Court Opinion

ID: 9562889
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:34:45.029545+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:35.200235
License: Public Domain

Lewis, Justice
(dissenting) :
While I agree that the judgment against Cherokee should be affirmed and that the judgment entered in Ford’s favor notwithstanding the verdict should be reversed, I do not agree that a new trial should be ordered. To that extent, I dissent from the main opinion. The verdict of the jury against both Cherokee and Ford should be sustained.
The main opinion, following general negligence principles, soundly holds that a “manufacturer is under a duty to use reasonable care in the design of its vehicle to avoid subjecting the user to an unreasonable risk of injury in the event of a collision.” Larsen v. General Motors Corp., 391 F. (2d) 495, 502. The opinion also correctly states that “the primary *253issue for the jury, on which Fords’ liability turned, was whether the collision risk to which she (plaintiff) was subjected by the design and composition of the gearshift lever assembly was unreasonable.”
After so holding, the main opinion then declares erroneous and prejudicial the following instructions as the sole basis for granting a new trial to Ford:
No. 5. “The manufacturer of an automobile, if the automobile is made under a plan or design which makes it dangerous for the uses and purposes for which it is intended, is subject to liability to those whom he should expect to use the automobile for bodily injury proximately resulting from the manufacturer’s failure to use reasonable care in adopting a safe plan or design of the vehicle.
No. 14. “The duty of a manufacturer to use reasonable and due care in the adoption of a plan or design for his product includes the duty to design the product so that it will fairly meet any emergency use of the product which can reasonably be anticipated at the time of the planning or designing of the product.”
As I interpret the main opinion, it holds that the foregoing instructions were in error because they erroneously imposed a duty on Ford to adopt a safe plan or design of the passenger compartment of its vehicle so as to secure its occupants from harm in the event of a collision, reasoning that “in this field there is no saje plan or design, hence, no duty to adopt one.” It is further reasoned that the charge was erroneous because the duty of Ford in designing the vehicle was not to fairly meet an emergency use, such as a collision, but only to so design the product as to avoid subjecting the users to an unreasonable risk of injury in the event of a collision.
It is elementary that a charge to the jury must be considered as a whole and particular instructions are to be construed in context with the remainder of the charge on the same question.
*254In addition to the instructions in question and in connection therewith, the trial judge instructed the jury that “a manufacturer is not an insurer” of the safety of his product; that he “has no duty to produce a product incorporating only features representing the ultimate in safety”; that “a manufacturer is not under a duty to make a machine, or its component parts, accident proof or fool-proof”; that “the law holds a wrongdoer responsible in damages only for the natural and probable results of his wrongful acts, and for the injurious effects thereof which he might have reasonably foreseen”; that “the manufacturer of an article or product, such as an automobile, owes a duty of reasonable care to the consuming public to furnish a product which is reasonably safe for the uses and purposes for which it is intended”; that the jurors were not free to substitute their opinion for that of the manufacturer “as to what would be a better or safer design unless you first find that the design employed by the manufacturer and the materials used by it were reasonably certain to put life or limb in peril in the normal use of the product”; and that “the liability of the manufacturer can be established only by showing that the device which it sold was inherently dangerous in that it was likely to cause injury when put to the use for which the product was intended.”
The instructions in question are not inherently erroneous. Glasgow v. Pacific Mills, 109 S. C. 385, 96 S. E. 137; Matthews v. Payne, Director General, 121 S. C. 84, 113 S. E. 381; Prisock v. International Agricultural Corp., 147 S. C. 58, 144 S. E. 579; Davis, Admr. v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 150 S. C. 130, 147 S. E. 834. Therefore, assuming that they are subject, when considered alone, to the interpretation that Ford was under an absolute duty to adopt a safe plan or design of the gearshift assembly, such interpretation clearly, in my view, becomes untenable in the light of the remainder of the charge. The trial judge, not once but several times in the charge, told the jury that the duty owed by Ford was that of reasonable or ordinary care.
*255The phrase safe plan or design, contained in instruction No. 5, did not convey the meaning of absolutely safe but, as shown by the charge as a whole, was used in the sense of reasonably safe. Instructions No. 5 and No. 14, when viewed in context, simply informed the jury that Ford had the duty to anticipate that its vehicle might become involved in an emergency use, here a collision, and that in manufacturing its product it had a duty to so design the gearshift assembly as to fairly (reasonably) protect the user.
In addition to the foregoing, the main opinion holds that the trial judge erred in granting plaintiff’s request No. 9, but failed to express a view as to whether, standing alone, such would constitute reversibile error. Request No. 9 was as follows:
“A manufacturer of a product who knowingly sells or furnishes an article which, by reason of negligent design, is imminently dangerous to life or body, is liable to any person who suffers injury therefrom if the manufacturer failed to give reasonable notice or warning of the defect or danger.”
Ford’s exception to the foregoing instruction is “upon the ground that the same is misleadingly incomplete, fails to take into account the obvious characteristics of a product, is incorrect as respects design defects, and does not apply where the defect alleged did not cause the accident producing the injury in the course of the intended use of the object.”
This exception should be dismissed because it is too general, vague, and indefinite to be considered. Rule 4, Section 6, of the Rules of this Court.
Certainly it would not be argued that the instructions in this case attained absolute accuracy. The writer does state however, in all confidence, that one sound criticism of the charge is that it was more favorable to Ford than it was entitled to under the law.
The appellant is required to show that it suffered prejudice from the instructions, which it has failed to do. I *256respectfully submit that the basis set forth in the main opinion for depriving this plaintiff of a $312,000.00 verdict against Ford is nebulous indeed. The exceptions of Ford to the charge should be overruled.
I would affirm the judgment as to Cherokee, reverse the judgment N. O. V. granted to Ford, deny Ford’s alternative motion for a new trial, and affirm the verdicts of the jury against both Cherokee and Ford.