Court Opinion

ID: 9701862
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:41:03.911951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:08.138928
License: Public Domain

REILLY, Chief Judge, Retired
(dissenting):
Although the majority opinion seems to concede — as I think we must — that the trial court correctly found as a matter of law that the warning label here satisfied the elaborate regulations with respect to mastic adhesives promulgated under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act — it disapproves the order of summary judgment on the ground that whether or not the label was adequate presented a question of negligence which should have been submitted to a jury. It relies upon an impressive array of authorities from other jurisdictions for the proposition that regulations under safety products acts set only minimum standards, and consequently compliance with such requirements does not relieve manufacturers or dealers in dangerous substances from the burden of including adequate warnings.
T have no quarrel with this thesis provided that it means that where a manufacturer, knowing the properties of the substance, can reasonably foresee hazards to a user which are not covered by the statutory requirements he is under a duty to add more cautionary instructions. Unless the rule is so qualified, it does violence to the law of torts by transforming liability for negligence on the part of manufacturers to one of absolute liability to a consumer.
It is well settled that the construction of the wording in a written document, like a will or a contract, is a matter reserved for judicial determination, and I see no reason why the wording of a warning label should be deemed an exception to this principle. Hence we should affirm the challenged ruling unless we are of the view that the warning on the container identifying the product as “EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE”, and directing that it not be used “NEAR FIRE OR FLAME” would lull a customer into thinking it was safe to empty the contents of the container on the floor adjacent to his gas stove without extinguishing the pilot lights. One would think that even the least sophisticated user *1089of household appliances would be aware that pilot lights are designed to ignite gas and thus far more likely than a smoldering cigarette to set ablaze any vapors rising from an “extremely flammable” mixture.
According to plaintiff’s version of the facts, he read the instructions on the label of the can and before applying its contents to the floor, saw to it that the kitchen was ventilated by opening the windows and turning on ductal fans and air-conditioning equipment. He did so because another warning on the label read “USE WITH ADEQUATE VENTILATION”. Obviously this warning was sufficient to put him on notice of the need for additional air. But why the warning against “USE NEAR FIRE OR FLAME” should not be treated as equally effective in putting customers on notice of the hazard of using the substance near pilot lights is difficult to explain. It would seem to me that a failure to heed either warning was contributory negligence per se.
Apparently my colleagues think that lack of the required degree of care might be inferred from the absence from the label of any specific mention of pilot lights “in light of the extreme flammability” of the product. But as the big lettering on the. container described its contents in precisely those terms, I regard this position as untenable. If there was a duty to advert expressly to pilot lights in addition to “fire and flame”, it would seem equally incumbent upon the vendors to devise a label warning against lighted pipes, cigars and cigarettes, vigil lights, candles, sparks from an electric lamp switch, a running fan or motor, and the other myriad of things which could possibly ignite vapors. If this is what the law requires, big lettering would have to be discarded for smaller print enumerating details at such length that few users would bother to read it — the warning then lacking the requisite “intensity”. See DiArienzo v. Clairol, Inc., 125 N.J.Super. 224, 310 A.2d 106 (1973), where it was held that a pamphlet of instructions was so detailed that a particular hazard was insufficiently highlighted, and Palace Laundry Dry Cleaning Co. v. Cole, D.C. Mun.App., 41 A.2d 231 (1945), holding that plaintiff was under no duty to read fine print (disclaimers of liability on a laundry slip).