Court Opinion

ID: 9712799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:00:21.085781+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:14.441908
License: Public Domain

HUNTER, Justice,
concurring in result.
I concur in the result of this case and with the Court's conclusion that the giving of defendant's Final Instruction No. 8 was reversible error because it misstates the law on the defense of misuse. I also agree that a manufacturer cannot delegate its duty to produce a nondefective product by assuming that an intervening employer will correct the defect. To allow a delegation of the duty to warn of latent manufacture or design dangers goes against the expressed policy of Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 402A, which rests on the twin propositions that:
"(1) the manufacturer of a product sold on the open market undertakes and assumes a responsibility to the public to produce a reasonably safe product; and (2) the public justifiably relies on the expertise of the manufacturer in its expectation that the product is designed to afford reasonable safety in its foreseeable and intended uses." Bemis Co., Inc. v. Rubush, (1981) Ind., 427 N.E.2d 1058, 1067 (Hunter, J., dissenting) (citing Restatement [Second] of torts, § 402A, Comment c).
Thus the basic premise of Section 402A is that primary responsibility for making products safe for their reasonably foreseca-ble use lies with the manufacturer. Bemis, supra, at 1068. Because the manufacturer is in the best position to know and warn of hidden dangers, it is his responsibility to provide sufficient warnings to make the product as safe as reasonably possible. Nissen Trampoline Co. v. Terre Haute First Nat'l Bank, (1975) Ind. App., 332 N.E.2d 820, rev'd on other grounds, (1977) 265 Ind. 457, 358 N.E.2d 974.
Similarly, a manufacturer should not always be excused from liability because a danger is labeled open and obvious. The duty to make a product safe for its reasonably foreseeable and intended use, ie., not in "a defective condition unreasonably dangerous," still exists when the dangers are patent. The open and obvious rule, however, provides that if a danger is patent it cannot be unreasonably dangerous. This rule ignores the fact that the test is whether the danger is within the contemplation of the ultimate consumer. The product must be "dangerous to an extent beyond that which would be contemplated by the ordinary consumer who purchases it, with the ordinary knowledge common to the community as to its characteristics" in order to be actionable under Section 402A. Bemis Co., Inc. v. Rubush, supra, at 1061; Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 402A, Comment i. Under this test, a consumer may reasonably contemplate that a manufacturer will provide feasible safety devices for foreseeable mishaps. Gilbert v. Stone City Construction Co., Inc., (1976) 171 Ind.App. 418, 357 N.E.2d 738. As stated in 2 Harper & James, The Law or Torts § 28.5 p. 1543 (1956):
"[If it would be feasible for the maker of the product to install a guard or a safety release, it should be a question for the jury whether reasonable care demanded such a precaution, though its absence is obvious."
Furthermore, obvious dangers are not nee-essarily appreciated dangers to the user.
To excuse a manufacturer from liability because it has managed to make the dangers open and obvious, without considering whether the danger is reasonable and within the contemplation of the ordinary user, *288does away with the safety incentive rationale of strict liability in tort under Section 402A.
"Whereas Section 402A has universally been interpreted to require manufacturers to avoid latent dangers, they are nonetheless told all they need do to escape liability is to make those dangers patent. It is to say that a manufacturer should refrain from installing protective guards on a product, for those guards might only serve to make the danger less 'open and obvious.' The rule ignores the focus of Section 402A-whether the manufacturer, without impairing the functional capacities of the product and with reasonable additional costs-could have rendered the product reasonably safe. The rule, in short, as many jurisdictions have expressly recognized, encourages misdesign in its obvious form." Bemis, supra, at 1069 (Hunter, J., dissenting).
See, Bexiga v. Havir Mfg. Co., (1972) 60 N.J. 402, 290 A.2d 281; Micallef v. Miehle Co., (1976) 39 N.Y.2d 376, 384 N.Y.S.2d 115, 348 N.E.2d 571; Palmer v. Massey-Ferguson, Inc., (1970) 3 Wash.App. 508, 476 P.2d 713.
The better practice is to consider an open and obvious danger as but one factor when determining whether a product is dangerous beyond the contemplation of the ultimate consumer. - Because Indiana has adopted the open and obvious rule, however, I agree that the rule should be narrowly construed and the evidence carefully examined in each case to determine "whether the danger in the product is truly and entirely open and obvious," Majority Opin-fon -in other words, whether the danger presented was within the ordinary user's contemplation.
DeBRULER, J., concurs.