Court Opinion

ID: 9681855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:59:47.930294+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:36.238036
License: Public Domain

TOM LUCE, Chief Justice,
concurring.
While I agree with the majority’s disposition of the negligence claim under the rationale of Houston Lighting & Power Co. v. Brooks, 161 Tex. 32, 336 S.W.2d 603 (Tex.1960), I also believe that the rationale of Brooks disposes of the Reynolds’ strict liability claim. I would hold that Brooks controls the standard of forseeability for “duty-to-warn” strict liability claims as well as for negligence claims. Accordingly I do not believe it is necessary to decide whether the electricity in this case is a “product” or whether it is in the “stream of commerce” under the RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 402A (1965).
We have said that a manufacturer can be strictly liable for failure to warn when it “knows or should know of potential harm to a user because of the nature of its product.” Crocker v. Winthrop Laboratories, 514 S.W.2d 429, 433 (Tex.1974); accord Bristol-Myers Co. v. Gonzales, 561 S.W.2d 801, 804 (Tex.1978). This knowledge requirement must be understood in the context of the “unreasonably” dangerous limitation. An imaginative manufacturer might conceive of many potential harms that might be caused by its product, but it will be liable for only the failure to warn of harms caused by uses of the product “contemplated by the ordinary consumer who purchases it, with the ordinary knowledge common to the community as to its characteristics.” RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 402A, comment i. The manufacturer thus has a duty to warn of harm resulting from only those uses of its product that are reasonably foreseeable.1 See Beans v. Entex, Inc., 744 S.W.2d *787323, 325 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1988, writ den.); Blackwell Burner Co., Inc. v. Cerda, 644 S.W.2d 512, 516 (Tex.App.-San Antonio 1982, writ ref d n.r.e.); Pearson v. Hevi-Duty Electric, 618 S.W.2d 784, 787 (Tex.Civ.App.-Houston 1981, writ ref’d n.r.e.); Alberto-Culver Co. v. Morgan, 444 S.W.2d 770, 776 (Tex.Civ.App.-Beaumont 1969, writ ref’d n.r.e.); Cudmore v. Richardson-Merrell, Inc., 398 S.W.2d 640, 644 (Tex.Civ.App.-Dallas 1965, writ ref n.r.e.); Borel v. Fibreboard Paper Products Corp., 493 F.2d 1076, 1088 (5th Cir.1973); RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 402A, comment j. “Reasonable foreseeability is limited to uses that are objectively reasonable to expect and anticipate in the use of a product; it does not encompass uses that are totally bizarre, aberrational or which represent wholly unexpected product misuse.”2 Sales, Product Liability Law in Texas § 1.01 at 57-58 (1985).
Commentators have suggested that the standard of reasonable foreseeability in the duty-to-warn context is the same in strict products liability as in negligence. See Powers, Texas Products Liability Law § 5.0342 at 5-41 (1988); Kidwell, The Duty to Warn: A Description of the Model of Decision, 53 Tex.L.Rev. 1375, 1377-78 (1975). At least two federal courts have so held explicitly. Borel, 493 F.2d at 1088; Basko v. Sterling Drug, Inc., 416 F.2d 417, 426 (2d Cir.1969). While the Court of Appeals in this case has suggested that a lesser degree of risk may be sufficient to establish a duty to warn in products liability than in negligence, I see no reason to make distinctions between degrees of reasonableness; the majority does not reach this issue, however, and it remains an open question. If a plaintiffs behavior is not reasonably foreseeable so as to create a duty to warn under the law of negligence, then the product is also not unreasonably dangerous because the manufacturer did not warn of the consequences of such use.3 Because HL & P is not negligent as a matter of law under Brooks, I would hold that it is also entitled to a judgment on the strict liability claim. Thus, I concur in the majority’s judgment on the strict liability claim; because I do not believe it is necessary to reach the questions of whether electricity is a “product” or in the “stream of commerce,” I do not join in that portion of the majority’s opinion.

. The reasonable foreseeability limitation in duty-to-warn strict products liability would not necessarily apply to other aspects of strict liability. For example, the manufacturer may be liable for manufacturing or design defects even if it could not have foreseen the danger to the user. Turner v. General Motors Corp., 584 S.W. 2d 844, 851 (Tex.1979).
It is also important to distinguish between reasonably foreseeable use and reasonably fore*787seeable harm. It has been argued that a manufacturer should be strictly liable for all harm caused by foreseeable use of its product, even if the potential harm was not reasonably foreseeable or scientifically discoverable, if the product would have been unreasonably dangerous without a warning had the potential harm been known. See Green, Strict Liability Under Sections 402A and 402B: A Decade of Litigation, 54 Tex.L.Rev. 1185, 1203-06, 1211-12, 1219 (1976); Keeton, Products Liability — Inadequacy of Information, 48 Tex.L.Rev. 398, 404, 409 (1970). In this case, HL & P knew of the potential harm —that one who touched its powerlines with an aluminum pole would be seriously injured. The question is: was the potential use of its product, if that is what the intentional touching of an overhead powerline can be called, reasonably foreseeable so as to make the powerlines unreasonably dangerous without a warning.

. Product misuse, even if unforeseeable, is not an absolute defense to strict products liability where the product is unreasonably dangerous. Duncan v. Cessna Aircraft Co., 665 S.W.2d 414, 423 (Tex.1984). A product is not unreasonably dangerous, however, solely because a manufacturer failed to warn of potential harm resulting from product use or misuse that is not reasonably foreseeable.

. Again, I would distinguish between the duty to warn of harm resulting from unforeseeable use, where there is no duty under either the negligence or strict products liability standards, and the duty to warn of harm resulting from foreseeable use. I do not consider the issue of whether in the latter case the manufacturer may be strictly liable even if it could not have known of the potential harm at the time the product was marketed.