Court Opinion

ID: 9666618
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:22:49.679551+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:30.494357
License: Public Domain

SPECTOR, Justice,
dissenting, joined in Part A by PHILLIPS, Chief Justice.
Justice Spector’s dissent of June 29, 1995, is withdrawn, and the following is substituted in its place.
I agree that there is no duty to warn of open and obvious dangers “so well known to the community as to be beyond dispute.” Seagram & Sons, Inc. v. McGuire, 814 S.W.2d 385, 388 (Tex.1991). I disagree, however, with the majority’s holding that the danger in this case was so indisputably obvious that it justified removal of the issue from the jury’s province,
A.
In Seagram, this Court cited a litany of Texas cases indicating that as a matter of law the dangers of alcohol consumption are generally known to the community. Id. at 388. The Court also cited a comment in the Restatement noting that the dangers of alcoholism are common knowledge. Id. at 387-88 n. 4. In addition to these qualifications on its holding, the Court further narrowed its holding by referring to the “judicial notice rule”:
Because Seagram is asking this Court to determine common knowledge as a matter of law, we find the judicial notice rule helpful in providing a standard. Compare 33 S. Goode, O. Wellbourn, III & M. Shar-lot, Guide to Texas Rules of Evidence § 201.2 (Tex.Prac.1988) (requiring “high degree of indisputability” as prerequisite to judicial notice) with Bruñe v. Brown Forman Corp., 758 S.W.2d 827, 830-31 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1988, writ denied) (“common knowledge is information known by the public generally based upon indisputable facts”).
Based in part on this rule, we concluded:
Consequently, we hold that, because the danger of developing the disease of alcoholism from prolonged and excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages is and has been generally known and recognized, it is within the ordinary knowledge common to the community. Therefore, under the limited circumstances present in this cause, Seagram had no duty to warn or instruct of this particular danger arising from the prolonged and excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages.
Id. (emphasis added). This narrow holding was based on a correspondingly narrow view of “common knowledge.” As explained in one decision we relied upon, common knowledge includes only those things “so patently obvious and so well known to the community *386generally, that there can be no question or dispute concerning their existence” — for example, that “there are twelve inches in a foot, that the sun rises in the morning, or even that a person drinking alcoholic beverages will become intoxicated.” Brune v. Forman Corp., 758 S.W.2d 827, 830-31 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1988, writ denied).
The majority misapplies the Seagram standard when it states that the proper inquiry is “whether an average person would recognize that operating an industrial vehicle with open sides and top presents a degree of serious harm to the operator.” Supra at 383. Under the test delineated in Seagram, the jury must resolve this issue. To remove the issue from the jury’s province, the Court would have to determine that there has been a showing of a “high degree of indisputability” that the risk was commonly known. This is the test in Texas for open and obvious dangers, and Caterpillar has failed to satisfy it.
Unlike the Court in Seagram, the majority cannot cite cases standing for the proposition that the danger associated with the absence of “ROPS” on the vehicle was so commonly known and “highly indisputable” that the Court can take judicial notice that the absence of the safety device posed an open and obvious risk of harm. To the contrary, a number of courts have held that the question of whether the absence of “ROPS” is open and obvious is a fact question for the jury. See, e.g., Young v. Deere & Co., 818 F.Supp. 1420, 1423 (D.Kan.1992); Gann v. Internar tional Harvester Co., 712 S.W.2d 100, 106 (Tenn.1986); Caterpillar Tractor Co. v. Donahue, 674 P.2d 1276, 1283 (Wyo.1983).
The danger associated with operating a Caterpillar 920 front-end loader without its safety guards is certainly not common knowledge. Photocopies of photographs in the record do not give rise to the “high degree of indisputability” that would justify what is akin to judicial notice of the obviousness of the danger. Cf., Ford Motor Co. v. Nowak, 638 S.W.2d 582, 592 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1982, writ ref d n.r.e.) (rejecting argument that the dangers of shifting a car into “park” while stationary were open and obvious). An ordinary person looking at a large industrial front-end loader without “ROPS” might well assume that it could withstand a workplace collision without inflicting catastrophic injury.
Moreover, even if the risk of operating the 920 without ROPS was obvious, the protection that the ROPS would have afforded Shears certainly was not. There is no duty to warn of an obvious risk only because that warning would convey no additional information; the user is presumed to already know of the risk. See Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the Law of ToRts § 96, at 686 (5th ed. 1984). If the benefit of a safety device is not obvious, however, then a warning that the device should not be removed does convey important information. In the present case, the protective function of the ROPS cannot be said to be indisputably obvious. Shears, who had previously used the 920, testified that he thought that the “ROPS” was more like a “cabin ... to protect us from the heat, the cold.” Caterpillar’s own brochures expressly state that one of the functions of the ROPS is to provide a comfortable environment for the operator.
B.
The majority’s extension of our holding in Seagram essentially resurrects assumption of the risk as an absolute bar to recovery in strict liability and negligence actions, despite the fact that Texas has adopted a system of comparative apportionment. See Tex.Civ.PRAC. & Rem.Code § 33.001; Bruñe, 758 S.W.2d at 829 n. 1. The traditional assumption of the risk defense requires “a voluntary encounter with the danger or risk — which means by free and intelligent choice.” Henderson v. Ford Motor Co., 519 S.W.2d 87, 91 (Tex.1975).
What is most egregious in this case is that the majority imposes this doctrine on the injured worker while disregarding the requirement that he be subjectively aware of, and voluntarily encounter, the risk. Shears was required to use the 920 to perform his duties; he had no discretion or volition. In the present case, Shears testified that he did not know that the “ROPS” was there to protect him from injury; thus, he certainly did not understand the dire consequences resulting from the operation of the loader *387without a “ROPS.” Shears thought that the “ROPS” existed primarily for the comfort of the operators. Shears’ lack of appreciation of the risk is also reasonable since both Caterpillar and his employer admitted that they did not tell, warn, instruct, inform, or train anyone about the nature of the “ROPS,” the dangers of “ROPS” removal, or the dangers of operation of the loader without a “ROPS” attached.
Most of our sister states that have considered the open and obvious danger rule have chosen not to follow the majority’s approach. The Tennessee Supreme Court has held that the obviousness of the defect is only one factor to be considered when determining whether a defect is unreasonably dangerous. See Gann, 712 S.W.2d at 106. The court held that to hold otherwise would establish the assumption of the risk defense without any showing that the plaintiff discovered the defect, understood the danger presented, and then disregarded the danger voluntarily. Id. at 105. In Gann, the court rejected an argument similar to the one that Caterpillar makes in this case — that defect claims on a tractor could not be sustained because the dangers of operating a tractor without “ROPS” were obvious. Id. at 106.
The Alabama Supreme Court recently applied similar reasoning in a products liability case against Bic for its failure to child-proof lighters:
Whether a danger [is] ‘open’ and ‘obvious’ does not go to the [legal] issue of the duty of the defendant under the [applicable products statute]. Instead, ‘open’ and ‘obvious’ danger relates to the affirmative defense of assumption of the risk, the alleged ‘defectiveness’ of the product, and the issue of causation.... Therefore, a summary judgment based upon the danger’s being open and obvious would be improper, as such a determination is a factual issue for the jury.
Bean v. BIC Corp., 597 So.2d 1350, 1353 (Ala.1992); see also Young v. Deere & Co., 818 F.Supp. at 1423 (“Whether defendant had a duty to warn plaintiff and whether the absence of the ROPS equipment is a patent, open, and obvious risk are questions of fact for the jury.”).
A Wisconsin court recently explained the incompatibility of the majority’s approach with comparative responsibility systems:
Some states that have adopted comparative negligence statutes have addressed the issue of the proper application of the open and obvious danger doctrine to ordinary negligence cases and have essentially abolished its use to preclude recovery based on a lack of duty.... These cases conclude that the application of the doctrine to preclude recovery because the defendant owes no duty to a plaintiff who confronts an open and obvious danger is merely a corollary to the assumption of the risk doctrine, which is abolished in most comparative negligence states.
Hertelendy v. Agway Ins. Co., 177 Wis.2d 329, 501 N.W.2d 903, 907-08 (1993). Other authorities agree that the majority’s approach is unfair and damaging to the integrity of our tort system. See Keeton, Products Liability-Inadequacy of Information, 48 Tex.L.Rev. 398, 400 (1970); Marsehall, An Obvious Wrong Does Not Make a Right: Manufacturers’ Liability for Patently Dangerous Products, 48 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 1065 (1973) (arguing that the patent danger rule is economically inefficient).
For the foregoing reasons, I would not extend Seagram to the facts of this case. I would uphold the jury’s determination that Caterpillar’s failure to warn was negligent and constituted a marketing defect. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.