Court Opinion

ID: 9699580
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:34:28.846335+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:53.429711
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice
(concurring).
I agree with the Court that negligence by the plaintiff should not necessarily bar recovery in a products liability action brought pursuant to Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts; I also agree that McCown’s conduct in the instant case — misjudging whether the tractor he was driving would clear a guard rail as he was leaving the parking area — should not bar his recovery from the appellant. The purpose of this opinion is to place the Court's decision in what I perceive as its proper perspective.
Contrary to what the opinion of the Court seems to suggest, the answer to the question presented by this appeal is not to be found altogether in the language of Comment to Section 402A. Comment n provides, on the one hand, that the negligent failure to discover a defect in a product or to guard against the possibility of its ex*18istence is not defense to a strict liability action, and, on the other hand, that assumption of risk is a defense. But the conduct of John McCown, the appellee, fits into neither of the above categories. His negligence, if any, was the manner of his operation of an International Harvester tractor. Although Comment n is silent with regard to the consequences of negligent use of a product, it points to a resolution of the issue by referring to Section 524 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts.1 That section provides that in general “the contributory negligence of the plaintiff is not a defense to the strict liability of one who carries on an abnormally dangerous activity.” 2 Neither the Comments to Section 524 nor Comment n to Section 402A offer a rationale for the application of this rule in products liability cases, but I am satisfied that the elimination of the defense of plaintiff’s negligence is in accord not only with the weight of authority in other jurisdictions 3 but also with the policy which underlies the concept of strict liability in tort.
The strict liability of Section 402A is founded in part upon the belief that as between the sellers of products and those who use them, the former are the better able to *19bear the losses caused by defects in the products involved. See Bialek v. Pittsburgh Brewing Company, 430 Pa. 176, 187 n. 2, 242 A.2d 231, 236 n. 2 (1968); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A, Comments c & f. This greater loss-bearing capacity is unrelated to negligence in the manufacture or marketing of products. Indeed, retail and wholesale sellers of chattels are themselves often in no position to discover or avoid defects in their inventories, even by the exercise of a high degree of care. Thus, defendants in Section 402A actions are subj ected to liability without regard to fault. It is a proper corollary to this principle that the lesser loss-bearing capacity of product users exists independently of their negligence or lack of it. It follows that such negligence should not ordinarily or necessarily operate to preclude recovery in a strict liability case. On the other hand, where assumption of risk is involved, the “loss-bearing” policy underlying Section 402A is outweighed by a countervailing policy, one which refuses recovery to persons who consciously expose themselves to known dangers. This policy is deemed stronger than the one, reflected in the normal law of contributory negligence, which denies recovery to individuals whose conduct is merely lacking in due care under the circumstances.
This is not to say, however, that evidence of ordinary negligence on the part of a plaintiff is never relevant in a Section 402A action; such evidence may bear directly upon the determination of whether the plaintiff has proved all the elements necessary to make out a cause of action. Thus, negligence in the use of a product may tend to show that the plaintiff caused a defect and therefore that the product was not defective when sold. See Comment g to Section 402A. Again, if the negligent use of a product amounts to abnormal use, it may be inferred that the product was not defective at all, for a product is not defective if it is safe for normal handling and use. See Comment h to Section 402A. Similarly, negligence *20in the use of a product may have a bearing on the question whether a defect in a product was the legal cause of the plaintiff’s injury. See Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 5 and 9 and the Comments to these sections.4
What has been said is not intended as an exhaustive listing of the purposes for which evidence of the plaintiff’s negligence may be relevant in Section 402A cases. It is intended merely to indicate that, although such negligence is not per se a bar to recovery, it may nevertheless have that effect in a proper case where it negates an essential element of the cause of action. I do not read the opinion of the Court as suggesting anything to the contrary.

. Comment n to Section 402A provides in part: “Since the liability with which this Section deals is not based upon negligence of the seller, but is strict liability, the rule applied to strict liability cases (see § 524) applies.”

. In their treatise on the law of Torts, Professors Harper and James state as follows the rationale for the rule that contributory negligence is not a defense to the strict liability of one engaged in an extra-hazardous activity:
“Society has, in effect, permitted defendant’s activity on the condition that he compensate those injured by its peculiar hazards and has thereby transferred some of the duty that pro- • tects potential victims from the victims themselves to the entrepreneur. In such a context ordinary questions of negligence on either side of the scale become irrelevant. Human failings like inadvertence are simply part of the setting that makes a toll of the enterprise inevitable.” (Footnotes omitted).
2 F. Harper & F. James, The Law of Torts, § 22.7 at 1216-17 (1956).

. See Annotation, 46 A.L.R.3d 240 (1972); R. Hursh, American Law of Products Liability § 52:26 (Supp.1973).

. Cf. Section 2-715 of the Uniform Commercial Code, 12A P.S. § 2-715, which provides that consequential damages arising from a seller’s breach of a contract for the sale of goods include “injury to person or property proximately resulting from any breach of warranty.” (Emphasis added). Comment 5 to this Section indicates that the negligent failure to discover a defect in a product may remove the defect as the proximate cause of any injury which may thereafter result in connection with use of the defective product.