Court Opinion

ID: 9542636
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:36:51.092923+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:30.581848
License: Public Domain

ALLOY, P. J., concurring specially. I concur in the conclusion reached in the foregoing opinion. On the basis of what is stated in the foregoing opinion and in the dissent (that the court failed to submit the issue of contributory negligence to the jury) I believe that remandment is required in this case. I agree with my colleagues that the issues relating to proximate causation and the question of possible negligent conduct on the part of the plaintiff, require careful analysis, and, in certain areas, require clarity and guidance from the Court as to the basis for liability in a products liability case. We are reluctant to reverse and remand a judgment based on a jury verdict, unless the circumstances are such as to justify the conclusion that error in instructing the jury was sufficiently misleading to require reversal. I believe we are all in agreement that a jury in a products liability case of the type before us should be instructed specifically that the dangerous condition of the product, if found to exist, must have been a proximate cause of the injuries complained of. The dangerous condition need not be the sole or only cause but it must in fact be a proximate cause of the injuries. This should be clearly indicated to a jury in such manner as to be readily understood by a jury. Since this case has been before us for consideration, similar issues arising in this State have been considered by other courts (Williams v. Brown Mfg. Co., 93 Ill App2d 334, 236 NE2d 125; Dazenko v. James Hunter Mach. Co., 393 F2d 287; Sweeney v. Matthews, 94 Ill App2d 6, 236 NE2d 439). In Williams v. Brown Mfg. Co., supra, the court had occasion to analyze at length the case of Suvada v. White Motor Co., 32 Ill2d 612, 210 NE2d 182. The Appellate Court points out, I believe correctly (236 NE2d, at Page 132) that the Supreme Court in the Suvada case had stated that the view of the Supreme Court coincided with the position taken in § 402A of the American Law Institute’s Revised Restatement of the Law of Torts approved in May 1964. In the Institute analysis, it is pointed out that contributory negligence of plaintiff would not be a defense unless plaintiff, as a user or consumer, discovers the defect and is aware of the danger and, nevertheless, proceeds unreasonably to make use of the product and is thereby injured by it. The court concludes, in Williams v. Brown Mfg. Co., 93 Ill App2d 334, 236 NE2d 125, at 133, that contributory negligence in a case based upon strict liability in tort would be an affirmative defense. It is there pointed out, that in determining the issue of contributory negligence, the conduct of the plaintiff is not to be measured against the objective standard of conduct of a reasonably careful person, but is to be determined by the test of whether the particular plaintiff has proceeded unreasonably to use the product after he has discovered the defect or has become aware of the danger or has voluntarily or unreasonably proceeded to encounter a known danger. This obviously would not exhaust the possibility of negligence on part of plaintiff; for example, a continued use by plaintiff of a product, knowing of a defective condition and the probability of injury, or a clearly abnormal and unforeseeable use by plaintiff. In Williams v. Brown Mfg. Co., 93 Ill App2d 334, 236 NE2d 125, at 133, the court analyzes the reason for imposing the burden of proof of plaintiff’s contributory negligence on defendant as follows: “A manufacturer is held to the degree of knowledge of experts. ‘. . . the duty contemplated by the court in Suvada is one of making the chattel safe for the use for which it is supplied,’ Dunham v. Vaughan & Bushnell Mfg. Co., 86 Ill App2d 315, 229 NE2d 684. The question of what is ordinary or foreseeable use is one of fact, Hardman v. Helene Curtis Industries, Inc., 48 Ill App2d 42, 198 NE2d 681, 12 ALR3d 1033. Charged with the duty of making the product safe for the foreseeable use to which it might be put, and armed with expert knowledge, the manufacturer should bear the burden of proving that improper, abnormal or unforeseeable use of the product contributed to cause the injury. It appears unjust and incongruous to place the burden of proof of freedom from contributory fault upon a user, entitled to rely upon the product’s being fit for its intended use, and not charged with expert knowledge. In our opinion the same reasoning which justifies the doctrine of strict liability compels the adoption of the rule that when a plaintiff proves that his injury or damage resulted from a condition of the product, that the condition was an unreasonably dangerous one, and that the condition existed at the ' time it left the manufacturer’s control (Suvada) the manufacturer must bear the burden of proof that the injury resulted from conduct of the plaintiff which contributed to cause his injury.” That this is a proper rule is manifest from the very nature of the conclusion of the Supreme Court in the Suvada case. To conclude otherwise would completely emasculate the doctrine that proof of the dangerous condition of the product and further proof that such dangerous condition caused the injury, would (in absence of affirmative proof of plaintiff’s negligence) justify a recovery. To assert, as a basic principle in such case, that affirmative proof of freedom from any contributory negligence on part of plaintiff is requisite to a recovery, might require direction of verdict for defendant, even in face of proof of a dangerous condition of a product proximately causing the injury during its normal use, if no specific proof of freedom from contributory negligence is alleged or presented by plaintiff. To invoke such doctrine and to instruct the jury on such basis would, in effect, nullify the products liability doctrine announced in the Suvada case. The question of plaintiff’s contributory negligence, even where the burden of showing the same is placed upon defendant, is necessarily a question of fact for the jury. Whether instructions treating such question of contributory negligence would, in any particular case, constitute reversible error, must necessarily depend upon the facts of each particular case. For reasons stated in this special concurrence, therefore, I have concurred in the conclusion that this cause should be reversed and remanded.