Court Opinion

ID: 9680905
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:40:51.136263+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:31.210647
License: Public Domain

Concurring opinion by
POPE, J.
POPE, Justice, concurring.
This case exemplifies the futility of distinguishing a strict liability case from a contract case by the new rule that was today announced in Mid Continent Aircraft Corp. v. Curry County Spraying Service, Inc., 572 S.W.2d 308. In Mid Continent the court reached a result that conflicts with Nobility Homes, Inc. v. Shivers, 557 S.W.2d 77 (Tex.1977). We held in Mid Continent that the action was one in contract because the damages occurred to the product itself. In the present action we hold that the action is one in strict liability because the damages occurred to other prop*332erty. In my opinion, the cases cannot be factually reconciled.
I disagreed with the holding in Mid Continent that it was not a strict liability case, because the plaintiff obtained findings that the airplane crashed by reason of a defect that was unreasonably dangerous.1 The majority opinion in Mid Continent announced a new rule, holding that in spite of those findings that match the requirements of section 402A, Restatement (Second) of Torts, the action was one in contract because the damages did not occur to the buyer’s “other” property. In both Mid Continent and this Signal Oil case, the plaintiff asserted an action produced by a defect that was unreasonably dangerous. We reach opposite results, however, because the court says that in Mid Continent the damages were to the product itself but in this case the damages were to the buyer’s “other” property.
The airplane in Mid Continent crashed because a crankshaft gear bolt had backed out of position. A safety device known as a clip or gear bolt lock plate had not been installed. The function of the clip was explained as:
the “bolt when tightened properly will remain tight and prevent the bolt from backing out, to prevent the gear from getting loose and shearing the dowel pin, which will and did cause the stoppage of the engine.”
The plaintiff was not suing to recover for the repairs or replacement of the faulty safety clip. That defect caused the airplane crash and the destruction of both wings, the propeller, the lower engine cowling, the nose cowling, the left aileron and the carburetor heat box. The defective clip caused a shearing of the dowel which accounted for only $147.13 damage to the engine. Yet, in the instance of the airplane crash, the court says that the damages were to the product itself, the airplane. The court says that the very substantial damages to the rest of the plane were to the product itself and not “other” property. The plaintiff alleged and proved in Mid Continent that the plane was also carrying a supply of agricultural chemicals, all of which was destroyed in the crash. Why, then, does not that loss constitute damages to the plaintiff’s “other” property as in Signal Oil? Signal Oil holds that once a defendant is caught on damages to any “other” property, then the suit may proceed even as to the product itself as a strict liability case.
The court’s new test produces an interesting contrary result by the holding that Signal Oil’s suit is one for strict liability. Instead of a defective clip, we have in Signal Oil the supplier’s use of B-7 bolts when 25-12 bolts were called for by the specifications. The defective bolts resulted in a fire and damages to the isomax unit and hydrogen plant that Signal had purchased from Procon. In the case of Signal Oil, however, the court holds that there is an action in strict liability because the plaintiffs alleged damages to the product itself, “as well as other surrounding property.” That surrounding property was the very isomax unit and hydrogen plant that Signal obtained from Procon. It is no different from the surrounding property in the form of both wings, fuselage, propeller, aileron, lower engine cowling, nose cowling, and carburetor heat box on the product sold by Mid Continent. In Signal Oil, the damage to the plant that it bought could be sought in a strict liability suit; in Mid Continent the damage to the airplane it sold cannot be sought in a strict liability suit. The holdings are inconsistent and portend problems that could be avoided by adhering to the criteria stated in section 402A.
This court’s decision in this case is a correct one, however. Signal Oil alleged that the fire occurred because the product was defective and unreasonably dangerous to its property. That is what section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts defines as an action in strict liability, and *333that should be the test. Signal Oil meets that test and that should be enough.
This court amended Rule 277, Tex.R. Civ.P., to eliminate inferential rebuttal issues, and to simplify charges to juries. Commencing in 1971 in Yarborough v. Berner, 467 S.W.2d 188 (Tex.1971), this court has by a series of cases ending in Parker v. Highland Park, Inc., 565 S.W.2d 512 (Tex.1978), reduced negligence cases to a few simple issues of negligence, contributory negligence and damages. Simultaneously, we are well along the road toward adding satellite issues to a products liability case about as fast as we eliminated them in negligence actions. We are today adding a new, unnecessary and confusing concept to strict liability cases by the division of “his property” into the product itself and “other” property.
Rule 277, Tex.R.Civ.P., abolished inferential issues. Today we back into a new kind of inferential issue. A plaintiff, to prove an action in strict liability, must in the future prove not only that there was a defect that was unreasonably dangerous that caused damages, but also that the damages are not to the product itself. Our first two examples which attempt to apply the test are reasons we should condemn the test. A defective clip causes an airplane to crash. A defective bolt causes a chemical unit to burn. Both defects are unreasonably dangerous. Both cause damages to the rest of the thing that was purchased. The defective clip, holds our court, did not cause damages to the other parts of the airplane, but the defective bolt caused damages to the other parts of the isomax unit.
I concur in the result.

. 2. The absence of a crankshaft gear bolt lock plate rendered the aircraft an unreasonably dangerous product at the time of its purchase;
5. The defect rendering the aircraft unreasonably dangerous did not arise from normal use of the aircraft;
572 S.W.2d at 308.