Court Opinion

ID: 9452327
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:37:20.122492+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:10.268604
License: Public Domain

BROWNING, Circuit Judge,
with whom Judges HAMLEY, MERRILL, and DUNIWAY concur
(dissenting):
The majority holds that a manufacturer is required to guard against only those risks which it actually knows. The more limited the manufacturer’s knowledge, the less onerous its duty. Ignorance, no matter how unjustified, affords a complete defense to a charge of negligence in the ordinary case.1
This, in the majority’s view, is the only alternative to a holding that all manufacturers, in whatever circumstances, are charged with knowledge of every loading practice, however “pe*332culiar” “unique”, or “even strange,” occurring in “any port which the purchaser, a shipper, or transporter might select for loading and embarkation.” 2
I
The case was tried and submitted to the jury upon a more sensible middle ground.
The jury was not instructed that Simpson “was obliged to learn” of the longshoremen’s practice, no matter how unreasonable that obligation might be; the jury was not instructed that Simpson must “insure that [its] product be packaged in anticipation of whatever use to which it may be subjected by stevedores loading it as a part of a ship’s cargo.”
Quite the contrary, the trial court instructed the jury that the question was whether “the corporation of ordinary prudence [would] have exercised any greater care (that Simpson exercised) under the same and existing circumstances”3 Simpson “was under a duty to exercise reasonable care to employ such materials and methods in the construction and the packaging of the doors or warning of danger, if any there was, as were appropriate to the use for which it was intended and would render the packaged doors reasonably safe for handling in the course of shipment as Simpson Timber Company might reasonably be charged with in anticipation of the fact that the goods would flow in commerce.” Simpson was required to exercise reasonable care to avoid injury to longshoremen walking on the cargo if, but only if, the jury found that Simpson “knew, or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known that workmen might walk on said packaged doors.”
There was substantial evidence to support a jury finding that Simpson would have learned of the risk if it had acted with reasonable prudence.
Simpson assumed responsibility for packaging the doors properly for ocean carriage. It contracted to deliver the doors “suitably packaged for export shipment.” It agreed to deliver them “FOB dock” in Portland, Simpson’s home city, not at a distant port. The workmen at the Portland docks regarded walking on cargo as a necessary practice. The hold of a ship is of great depth, cargo must be loaded in layers, and longshoremen must walk on each layer of cargo stowed in place as they load the next. The practice was not unusual or peculiar, but was pervasive and long continued.
If Simpson did not know of the practice, it was aware of circumstances which should have suggested inquiry to a person of reasonable prudence. Simpson’s manager had seen workmen walk on packaged doors while loading trucks at Simpson’s plant. He “had been on the docks and seen the holds of ships, and * * * had ‘wondered’ how cargo was moved to portions of the hold away *333from the hatches.”4 Simpson knew that packaging cargo for export involved specialized problems, and that information regarding these problems was readily available. An expert in packaging cargo for export, whose offices were located on the Portland docks, testified that he had been consulted occasionally by Simpson.
Other door manufacturers exporting through Portland knew of the longshoremen’s practice and the risk it involved. The Portland export-packaging expert testified that he had been consulted by twenty-five to thirty such manufacturers, and that it was their custom and practice to package doors for export so that they would be safe to walk on during loading,
The slightest effort on Simpson’s part would have disclosed both the risk and the simple precautions necessary to avoid harm5 — but Simpson’s manager testified simply that he did not know how cargo was stowed aboard ship and made no effort to find out.6
II
Reason and authority support the trial court’s conclusion that it was Simpson’s duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid harm to longshoremen walking on cargo if (but only if) Simpson knew of the risk, or a person in Simpson’s circumstances, exercising reasonable care, would have known of it.
“The very concept of negligence presupposes that the actor either does foresee an unreasonable risk of injury, or could foresee it if he conducted himself as a reasonably prudent man.” 2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts § 16.5, p. 907 (1956). The authors quote Green v. Atlanta & Charlotte Air Line Ry., 131 S.C. 124, 126 S.E. 441, 444, 38 A.L.R. 1448 (1925), “The foundation of liability for negligence ‘is knowledge— or what is deemed in law to be the same thing, opportunity, by the exercise of reasonable diligence to acquire knowledge.’ ”
A manufacturer’s7 duty to exercise care extends to “risks which are created in the course of uses of the chattel which the manufacturer should reasonably anticipate.” Restatement (Second), Torts, § 395, comment j. A manufacturer must foresee and guard against a given risk if it is one “which a reasonable manufacturer would anticipate as likely enough to be taken into account”; and it is ordinarily “a question for the jury whether the maker should have anticipated it.” Harper & James, supra § 28.6, *334p. 1546. See also 1 Frumer & Friedman, supra §§ 8.03, 8.05; Noel, supra, 71 Yale L.J. at 856-85 (1962).
The decision of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Mazzi v. Green-lee Tool Co., 320 F.2d 821 (1963), illustrates the application of these principles. The defendant Greenlee Tool Company manufactured a pipe-bending press having a “shoe” as a component part. K. R. Wilson Company manufactured a similar machine. The Wilson press exerted a pressure of sixty tons psi against the “shoe”, whereas defendant Greenlee’s press was constructed to withstand a pressure of only forty tons psi. Plaintiff (not in privity with Greenlee) was injured when a Greenlee “shoe” which had been attached to a Wilson press broke when pressure was applied in excess of forty tons psi. The trial court directed a verdict in Greenlee’s favor on two grounds, one of which was that the Greenlee “shoe” was designed and intended for use only on a Greenlee press. The Court of Appeals reversed.
The Court of Appeals held that it was error to direct a verdict “if the evidence was such that a jury could reasonably find that use [of a Greenlee “shoe”] on a Wilson press was intended by the manufacturer or was reasonably foreseeable and that failure to warn against the danger of such usage constituted negligence in the circumstances.” 320 F.2d at 823.
Greenlee officials testified that Green-lee “shoes” were “not sold as single items to be used in any machine other than a Greenlee press.” But plaintiff offered evidence “that it was the custom in the trade to buy the shoes independently of the machines,” “that it was common practice to ‘adapt one shoe from one press to another press’,” and “that at the timé of the accident Greenlee shoes were customarily sold [by retailers] as separate units and when sold no inquiry was made by the retailer as to their prospective use.” 320 F.2d at 824-825. The Court of Appeals held that plaintiff’s evidence “was sufficient to support a jury resolution that the use of the shoe on a Wilson rather than a Greenlee press * * * was intended or that defendant should have reasonably foreseen that its shoe would be so used and that failure to warn of the danger involved in such usage constituted negligence.” 320 F.2d at 825.
The holding of the majority that liability is limited to injuries caused by risks which the manufacturer actually knew is irreconcilable with the decision in Mazzi. It is also contrary to the other well considered cases which recognize that the doctrine restricting liability to injuries resulting from the “intended use” of a manufacturer’s products “is but a convenient adaptation of the basic test of ‘reasonable foreseeability’ framed to more specifically fit the factual situations out of which arise questions of a manufacturer’s liability for negligence.” Spruill v. Boyle-Midway, Inc., 308 F.2d 79, 83 (4th Cir. 1962). See Land O’Lakes Creameries, Inc. v. Hungerhold, supra, 319 F.2d 352, 361 (8th Cir. 1963); Butler v. L. Sonneborn Sons, Inc., supra, 296 F.2d 623, 625-626 (2d Cir. 1961). See also 1 Frumer & Friedman, supra, Products Liability §§ 8.03, 8.05, 15 (1964).
These and similar cases cannot be disposed of by attaching the label “inherently” or “imminently” dangerous to the products involved. These are simply adjectives applied after it has been decided that liability will be imposed; they are of no help in reaching that decision.8 The “shoe” in Mazzi, the furniture polish in Spruill, the fertilizer in *335Land, O’Lakes, the barrel in Butler, were not dangerous instrumentalities per se. New things are dangerous in all circumstances; most things are dangerous in some.9 Simpson’s bundle of doors was innocuous for most purposes, but when “used as a floor, or walking surface, the bundle of doors was a trap.” As the trial court instructed the jury, the question is simply whether a person of reasonable prudence, in Simpson’s position, would have foreseen that risk.
The majority cites no authority supporting the “recognized tort rules” which require a manufacturer to exercise reasonable care to eliminate known hazards but not hazards which a reasonably prudent manufacturer would have foreseen. McCready v. United Iron & Steel Co., 272 F.2d 700 (10th Cir. 1959), and Cohagan v. Laclede Steel Co., 317 S.W.2d 452 (Mo.1958), announce no such principle. In each case, the appellate court agreed with the trial court that the evidence was insufficient to charge the defendant with knowledge of the risk, but in neither did the court hold that evidence of actual knowledge was required. As the majority’s quotation from McCready indicates, the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recognized that a duty to exercise proper caution would arise if the risk were one “reasonably anticipated,”10 and the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held only that “there was no showing that [the defendant manufacturer] had knowledge of the practice of workmen in using the crossbars in casements for handholds or footrests, or that the practice was so general that it was charged with knowledge thereof.” 272 F.2d at 703.11 Similarly, the court in Cohagan found a failure of proof because there was no “substantial evidence of a custom or usage imposing a duty on [the defendant manufacturer] to recognize the attempted use as a proper or intended use” (317 S.W.2d at 454); and the Supreme Court of Missouri held only that evidence that the use resulting in injury occurred “on isolated occasions does not tend to establish a duty on the part of the manufacturer * * * ” (317 S.W.2d at 457). Thus the rationale of these cases is not inconsistent with the trial court’s instructions in the present case, but supports those instructions.12
The majority suggests that the “almost total dearth of cases involving similar situations” indicates that manufacturers have not in fact ignored the dangers to which handlers of their products may be exposed. Before the majority spoke, a well advised manufacturer would not have assumed that he could safely rely upon ignorance of risks which a reasonably prudent person would have discovered. Moreover, a latent defect in cargo packaging renders the vessel unseaworthy (Gutierrez v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 373 U.S. 206, 212-213, 83 S.Ct. 1185, 10 L.Ed.2d 297 (1963); Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores, Inc. v. Ellerman Lines, Ltd., 369 U.S. 355, 364, 82 S.Ct. 780, 7 L.Ed.2d 798 (1962); United States Lines Co. v. King, 363 F.2d 658, 661 (4th Cir. 1966); Reddick v. McAllister Lighterage Line, Inc., 258 F.2d 297, 299 (2d Cir. 1958)), and injured *336longshoremen would ordinarily sue the ship, rather than the packager, to avoid the burden of proving negligence. 54 Geo.L.J. 1939 n. 2 (1966).
This suggests another unfortunate consequence of the rule adopted by the majority. It is generally thought desirable to impose the burden of loss upon the person best able to remove the risk. Italia Societa, etc. v. Oregon Stevedor-ing Co., 376 U.S. 315, 323-324, n. 10, 84 S.Ct. 748, 11 L.Ed.2d 732 (1964). But under the majority decision, liability falls upon the ship without regard to fault, and, in this case, in the face of a finding by the trial court (made after a separate trial of the issue of indemnity) that the shipowner neither knew nor in the exercise of reasonable care could have known of the dangerous condition of the package. Simpson, on the other hand, is freed from liability, though only Simpson knew of the latent defect and might have taken steps to eliminate it. No one else could have discovered the danger without dismantling or destroying the package — in the face of a warning, printed on the cardboard cover by Simpson, that the cover was not to be removed until the doors were unpacked for installation.
Even if the majority is right in faulting the instruction as to Simpson’s negligence, this affords no justification whatever for setting aside the verdict in plaintiff’s favor against Grace Lines. Grace Lines does not seek review of the determination that it was liable to plaintiff; its appeal is limited solely to the alleged excessiveness of the verdict. Under the trial court’s instructions, the verdict against Grace Lines was based entirely upon the jury’s determination that the vessel was unseaworthy. Although the majority suggests it “may have been influenced in some degree by considerations which were applied in the light of the erroneous instruction pertaining to the liability of Simpson,” the majority does not indicate what these “considerations” may have been. It would be impossible to do so. Simpson’s negligence had no relevance whatever to the liability of Grace Lines, and the instructions made this entirely clear.
The case was properly submitted to the jury,13 and the judgment should be affirmed.

. The majority opinion suggests two possible exceptions. A duty may arise “if a hazard is so obvious as to permit of no doubt that one could have anticipated it”; and a different rule, not articulated, may apply if “the product is inherently dangerous or harmful.”

. We join the majority in passing over appellants’ contentions (1) that the verdict was excessive, and (2) that a mistrial should have been declared because of an improper comment in the opening statement of plaintiff’s counsel.
In a footnote reference to the first issue, the majority notes that plaintiff was not hospitalized, that his medical expenses were minimal, and that damages of $80,-000 were awarded. The record also shows, however, that plaintiff’s basic injury (a tear in a bicep muscle of his right arm, resulting in permanent loss of 80 per cent of the ability to turn the hand and one third of the lifting power of the arm), was not repairable, and that hospitalization and treatment would therefore have been futile. The record also shows that plaintiff’s loss of income before trial was $5,000, and that his projected loss of future earnings totaled $65,000.
In a footnote reference to the second issue, the majority quotes a remark of the trial judge which might be read as suggesting doubt as to the correctness of his action in denying a mistrial. The record shows, however, that it was the trial judge’s considered opinion, based on his personal observation of all the circumstances, that counsel’s unfortunate comment was “pretty innocuous.”

. The emphasis is added, here and hereafter, unless otherwise indicated.

. Simpson’s manager testified that Simpson had a warehouse in the Portland waterfront area which he visited each week or ten days; that Simpson shipped 16,000 to 18,000 doors overseas from Portland annually; and that Simpson was engaged in substantial importing operations.

. The export-packaging expert testified that it was the custom and practice on the Portland waterfront to package cargo with material strong enough to support a man, or to use open crates, or to cut holes in the packaging so that surfaces which would not be walked on were visible, or to place warning notices upon packages which appeared to be solid but in fact were not.

. Note 6 of the majority opinion suggests that the evidence may have been inadequate because it did not establish that it was the practice for longshoremen to carry a weight, or for more than one longshoreman to stand on a given package at the same time. The contention has no relevance to this case. The cardboard covering employed by Simpson is in evidence, and it is obvious from an examination of this exhibit that the thin cardboard which Simpson used was incapable of supporting a fraction of the weight of one, unburdened, man.

. A package is as much a product as its contents, and the manufacturer is subject to the same rules of liability as to both. Prosser, 50 Minn.L.Rev. 791, 805-06 (1966); 1 Frumer & Friedman, Products Liability § 5.03 [1], p. 28 n. 22 (1966). See, for example, Land O’Lakes Creameries, Inc. v. Hungerholt, 319 F.2d 352, 360-361 (8th Cir. 1963); Butler v. L. Sonneborn Sons, Inc., 296 F.2d 623 (2d Cir. 1961); Central Steel Tube Co. v. Herzog, 203 F.2d 544, 546 (8th Cir. 1953); Restatement (Second), Torts § 395, comment (f) (5). Compare Great A & P. Tea Co. v. Miller, 316 F.2d 471 (5th Cir. 1963).

. “Although some decisions continue to speak the language of ‘inherent danger’, it has very largely been superseded by a recognition that what is involved is merely the ordinary duty of reasonable care imposed upon the manufacturer, as to any product which he can reasonably expect to be dangerous if he is negligent in its manufacture or sale.” Restatement (Second), Torts § 395 comment a. See also 2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts, § 28.9 at 1552-55, § 28.11 at 1559 (1956); 1 Frumer & Friedman, Products Liability § 5.03 [1] (1966); Noel, 71 Yale L.J. 816, 818 (1962).

. “Duty of care has been found in the manufacture or sale of coffee urns, cigarettes, hair combs, sewing machines, a bottle of perfume, a sanitary napkin, a ladder, a chain, a pulley, gasoline and electric stoves, and a sofa bed. It is certainly the prevailing view that it extends to any product whatever which, if in fact negligently made, may reasonably be expected to be capable of inflicting injury.” Prosser, Law of Torts § 84 at 500-01 (2d ed. 1955), § 96 at 662 (3d ed. 1964).

. Compare the majority’s suggestion that McCready holds that the manufacturer must “intend or anticipate” the use for a duty to arise.

. Compare the majority’s statement that McCready held that “the manufacturer was not under a legal duty to investigate all customs, hoioever universal * *

. The majority’s holding is also contrary in principle to Weekes v. Michigan Chrome & Chem. Co., 352 F.2d 603, 611 (6th Cir. 1965), in which the court granted a new trial in part because of an instruction which limited contributory negligence in a products liability case to risks actually known to the plaintiff.

. Speaking only for himself, and not for the other Judges joining in this dissent, the writer would note that the trial court’s instructions might well have gone farther than they did.
When Simpson undertook to package doors for export it was required to anticipate not only those risks which were reasonably foreseeable to Simpson, in Simpson’s particular circumstances, but also such risks as were foreseeable to those who were engaged at the time and place in question in the business which Simpson chose to enter. “In the field of manufacturers’ liability questions of foreseeability are closely entwined with the status of the defendant; as a manufacturer he is held to the knowledge and skill of an expert in his field.” Noel, supra, 71 Yale L.J. at 847-48 (1962). “[M]en who engage in certain activities or come into certain relationships with people or things are under peculiar obligation to acquire knowledge and experience about that activity, person or thing. * * * Thus * * * the manufacturer must learn of clangers that lurk in his processes and his products.” 2 Harper & James, supra § 16.5 at 915.
See also Guffie v. Erie Strayer Co., 350 F.2d 378, 381 (3d Cir. 1965); Braun v. Roux Distrib. Co., 312 S.W.2d 758, 763 (Mo.1958); Prosser, Law of Torts § 31 at 131-132 (2d ed. 1955), § 32 at 163 (3d ed. 1964). Dean Prosser quotes Gobrecht v. Beckwith, 82 N.H. 415, 135 A. 20, 22, 52 A.L.R. 858 (1926), “Where a duty to use care is imposed and where knowledge is necessary to careful conduct, voluntary ignorance is equivalent to negligence.”
To hold otherwise would encourage deliberate ignorance and reduce the incentive for newcomers to acquire information known to those in the industry which might prevent injury or death. As noted earlier, there was ample evidence that other persons then engaged in the business of packing doors for export across the Portland docks were well aware of the longshoremen’s loading practices.