Court Opinion

ID: 9857817
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:02:29.483175+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:46:30.938658
License: Public Domain

POPE, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the majority opinion because the jury finding that there was no defect disposes of the cause. I also concur in its holding that state of the art may be developed by the evidence directed at the issue concerning defect, but that state of the art is not itself an issue which should be submitted to the jury. This case, however, dramatically illustrates the problems with shadowy distinctions between defenses in products cases and negligence cases, and the need to reexamine certain defenses.
Defendant Boatland asserted three defenses, each of which the court submitted to the jury, and all of which the jury answered favorably to the defendant Boatland. The jury made findings that (1) decedent misused the boat, (2) decedent failed to follow proper warnings and instructions, and (3) decedent voluntarily assumed the risk.
It is my opinion that all of those defensive issues are issues which mix and ask about the decedent’s contributory negligence. The defendant alleged that the decedent misused the boat in these ways: (1) he drove the boat at an unsafe speed, (2) he failed to keep a proper lookout, (3) he permitted passengers to stand in the boat, and (4) he failed to place the motor in a tilt position. Those are traditional contributory negligence allegations even though we call them “misuse” when we move from a negligence case to a products case.
Strict liability is a doctrine which excuses a harmed plaintiff from proving privity of contract and that the seller of goods was negligent. The doctrine looks to the defect in the product and not to the conduct of the supplier. That rule which excuses proof is inapplicable, however, to the plaintiff, because his conduct is and ought to be examined to determine whether it was up to standard or was substandard. Misuse, as in this case, does look to the plaintiff’s conduct. Hence, while the conduct of the manufacturer or supplier is not a suitable inquiry in products liability cases, the conduct of the plaintiff is an important inquiry, and we should clarify this fact.
One of the policy reasons for the doctrine of strict liability is that the manufacturer or supplier can spread the losses occasioned by the supplier’s defective product; but in spreading those losses, the general consumer should not have to pay additionally for that percentage of the loss that was caused by the plaintiff’s own fault.
In an action in which the plaintiff pleads an action in contributory negligence and alternatively as strict liability, the defendant receives an issue on contributory negligence and another issue on misuse. The same evidence bears on both. This is, how*751ever, a double submission of the same acts or omissions. If the jury answers that there was no contributory negligence, but that there was misuse, we run into the problem of conflicts.
Misuse is really contributory negligence, and it would simplify trials if we treated it as such. We should recognize this fact and hold a plaintiff to the standard of an ordinary prudent person or of reasonableness in his use of the product. We should eliminate the confusing misuse defense and return to contributory negligence as an appropriate defense in strict liability cases.
Voluntary assumption of risk should also be eliminated as a viable defense in strict liability cases. There is no more reason for an all-or-nothing defense in strict liability cases than there is in negligence cases. We held in Farley v. M M Cattle Co., 529 S.W.2d 751 (Tex.1975), writing about voluntary assumption of risk, “the reasonableness of an actor’s conduct in confronting a risk will be determined under principles of contributory negligence.” The doctrine is a variant of contributory negligence, and it stands alone, as an all-or-nothing defense in strict liability cases. As stated by Professor Hadley Edgar in 11 Texas Tech.L.Rev. 22, 50 (1979):
The strict liability tortfeasor should be allowed a reduction in damages corresponding to the quantum of the victim’s contributory negligence. The distribution of loss between the victim and several tortfeasors, either with or without settlement should be applied uniformly rather than turning upon whether the nonset-tling tortfeasor was negligent or strictly liable. The legislature’s failure to act leaves the supreme court no reasonable alternative except to resolve these issues when next called upon to do so.
The defense under the more familiar format of contributory negligence, which would subsume and supplant the confusing defenses of misuse and voluntary assumption of risk could restore simplicity to the trials of product liability cases. Daly v. General Motors Corp., 20 Cal.3d 725, 144 Cal.Rptr. 380, 575 P.2d 1162 (1978). In such a trial, the fault of the supplier and the plaintiff should be apportioned between the products defect and the plaintiffs’ sub-par conduct. See, e. g., Caterpillar Tractor Co. v. Beck, 593 P.2d 871 (Alaska 1979); Daly v. General Motors Corp., 20 Cal.3d 725, 144 Cal.Rptr. 380, 575 P.2d 1162 (1978). The fault of the supplier and the plaintiff should be apportioned in both kinds of cases. We have on two occasions, judicially fashioned a method for such an apportionment. In General Motors Corp. v. Hopkins, 548 S.W.2d 344 (Tex.1977), we held that the misuse of a carburetor on a truck was a partial defense to a strict liability action. We also held that the trier of fact should determine the percentages by which the defect and the misuse contributed to cause the event. General Motors Corp. v. Hopkins, supra at 352. In Signal Oil & Gas Co. v. Universal Oil Products, 572 S.W.2d 320 (Tex.1978), Signal Oil sued the defendant for negligence, strict liability, and breach of implied warranty. We wrote:
The seller should only be held liable for that portion of the consequential damages caused by the breach of implied warranty. Therefore, this court holds that in a cause of action for breach of an implied warranty the buyer may not recover consequential damages to the extent that the buyer’s negligence or fault was a concurring proximate cause of such damages. [Emphasis in opinion.]
Sooner or later, and the sooner the better, we must bring products liability cases within a manageable format. Simplicity, order and consistency can be advanced in those cases, in my opinion by:
1. The elimination of the misuse and voluntary assumption of risk issues and by substituting in their place the more familiar issue about contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff.
2. The submission of a products liability case to determine the percentage that the defective product caused the event and the percentage that the substandard conduct of the plaintiff caused it.
BARROW, J., joins in this concurring opinion.
*752ON REHEARING