Court Opinion

ID: 9702393
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:10:05.516012+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:52.625473
License: Public Domain

Fitzgerald, J.
(dissenting). This appeal concerns the propriety of a trial court’s grant of directed verdict in favor of defendants, the manufacturer, wholesaler, and retailers of a slingshot, in an action brought by plaintiff to recover for injuries sustained as a result of use of the slingshot.
Evidence introduced at trial indicated that on August 17, 1967, Joseph Alfono, age 11, purchased two l(ty slingshots from defendant Campbell Discount Jewelry. He gave one of the slingshots to plaintiff, age 12, and the boys rode their bicycles to a nearby park. At the park plaintiff and Joseph Alfono employed their slingshots to shoot projectiles at frogs which they found in the vicinity of a pond. The incident of injury occurred when plaintiff was standing near the small pond and Joseph was on the side of a nearby hill. Joseph called to plaintiff to look up and watch as Joseph shot at a bird. When plaintiff looked up, he was struck in the left eye by a projectile from Joseph’s slingshot. Evidence introduced at trial indicated that the injuring slingshot was manufactured by Chemical Sundries, Inc.,1 and distributed by King Tobacco and Grocery Co.
*460Settlement was agreed upon between plaintiff and defendant Alfonos with the result that the Alfonos were only nominal parties to the litigation.2 The trial court, upon motion of the remaining defendants after presentation of plaintiffs proofs, granted directed verdict in favor of defendants, opining that defendants owed plaintiff no legal duty upon which recovery could be premised and that defendants’ conduct was not the proximate cause of plaintiffs injury.3 The Court of Appeals affirmed in an unpublished per curiam opinion. We granted leave to appeal.
We would affirm the trial court and the Court of Appeals, concluding defendants did not owe plaintiff minor the asserted duty not to manufacture, distribute and sell slingshots.
I
Prosser, in his treatise on the law of torts, offers the following analysis of the role of the court and jury respecting the question of whether a legal duty is owed by one party to another:
"3. The existence of a duty. In other words, whether, upon the facts in evidence, such a relation exists between the parties that the community will impose a legal obligation upon one for the benefit of the other— or, more simply, whether the interest of the plaintiff which has suffered invasion was entitled to legal protection at the hands of the defendant. This is entirely a question of law, to be determined by reference to the body of statutes, rules, principles and precedents which *461make up the law; and it must be determined only by the court. It is no part of the province of a jury to decide whether a manufacturer of goods is under any obligation for the safety of the ultimate consumer, * * * . A decision by the court that, upon any version of the facts, there is no duty, must necessarily result in judgment for the defendant.” (Emphasis supplied.) Prosser, Torts (4th ed), § 37, p 206.
Decisions of this Court have in similar fashion recognized that the question of duty is to be resolved by the court rather than the jury. See Fisher v Johnson Milk Co, Inc, 383 Mich 158, 162; 174 NW2d 752 (1970), in which the Court viewed summary judgment for defendant manufacturer of a wire milk bottle carrier proper after determination that there was "no legal duty to supply a carrier so designed as to prevent bottles placed therein from breaking when dropped to a hard surface”. Also, see Bonin v Gralewicz, 378 Mich 521, 527; 146 NW2d 647 (1966).
The trial court in this case found no legal duty owed plaintiff by defendants. We now review — as a question of law — that determination.
II
During the course of proceedings below plaintiff has alleged that the defendants violated numerous duties4 which attached liability. Through the sifting and winnowing action of the trial and appel*462late process these allegations have been refined so that we have presently before us only the following contention as stated at page 11 of plaintiffs brief:
"Plaintiffs position [is] that the defendants had a duty as reasonably prudent manufacturers, distributors and retail merchants not to manufacture, market and sell these slingshots to young children.”
It is asserted that two factors give rise to this duty:
"(1) the inherently dangerous nature of the slingshot, and (2) the youthfulness and lack of discretion of the purchasers.”
The question before us is not settled by Michigan case law precedent. A related question was considered by this Court, however, in Chaddock v Plummer, 88 Mich 225; 50 NW 135 (1891). In Chaddock, an air gun case, this Court affirmed a directed verdict in favor of the father-purchaser of an air gun used by a neighbor boy in' injurious fashion. Evidence indicated the mother, rather than the father, was in "control” of the premises at the time the gun was loaned to and used by the visiting child. Negligence of the mother was not asserted. The Court concluded:
"[I]t was not negligence per se for the defendant to buy this toy gun, and place it in the hands of the boy nine years of age; and there were too many intervening causes without the act or knowledge of the defendant, between the buying of the gun and the injury to hold the defendant liable for its use in this case. If his own son had, in any manner, contributed to the accident, a different question would arise, upon which I express no opinion.” Supra 230.
*463Whalen v Bennett, 4 Mich App 81; 143 NW2d 797 (1966), involved the circumstance of injury which occurred when defendant’s son shot an air gun while playing with friends and injured one of his companions. The Court of Appeals5 concluded that the trial court’s grant of summary judgment was improper, there being evidence indicating that a duty on the part of the parent, to supervise the use of an instrumentality as dangerous as an air gun, had been breached.6 Neither Chaddock nor Whalen dealt with the liability of retailers, wholesalers, or manufacturers.7
Cases from other jurisdictions offer instruction not afforded by Michigan precedent. In Pitts v Basile, 35 Ill 2d 49; 219 NE2d 472 (1966), a child struck by a dart thrown by another child brought suit against the wholesaler of the dart and the retailer from whom the darts had been purchased. The appeal considered only the question of the wholesaler’s liability. The Illinois Supreme Court concluded that there was insufficient causal con*464nection between alleged negligence on the part of the wholesaler and resulting injury, finding that there was no relation between the marketing of the darts and subsequent injury. In addition, the Court commented:
"We are not concerned in this case with the liability of the proprietors of the grocery store who sold the darts to the eight-year-old boy, but with the liability of the defendant [wholesaler], who sold the darts to the proprietors of the grocery store. There was no contention or proof that the darts were in any way defective, and the appellate court emphasized that it was not characterizing them as 'inherently dangerous.’ In this court, however, the plaintiff urges that the defendant’s ' "non-defective” dart manifestly was not safe when used by small children for the purpose for which it was intended. The dart in question was intended to be thrown at various objects * * * . Its propensity to cause serious injury, particularly to the eyes, was demonstrated by the very injury suffered by the infant plaintiff in the instant case.’
"There are many things used by children that may be said to be unsafe when used for the purpose for which they are intended. A baseball, a baseball bat, a penknife, a Boy Scout hatchet, a bicycle, all have the capacity to injure the user or others in the course of their normal use. They are not, however, to be categorized as 'dangerous instrumentalities.’ As was said by the Tennessee court in Highsaw v Creech, 17 Tenn App 573, 69 SW2d 249, 252 [1934], 'an air gun is not a dangerous instrumentality of itself, but is in fact a toy. * * * The fact alone that an injury may be inflicted by such a toy does not make of it a dangerous instrumentality in the sense that the term is generally used.’ In Morris v Toy Box, 204 Cal App 2d 468, 22 Cal Rptr 572, 574-575 (1962), a complaint brought by a minor against a retailer alleging that the retailer knew that the intended user of a bow and arrow was the purchaser’s ten-year-old boy was dismissed, the court saying, 'the bow and arrow has been in use by young and old alike for *465thousands of years. * * * To us it is simply inconceivable that a 10-year-old boy, much less his mother, would be unacquainted with the use of so common an article as the one here in question.’ See also, White v Page, 105 NE2d 652 (Ohio App, 1950).” Supra, 35 Ill 2d 49, 51-52; 219 NE2d 472, 473, 474.
The Supreme Court of Oklahoma in Atkins v Arlan’s Department Store of Norman, 522 P2d 1020 (Okla, 1974), quoted the above from Pitts v Basile in concluding that there was no cause of action for plaintiff against the manufacturer and retailer of a lawn dart game for injury caused when a lawn dart struck the eye of a child. That Court concluded:
"There are many toys and playthings, perfectly harmless and inoffensive in themselves, but whose common use can be perverted into a dangerous use and design, and there are very few of the most harmless toys which cannot be used to injure another. The dart’s propensities to cause injury is demonstrated by the injury sustained but the fact that an injury was sustained does not necessarily mean that the manufacturer or retailer are liable for those injuries.
"The dart in question was not designed or manufactured to be thrown at an individual but at a plastic ring or another target.” 1022.
In Morris v Toy Box, 204 Cal App 2d 468; 22 Cal Rptr 572 (1962), the Second District Court of Appeals of California faced the allegation of plaintiff that the retailer of a bow and arrow was liable for injuries sustained by a child who had been struck by an arrow shot by the son of the buyer of the bow and arrow. The California Court rejected the *466notion that a bow and arrow were "inherently dangerous”,8 and commented:
"As in the case of a sling shot9 the bow and arrow has been in use by young and old alike for thousands of years; its method of operation, therefore, is a matter so notorious to all that production of evidence relative thereto would be unnecessary * * * (Emphasis supplied) 472.
The Court concluded there was no duty on the part of the retailer to warn of the dangers incident to the bow and arrows’ use and found no cause of action.10
Plaintiff refers us to § 390 of the Restatement of Torts, 2d, indicating that this section affords a basis for liability. This section states:
"One who supplies directly or through a third person a chattel for the use of another whom the supplier knows or has reason to know to be likely because of his youth, inexperience, or otherwise, to use it in a manner involving unreasonable risk of physical harm to himself and others whom the supplier should expect to share in or be endangered by its use, is subject to liability for physical harm resulting to them.”
A similar contention was rejected by the California Court of Appeals in Bojorquez v House of Toys, *467Inc, 62 Cal App 3d 930, 933; 133 Cal Rptr 483, 484 (1976), with the following remarks.
"A ten cent slingshot is a toy although its use, like the use of other toys, such as baseball bats and bows and arrows, may cause injury to others. The cases we have found under section 390 and the illustrations provided in the Restatement all involve the sale or entrustment of a chattel to a particular individual who allegedly was known to the seller to be too young, inexperienced or incompetent to use the item properly.
"Here [plaintiff] wants us to hold the retailer and distributor negligent for selling toy slingshots to the class of persons for whom they were intended — the young; in effect, she asks us to ban the sale of toy slingshots by judicial fiat. Such a limitation is within the purview of the Legislature, not the judiciary.”
The illustrations to the Restatement indicate that that section was intended to apply when knowledge of an individual's circumstances indicates to the supplier reasonable likelihood that the individual supplied is incompetent to use the chattel supplied and may therefore cause harm to himself and others. Plaintiff in this case seeks an extension of the Restatement doctrine to recognize the status of children, rather than circumstances concerning an individual child, and in relation thereto to circumscribe with duty the distribution of toys, the misuse of which involves a likelihood of injury —i.e., here, slingshots.
Ill
In our view we are being asked to perform a legislative task. If we were to find a duty on the part of defendants not to supply slingshots to children, we would in effect be making a value judgment and saying to defendants and their coun*468terparts that such — in this instance — toys should not be manufactured or marketed.
As has been noted, slingshots have a long history of association with the human race. Indeed, anyone can make one from a tree branch and a piece of inner tube. We acknowledge that there are dangers incident to their use and that such dangers are magnified when slingshots are used by minors. In the case of use by a minor, the law recognizes that parents have some responsibility of supervision. See, e.g., Whalen v Bennett, supra. Cf. Chaddock v Plummer, supra.
In the absence of legislative prescription circumscribing the manufacture, distribution, or sale of slingshots or providing that defendants insure against the misuse of their products, we are unable to find a duty upon which the liability of defendants may be premised.
We would affirm.
Coleman, J., concurred with Fitzgerald, J.

 After commencement of this litigation the name of defendant was changed to Chemtoy Corporation.

 The Alfonos are party to a cross-appeal concerning their respective rights against the other defendants in the event this Court were to set aside the directed verdict entered by the trial court.

 The trial court’s extensive opinion was issued from the bench and evidences thorough consideration of the case before that court.

 Among these duties was the duty to warn plaintiff purchaser of the dangerous propensities of a slingshot either by personal notification as in the case of a retailer or by printed notice as in the case of the wholesaler and manufacturer. Other courts have uniformly rejected a duty to warn when confronted with products, like the slingshot, the dangerous propensities of which are well known. See, e.g., Pitts v Basile, 35 Ill 2d 49; 219 NE2d 472 (1966), and Morris v Toy Box, 204 Cal App 2d 468; 22 Cal Rptr 572 (1962). See, also, Prosser, Torts (4th ed), § 96, p 649.

 Justice Fitzgerald authored the opinion when sitting as a judge of the Court of Appeals.

 See for an analogous holding, which additionally discusses application of Restatement Torts, 2d, § 390, discussed infra herein, Fredericks v General Motors Corp, 48 Mich App 580; 211 NW2d 44 (1973).

 Plaintiff also asserts that Crowther v Ross Chemical & Manufacturing Co, 42 Mich App 426; 202 NW2d 577 (1972), is a case in point. This action was brought to recover for the wrongful death of two young girls who were killed by a man who had allegedly been sniffing glue manufactured by defendant. The Court of Appeals concluded that the trial court’s grant of summary judgment was inappropriate because
"It is an issue of fact whether, as plaintiff alleges in his complaint, the practice of glue sniffing was, at this time, sufficiently notorious that defendant knew or should have known this was an alternative use for its product.”
In Crowther, however, summary judgment on the pleadings alone was involved. Here we have a directed verdict granted after plaintiff has presented all his proofs. The thrust of decision in Crowther was that plaintiff be given an opportunity to present proofs. In the present case plaintiff enjoyed such opportunity. Crowther is therefore not of decisional significance to the case before us.

 The talismanic label "inherently dangerous” attained significance because a finding of "inherent dangerousness” avoided the privity requirement of contract law subjecting the wholesaler, manufacturer or retailer to liability in tort. Plaintiffs complaint is framed in terms of negligence. The doctrine of "inherent dangerousness” is not of decisional significance to the case at hand.

 The California Court at this point footnotes the following:
"And David prevailed over the Philistine, with a sling and á stone, and he struck, and slew the Philistine. (1 Kings [1 Sam] 17:50.)”

 The New Jersey Superior Court similarly commented that a plastic slingshot was not a dangerous instrumentality in Levis v Zapolitz, 72 NJ Super 168; 178 A2d 44 (1962), a case involving injury sustained as a result of a defective slingshot.