Court Opinion

ID: 9460436
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:50:10.99075+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:37.031133
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING AND PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
All of the defendants-appellants have moved for a rehearing en banc.
I.
Three of the movants, Johns-Manville Corporation, Fibreboard Corporation, and Ruberoid Company contend that the Court erred in basing its opinion on “the overriding factor” of “the alleged failure of the defendants to at any time warn *1104Borel of the dangers involved in working with asbestos insulation while employed by various independent contractors”. They state that the record shows that Johns-Manville placed a warning label on packages of its products in 1964, and that Fibreboard and Ruberoid placed warning labels on their products in 1966. (Borel filed suit in 1969.) The three warnings were substantially the same. Johns-Manville’s read as follows:
“This product contains asbestos fiber. “Inhalation of asbestos in excessive quantities over long periods of time may be harmful.
“If dust is created when this product is handled, avoid breathing the dust.
“If adequate ventilation control is not possible wear respirators approved by the U. S. Bureau of Mines for pneumoconiosis producing dusts.”
It should be noted that none of these so-called “cautions” intimated the gravity of the risk: the danger of a fatal illness caused by asbestosis and mesothelio-ma or other cancers. The mild suggestion that inhalation of asbestos in excessive quantities over a long period of time “may be harmful” conveys no idea of the extent of the danger. The admonition that a worker should “avoid breathing the dust” is black humor: There was no way for insulation workers to avoid breathing asbestos dust. As for wearing respirators if adequate ventilation control is not possible, Borel and other insulators never worked in any place where there was adequate ventilation, and respirators were ineffective: “you can’t breathe with the respirator”.1
Within the trial judge’s instructions, the jury could have concluded that the “cautions” were not warnings in the sense that they adequately communicated to Borel and other insulation workers knowledge of the dangers to which they were exposed so as to give them a choice of working or not working with a dangerous product. Our opinion points out:
“Borel said that he had known for. years that inhaling asbestos dust ‘was bad for me’ and that it was vexatious and bothersome, but that he never realized that it could cause any serious or terminal illness. Borel emphasized that he and his fellow insulation workers thought that the dust ‘dissolves as it hits your lungs’ ”. (493 F.2d 1082)
We quoted Borel’s testimony:
“A. Yes, I knew the dust was bad but we used to talk [about] it among the insulators, [about] how bad was this dust, could it give you TB, could it give you this, and everyone was saying no, that dust don’t hurt you, it dissolves as it hits your lungs. That was the question you get all the time.
Q. Where would you have this discussion, in your Union Hall ?
A. On the jobs, just among the men.
Q. In other words, there was some question in your mind as to whether this was dangerous and whether it was bad for your health ?
A. There was always a question, you just never know how dangerous it was. I never did know really. If I had known I would have gotten out of it.
Q. All right, then you did know it had some degree of danger but you didn’t know how dangerous it was?
A. I knew I was working with insulation.
*1105Q. Did you know that it contained asbestos ?
A. Yes, sir, but I didn’t know what asbestos was.”
The evidence established that Borel was exposed to the products of each of these appellants for extended periods occurring before the alleged warnings were given. Since the disease of asbestosis is cumulative, these earlier exposures to asbestos dust from appellants’ products could have contributed substantially to Borel’s overall condition. Borel was an insulator for 33 years. Three of the six defendants gave no warnings. The other three used labels on packages of their products, as noted in this opinion ; but this practice began a few years before his terminal illness in 1969. By 1964-66, his illness was irreversible. Thus, there were no warnings when they could have effectively allowed Borel to make the choice of encountering or not encountering a known risk. And, in any event, there was significant evidence to create a question for the jury as to the adequacy of the labels to serve as warnings. We cannot say that its resolution of this issue is incorrect as a matter of law. Planters Manufacturing Co. v. Protection Mut., Inc. Co., 5 Cir. 1967, 380 F.2d 869; Helene Curtis Industries, Inc. v. Pruitt, 5 Cir. 1967, 385 F.2d 841; Boeing Co. v. Shipman, 5 Cir. 1969, 411 F.2d 365, 374.
The appellants are in the anomalous position of arguing that (1) the danger was obvious; (2) yét three issued no semblance of a warning and three posted diluted “cautions” which might alert the contractor-purchasers, but not the workers, the final users; and (3) all admit that they never conducted any tests to determine the extent of the danger. In their original briefs, on the issue of liability they seem to rely primarily on the “cautions” to the independent contractors, the purchasers, as if their potential liability ceased to exist before their products reached the ultimate users. That is not the law. We agree with the Restatement: a seller may be liable to the ultimate consumer or user, for failure to give adequate warnings. The seller’s warning must be reasonably calculated to reach such persons, and the presence of an intermediate party will not by itself relieve the seller of this duty. Sterling Drug Inc. v. Cornish, 8 Cir. 1966, 370 F.2d 82; Yarrow v. Sterling Drug, 8 Cir. 1969, 408 F.2d 978; Noel, Products Defective Because of Inadequate Directions or Warnings, 23 S.W.L.J. 256 (1969).
Taking our original opinion as a whole, it should be clear that our references to failure to warn refer to failure to warn of the gravity of the danger, that is, the exposure to asbestosis, mesothelioma and other cancers. The first sentence of the opinion states that the case involves “the scope of an asbestos manufacturer’s duty to warn”. At a number of points we emphasize that the plaintiff’s contentions focused on the “adequacy” or reasonableness of the warnings.2 The utility of an insulation product containing asbestos may outweigh the known or foreseeable risk to the insulation workers and thus justify its marketing. The product could still be unreasonably dangerous, however, if unaccom*1106panied by adequate warnings. An insulation worker, no less than any other product user, has a right to decide whether to expose himself to the risk.
The district court correctly charged the jury:
“As you know, one of the acts of negligence contended for by the plaintiff and perhaps the principal act of negligence is that the manufacturer should have given a warning or a proper warning as to the úse of its product. The Court would instruct you that a manufacturer of goods has a duty to give reasonable warning as to the dangers inherent or reasonably foreseeable in using his product. The defendants are under an obligation and duty to give reasonable warning as to the danger of their products, even if the product or products is not being used in a specific manner, so long as the use to which the product was put was a use that the manufacturer could reasonably foresee.”
The unpalatable facts are that in the twenties and thirties the hazards of working with asbestos were recognized; that the United States Public Health Service documented the significant risk in asbestos textile factories in 1938; that the Fleischer-Drinker report was published in 1945; that in 1961 Dr. Irving Silikoff and his colleagues confirmed the deadly relationship between insulation work and asbestosis. In January 1969 Borel’s illness was diagnosed as irreversible pulmonary asbestosis. During his working years, he received no warnings of any kind from three of the six defendants. The other three defendants issued no warnings until 1964-66, by which time adequate warnings would have come too late for Clarence Borel. On the evidence before it, the jury could properly have decided that Borel received no warnings at all from any defendant at a time when the defendants were under a duty to warn him.. Or, with respect to the three defendants who issued watered down “cautions”, the jury could properly have held that these warnings were inadequate to communicate to Borel knowledge of the hazards to which he was exposed.
II.
The movants argue that the decision should be reversed because Borel knew of the danger, and the jury so found.
The plaintiff’s cause of action is based on both negligence and strict liability. The district court correctly distinguished one from the other. The jury understood the distinction, for it found that Borel was guilty of contributory negligence but it returned a verdict in favor of Borel on the theory of strict liability.
Section 402A, comment n, of the Restatement of the Law of Torts, deals with contributory negligence and that form of negligence which “commonly passes under the name of assumption of risk”; the two overlap in actions based on strict liability:
“n. Contributory negligence. Since the liability with which this section deals is not based upon negligence and the seller, but is strict liability, the rule applied to strict liability cases [see § 524] applies. Contributory negligence of the plaintiff is not a defense when such negligence consists merely in a failure to discover the defect in the product, or to guard against the possibility of its existence. On the other hand the form of contributory negligence which consists in voluntarily and unreasonably proceeding to encounter a known danger, and commonly passes under the name of assumption of risk, is a defense under this Section as in other cases of strict liability. If the user or consumer discovers the defect and is aware of the danger, and nevertheless proceeds unreasonably to make use of the product and is injured by it, he is barred from recovery.”
Here the jury acted within its proper functions in finding, in effect, that Borel did not “voluntarily and unreasonably” proceed “to encounter a known danger”. Nor was the evidence so *1107compelling that reasonable and fair-minded persons would have to conclude Borel “diseover[ed] the defect and [was] aware of the danger, and nevertheless proceed [ed] unreasonably to make use of the product”. 2 Restatement of Law of Torts (2d ed. 1965) § 402A at 356; Boeing Company v. Shipman, 5 Cir. 1969, 411 F.2d 365, 374.
III.
The trial court submitted this case to the jury on general instructions and special interrogatories, not “on general verdicts accompanied by a special interrogatory as to Borel’s contributory negligence,” as stated in the original opinion and as stated by defendants’ counsel in objecting to certain portions of the jury charge.
Counsel for the defendants objected to the trial court’s not submitting to the jury a special interrogatory based on assumption of risk or volenti non fit injuria. Counsel alluded, however, to the Court’s having “covered it to some extent in the general charge”. On the motion for a rehearing the movants contend that this Court erred in holding, contrary to Texas law, that under the doctrine of volenti non fit injuria, as a matter of law, Borel’s continuing to expose himself to asbestos dust was “unreasonable”. They assert, however, that “in effect, the jury found that Borel was not acting as a reasonable man”. Moreover, they say that the Court erred in concluding that the jury found that Borel had not assumed the risk; that “no such finding was ever made by the jury as the matter was not submitted to it except in the contributory negligence issue”. The defendants timely requested the trial court to submit special interrogatories on voluntary assumption of risk or volenti. When these were refused, the defendants objected to the court’s instructions that neither assumption of risk nor contributory negligence would be a defense to an action on the theory of breach of warranty. They renew their argument on their motion for a rehearing and contend that the Court erred in making án Erie judgment that volenti is not a defense in this products liability action in Texas.
We made no such holding, in our original opinion.
We realized, as we said, that “The applicability of volenti or contributory negligence defense in a strict liability action is unclear under Texas law”. We noted, however, that the Texas Supreme Court has quoted and followed, in part, the position taken in comment n to Section 402A of the Restatement, quoted earlier in this opinion, and that the Court quoted with approval Prosser, Law of Torts (3d ed.) 656. Shamrock Fuel & Oil Sales v. Tunks, 416 S.W.2d 779 (Tex. Sup.Ct.1967). We relied, too, on Messick v. General Motors Corp., 5 Cir. 1972, 460 F.2d 485, in which this Court concluded that Texas courts would probably follow comment n to Section 402A. We stated in our original opinion, therefore, that continued use of a product known to be defective would be a defense to a strict liability action only when the continued use was “voluntary” and “unreasonable”. Compare Dean Keaton’s observation: “First, assumption of risk requires a deliberate encounter with a known risk. Mere negligence in failing to discover a risk is no defense under this doctrine. A person does not deliberately encounter a risk if he does not know it exists. Moreover, the encounter must be voluntary. Therefore, the defense is inapplicable when the injured party had a rational alternative to taking the risk”. Keaton, Strict Liability for Product Design, 52 Tex.L.Rev. 81, 89 (1973). Dean Wade takes the same position. Wade, Strict Tort Liability, 19 S. W.L.J. 5, 21 (1965).
Notwithstanding its rejection of the defendants’ proffered instructions, the trial judge in this case did in fact inform the jury that assumption of risk was a defense to a strict liability action. He stated:
[ T ] he defendants contend that the deceased, Mr. Borel, knew of the dangerous nature of the asbestos product man*1108ufactured by the defendants in connection with his insulation work and appreciated the danger and with such knowledge voluntarily assumed the risk by continuing his employment. Further, that this knowledge of the danger of the insulation was known to Mr. Borel’s contractor or employer. Therefore, the Court would instruct you that if you find from a preponderance of the evidence that the deceased knew of the dangerous nature of the asbestos products with which he was working and appreciated the danger of working with such products or that he had knowledge through his contractor of the dangerous nature of the product and that he assumed the risk by continuing his work, then you would find against the plaintiff and in favor of the defendants.
What more could the defendants want? Wé considered the instruction overly favorable to the defendants. Notwithstanding, the jury still found against the defendants, in effect, therefore, finding that Borel did not assume the risk.
Ford Motor Co. v. Henderson, 500 S.W.2d 709 (Tex.Civ.App.1973), on writ of error to the Texas Supreme Court, is not contrary to our holding in the instant case nor to anything we said in the original opinion or in this opinion on rehearing. In that case the Court quoted with approval, as we did, comment n of Section 402A of the Restatement and Prosser, Law of Torts (3d Ed.) 656, both relied on in Shamrock Fuel & Oil v. Tunks. Dean Prosser was the Reporter for the Restatement of Torts and the quotation from his treatise parallels Section 402A. The language of the majority in Ford Motor Company v. Thompson is consistent with Shamrock v. Tunks and with the Borel opinion. In all three cases the courts recognize that contributory negligence or assumption of risk is not a defense to an action based on strict liability when the injured party does not deliberately encounter a risk the existence of which he knows. But it will be a defense “when it consists of a voluntary and unreasonable [Dean Keaton would say “not rational”] conduct to encounter a known risk”. (493 F.2d p. 1097).
The actual holding in Ford was only that the manufacturer was entitled to submit to the jury as a special issue the defense of contributory negligence or voluntary assumption of risk. The defendant had contended that “the jury could have concluded under the evidence that Mrs. Henderson [the injured party] discovered the defect”; that then she “unreasonably proceed [ed] to encounter a known danger”. 500 S.W.2d 709. There is a reference in the majority opinion to the plaintiff’s “failure to use ordinary care in continuing to use a product after the discovery of a defect [which] is available as a defense in this state”. But the majority supported this holding by a quotation from Section 402A, comment n, and twice scored the word “unreasonably”. It is evident, therefore, that the Court had no intention to depart from the Restatement. Moreover, Justice Stephenson, for the majority, quoted Justice Norvell in Shamrock Fuel & Oil Co. v. Tunks to the effect that the cases which refuse to allow the defense of contributory negligence “are entirely consistent with the general rule that such negligence is not a defense to an action founded upon strict liability. They represent the form of contributory negligence which consists of deliberately and unreasonably proceeding to encounter a known danger, and overlaps assumption of risk”. 500 S.W.2d 709, 710.
The difference between Borel and Ford is that in Borel the trial judge put to the jury the analogous question the trial judge erroneously rejected in Ford.
The dissent in Ford gives no aid and comfort to the defendants in the instant case. Justice Dies, dissenting, argues that even if Mrs. Henderson, the injured party, discovered a defect in the product, “unknown before to her, and not caused by her”, she is not required to make “a wiser choice of her options” than the choice she made.
*1109There is, therefore, no reason to withhold the issuance of this opinion pending the decision of the Texas Supreme Court in Ford Motor Co. v. Henderson.
IV.
The trial court correctly decided that limitations was not an issue in the case. The reference in our opinion to Gaddis v. Smith, 417 S.W.2d 577 (Tex.S.Ct.1967) and the discussion pertinent to Gaddis are unnecessary to our decision, which we rest squarely on Campbell v. Sonford Chemical Co., 486 S.W.2d 932 (Tex.S.Ct.1972).
The Petition for Rehearing is denied and no member of this panel nor Judge in regular active service on the Court having requested that the Court be polled on rehearing en banc, (Rule 35 Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure; Local Fifth Circuit Rule 12) the Petition for Rehearing En Banc is denied.

. As the opinion points out: “When asked about the use of respirators, Borel replied that they were not furnished during his early work years. Although respirators were later made available on some jobs, insulation workers usually were not required to wear them and had to make a special request if they wanted one. Borel stated that he and other insulation workers found that the respirators furnished them were uncomfortable, could not be worn in hot weather, and — ‘you can’t breathe with the respirator.’ Borel further noted that no respirator in use during his lifetime could prevent the inhalation of asbestos dust. As an alternative precaution, therefore, he would sometimes wear a wet handkerchief over his nostrils or apply mentholatum, but these methods were also unsatisfactory and did not exclude all the dust.”

. “The plaintiff contended that the defendants’ products were unreasonably dangerous because of the failure to provide adequate warnings of the foreseeable dangers associated with them.” (493 F.2d p. 1086).
“Here, the plaintiff alleged that the defendants’ product was unreasonably dangerous because of the failure to give adequate warnings of the known or knowable dangers involved.” (493 F.2d p. 1088).
“But, as comment k makes clear, even when such balancing leads to the conclusion that marketing is justified, the seller still has a responsibility to inform the user or consumer of the risk of harm. The failure to give adequate warnings in these circumstances renders the product unreasonably dangerous.” (493 F.2d. p. 1089).
“The failure to give adequate warnings in such circumstances can render the product unreasonably dangerous.” (493 F.2d p. 1091).
“As previously discussed, when a failure to give adequate warning is alleged to have made a product unreasonably dangerous, . . . ” (493 F.2d p. 1093).