Court Opinion

ID: 9846381
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:40:00.740797+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:28.863913
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE PLEICONES:
I concur in part and dissent in part, and would affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals as written.
I agree with the majority that a bystander who is the user of the allegedly defective product, and who suffers physical harm from directly witnessing injury to another, may maintain a strict liability claim. See S.C.Code Ann. § 15-73-10(1) (1976); see e.g., Gnirk v. Ford Motor Co., 572 F.Supp. 1201 (D.S.D.1983). Accordingly, I agree that we should affirm the Court of Appeals’ decision reversing the trial court’s grant of summary judgment on Bray’s strict liability claim.
I disagree, however, with the majority’s decision to reinstate Bray’s negligence claim. Fundamentally, I disagree with the majority’s holding that if a plaintiff is considered a “direct victim for the purposes of one products liability cause of action, [then the plaintiff] must be a direct victim for all [products liability] causes of action.” When pursuing a products claim under a negligence theory, the plaintiff is subject to all the requirements and defenses of an ordinary negligence claim. See Hubbard and Felix, The South Carolina Law of Torts 245-246 (2nd ed.1997). Where, as here, the negligence claim is predicated on bystander liability, then I would hold, as *120did the Court of Appeals, that the plaintiff must satisfy the foreseeability requirements set forth in Kinard v. Augusta Sash and Door Co., 286 S.C. 579, 336 S.E.2d 465 (1985). Bray seeks to recover for the injury she suffered from witnessing the death of another: this claim brings her squarely within Kinard. She does not claim, as did the plaintiff in Padgett v. Colonial Wholesale Distrib. Co., 232 S.C. 593, 103 S.E.2d 265 (1958), that her injuries resulted directly from the defendant’s negligence. Bray cannot satisfy the Kinard requirements and is therefore not a foreseeable victim. The trial court properly granted summary judgment on this theory, and the Court of Appeals correctly affirmed that decision.
As the majority points out, the legislature has defined the class of plaintiffs entitled to bring a strict liability products claim and we are bound by the terms used in that statute. When, however, the defective product claim is predicated on negligence, and the plaintiff is merely a bystander, then “there is ... need for a limitation on foreseeable victims to avoid disproportionate liability....” Policy requires that we limit foreseeable victims where the defective product claim sounds in negligence.
For the reasons given above, I would affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.