Court Opinion

ID: 9670800
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:26:23.958984+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:06.593817
License: Public Domain

Murphy, J.
(dissenting). I would affirm the judgment of the trial court. The majority concludes that the trial court erred in improperly instructing the jury concerning plaintiff’s theory that defendant Cincinnati, Inc., had a continuing duty to modify a product following its production and sale and by permitting the jury to consider evidence presented concerning this theory. I believe that the trial court accurately instructed the jury with respect to defendant’s duty and appropriately left to the jury the determination of what actions of defendant would have been reasonable under the circumstances. I therefore dissent.
Plaintiff was injured when the brake press he was operating accidentally activated, smashing his hand. The brake press was operated by a foot pedal, which plaintiff mistakenly depressed while his hand was in the path of the moving parts of the press. Plaintiff brought this action against defendants, alleging that the machine was defectively designed because there was no guard surrounding the point of operation of the machine and no guard to prevent accidental operation of the foot pedal. Plaintiff’s theory at trial was that this defect was present at the time the press was sold to plaintiff’s employer in 1964 and that because defendants later discovered the dangerous condition, they had a duty to use reasonable care, which under the circumstances included notifying plaintiff’s employer of the defect and correcting the defect.
*488Defendants’ argument on appeal, and the basis for the majority’s opinion, is that in Michigan there is no recognized duty of a manufacturer to modify a defective product after sale to bring the product current with state-of-the-art safety features. While I would agree that there is no such hard and fast rule, I believe that defendants were obligated to use reasonable care under the circumstances and that whether reasonable care in this case rose to the level of taking affirmative steps to repair the defect was a question for the jury.
Generally, negligence is the failure of a person to do something that a reasonably careful person would do or the failure to refrain from doing something that a reasonably careful person would not do under the circumstances. What a reasonably careful person would do under the circumstances of a given case is a question for the jury. See SJI2d 10.02. While the standard of conduct required may vary, the degree of care does not; it is always what a reasonably careful person would do or refrain from doing under those circumstances. See Laney v Consumers Power Co, 418 Mich 180; 341 NW2d 106 (1983); Frederick v Detroit, 370 Mich 425, 432; 121 NW2d 918 (1963).
A manufacturer’s duty has been determined to include the duty to warn a purchaser about dangers associated with the intended use of the product, as well as dangers that may occur from foreseeable misuse of the product. Bullock v Gulf & Western Mfg, 128 Mich App 316, 322; 340 NW2d 294 (1983). A manufacturer is obligated at least to warn of latent defects of which it becomes aware, even though the defective product has already been placed into the stream of commerce. Comstock v General Motors Corp, 358 Mich 163, 177-178; 99 NW2d 627 (1959). A manufacturer’s duty also includes, however, the duty to " 'exercise a *489reasonable precaution for the protection of others commensurate with the peril involved.’ ” Id., 177, quoting from Gerkin v Brown & Sehler Co, 177 Mich 45; 143 NW 48 (1913). Moreover, any person, including a manufacturer, has the duty to use ordinary care. See SJI2d 10.05. Ordinary care is the care that a reasonably careful person would exercise under the circumstances of a given case, and this question is one of fact for the jury to decide. SJI2d 10.03.
In this case, the majority notes that throughout the trial plaintiff introduced evidence that defendant Cincinnati, Inc., had notice of the danger of the machine, but took no steps to correct the machine. The majority points to the following statement made during plaintiffs opening statement:
Their case boils down to a sacred issue, and the plaintiffs [sic] expect the evidence to show that the defendant Cincinnati Machine had a duty to fix the machine that smashed Michael Gregory’s hand and ruined his life.
The evidence will show that between 1964 and that fateful date in 1986 when Michael lost much of his hands [sic] that Cincinnati learned time and again that this unguarded foot pedal and that the unguarded point of operation was smashing worker’s [sic] fingers and hands but it did nothing, it stood back and denied its duty to guard the direct path which it had created.
There is no indication that this statement made by plaintiff or the evidence introduced by plaintiff compelled the jury to conclude that defendant had a duty to bring the machine up to state-of-the-art safety standards. Rather, the statements and the evidence relate to plaintiffs theory that defendant, *490after discovering that the machine’s design was dangerous and therefore defective at the time it was manufactured, had the obligation to take whatever steps were reasonable under the circumstances and to exercise ordinary care. What constitutes reasonable care or the exercise of ordinary care under the circumstances of this case, and whether defendant acted with reasonable care or ordinary care under the circumstances of this case, are questions for the jury. A finder of fact should be permitted to determine that a manufacturer who unknowingly designs or manufactures a defective product but who later becomes aware because of developing technology or otherwise that the product as originally designed or manufactured was defective, is liable if the peril of serious injury is so great that reasonable care would require corrective measures to alleviate the risk. The arguments and instruction to the jury in this regard were therefore properly submitted to the jury for determination.
I would affirm.