evidence of defect at the time it left the manufacturer’s control and it had been used for 11 months where it was represented as “best quality” and was used in a manner customary in plaintiff’s community. This ladder which collapsed with plaintiff was represented to be a safety ladder. The record discloses it was a “Safe-T-Master Alumiladder, New 1971 Line.” It was firmly planted on concrete and was being used in the manner in which it was supposed to be used. Both plaintiff and his fellow workmen testified that the ladder appeared to be new, that they looked at it before they used it and there was no evidence of any apparent defects in the ladder. In the case of McCarthy v. Florida Ladder Co. (Fla. App. 1974), 295 So. 2d 707, which I think is almost exactiy in point, the court said: “In the proper case, a defect can be inferred from the fact that a new product performs in such a manner as to preclude any other reasonable inference which would suggest that the product was not defective.” 295 So. 2d 707, 709-10. In Bollmeier v. Ford Motor Co., 130 Ill. App. 2d 844, this court said: “[D]irect or circumstantial evidence which tends to prove that the product failed to perform in the manner reasonably to be expected in the light of its nature and intended function, 0 * * is sufficient to make a prima facie case on this issue.” 130 Ill. App. 2d 844, 851. In Coyne v. John S. Tilley Co., 331 N.E.2d 541 (Mass. 1975), the court said: “We believe that a trier of fact could infer as a matter of common knowledge that a relatively new aluminum stepladder would not collapse in such a way that one of its legs was bent inward at a 45° angle in the course of usage unless someone had been negligent. Plainly, a properly fabricated and designed aluminum ladder * * * would not collapse if put to the use for which it was intended.” (331 N.E.2d 541, 545.) In holding there was sufficient evidence “to warrant exclusion of negligence by intermediate handlers as a cause of the ladder’s collapse,” the court said: “The trier of fact could deem it improbable that a ladder which appeared bright, new and defect-free to these observers had been damaged significantly by handling between the time it left the manufacturer’s control and the time of the plaintiff’s use.” 331 N.E.2d 541, 546. In my opinion the result reached by the majority is also directly contrary to the Supreme Court’s holding in the recent case of Tweedy v. Wright Ford Sales, Inc., 64 Ill. 2d 570.