Court Opinion

ID: 9546238
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:26:33.336987+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:11.403117
License: Public Domain

TURSI, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The trial court ruled as a matter of law that power lines used for the transmission of electricity are not products for purposes of Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A (1965), nor is the transmission of electricity an ultra-hazardous activity implicating common law strict liability. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 519 (1965). I agree with the latter ruling, but disagree with the former.
Although there is dicta in Federal Insurance Co. v. Public Service Company, 194 Colo. 107, 570 P.2d 239 (1977) comparing the distribution of electricity to the operation of a firing range or the handling of explosives, both of which are traditionally common law strict liability situations, the reversal therein was based on the trial court’s failure to instruct that “a company engaged in furnishing electricity must exercise the highest skill and most consummate care.... ” Federal, however, did not address strict product liability as defined in Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A.
In rejecting plaintiffs’ products liability claim, the trial court relied upon Currence v. Denver Tramway Corp., 132 Colo. 328, 287 P.2d 967 (1955) and Nordgren v. Western Colorado Power Co., 167 Colo. 421, 448 P.2d 643 (1968). Currence and Nord-gren are inapplicable to section 402A cases. These cases concerned traditional negligence and contributory negligence claims which antedated our adoption of section 402A and are of no precedential value. I note that the claims here predated the application of § 13-21-401, et seq., C.R.S. (1984 Cum.Supp.).
Colorado first applied section 402A in Bradford v. Bendix-Westinghouse Automotive Air Brake Co., 33 Colo.App. 99, 517 P.2d 406 (1973). Our supreme court formally endorsed this adoption in Hiigel v. General Motors Corp., 190 Colo. 57, 544 P.2d 983 (1975).
Products liability under Section 402A does not rest upon negligence principles, but is premised on the concept of enter*791prise liability for easting a defective product into the stream of commerce. Jackson v. Harsco Corp., 673 P.2d 363 (Colo.1983). The plaintiffs here premised their products liability claim upon the failure of the defendant properly to design the system for transmission of the electricity, thus, causing it to be unreasonably dangerous. Alternatively, plaintiffs claim that defendants failed to give adequate warning that the powerline provided by it was an uninsulated high voltage (7200 volts) power line thus making it defective and unreasonably dangerous. See Restatement (Second) of Torts 402A comment j (1965). Plaintiffs proffered evidence in support of both contentions.
Plaintiffs argue that electricity and its transmission facilities constitute “products” within the meaning of section 402A. Defendants, on the other hand, contend that electricity is a service rather than a product. I agree with plaintiffs.
In Ransome v. Wisconsin Electric Power Co., 87 Wis.2d 605, 275 N.W.2d 641 (1979), the court held that electricity is a “product” within the meaning of § 402A. The court determined that electricity is “a form of energy that can be made or produced by men, confined, controlled, transmitted and distributed to be used as an energy source for heat, power and light and is distributed in the stream of commerce. The distribution might well be a service, but the electricity itself, in the contemplation of the ordinary user, is a consumable product.” See also Troszynski v. Commonwealth Edison Co., 42 Ill.App.3d 925, 1 Ill.Dec. 644, 356 N.E.2d 926 (1976); Leakakos Construction Co. v. American Surety Co., 8 Ill.App.3d 842, 291 N.E.2d 176 (1972).
The rationale for this result was stated in Ransome:
“To classify electricity as a product, by virtue of the definition we have set forth above, is warranted, indeed mandated, by the social policies which underlie and justify the imposition of strict liability on sellers who place dangerously defective products into the stream of commerce.”
I find this reasoning persuasive. See Denver Consolidated Electric Co. v. Simpson, 21 Colo. 371, 41 P. 499 (1895). Further, to conclude that wire produced to transmit electricity is not a product defies the factual basis of its production.
Here, a fact situation is present which requires that the claim be submitted to the jury. See Blue Flame Gas, Inc. v. Van Hoose, 679 P.2d 579 (Colo.1984). Therefore, I would reverse the trial court’s judgment dismissing plaintiffs Restatement (Second) of Torts 402A claim and remand it for trial.