Court Opinion

ID: 9647460
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:37:10.264963+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:49.820621
License: Public Domain

POPOVICH, Judge,
concurring:
While I concur with the majority’s holding that “the case was improperly tried under the theory of strict liability,” I believe that the majority incorrectly declined to address the primary issue in a thorough products liability analysis: *238whether the injured party is an “ultimate user or consumer” and thereby entitled to pursue a strict liability claim.1 Notably, this question of whether an intermediate shipper or handler of a product is considered to be an “ultimate user or consumer” has not been addressed by the courts of this Commonwealth. Instantly, I would hold that the appellee, an intermediate shipper of the product in question, is not a “user or consumer” within the meaning of § 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts which was adopted by our Supreme Court in Webb v. Zern, 422 Pa. 424, 220 A.2d 853 (1966). For the aforementioned reason, I would find that the lower court erroneously concluded that the facts, as pleaded and presented by the plaintiff, made out a prima facie case in strict liability and, as such, should not have been sent to the jury.
The Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 402A, specifically states:
§ 402A. Special Liability of Seller of Product for Physical Harm to User or Consumer
(1) One who sells any product in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user or consumer or to his property is subject to liability for physical harm thereby caused to the ultimate user or consumer, or to his property, if
(a) the seller is engaged in the business of selling such a product, and
(b) it is expected to and does reach the user or consumer without substantial change in the condition in which it was sold, (emphasis added).
The language “ultimate user or consumer” is pervasive throughout products liability case law. See Berkebile v. Brantly Helicopter Corp., 462 Pa. 83, 337 A.2d 893 (1975); Burch v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., 320 Pa.Super. 444, 467 A.2d 615 (1983); Dickerson v. Brind Truck Leasing, 362 Pa.Super. 341, 524 A.2d 908 (1987). In Schriner v. Pa.
*239Power & Light Co., 348 Pa.Super. 177, 501 A.2d 1128,1132, we stated the following:
When we distill § 402A into its constituent elements, we find the following are necessary to an appropriate application of this section:
(1) a product;
(2) a sale of that product;
(3) a user or consumer;
(4) a defective condition, unreasonably dangerous; and
(5) causation — that the product caused physical harm
to the ultimate user or consumer, or to his property.
If any of these requisite elements remains unsatisfied, § J/.02A has no applicability. (Emphasis added.)
While Pennsylvania case law has not addressed the issue of whether an intermediate shipper is considered an “ultimate user or consumer” of the product it is handling, common sense dictates that a longshoreman who is merely involved in shipping massive steel plates to be used in construction of a water tank in Abu Dahbi is not an ultimate consumer of those steel plates. Consequently, § 402A is not applicable to the case at bar.
The issue of the applicability of § 402A to an injured intermediate shipper was squarely addressed by a Washington appellate court in Spellmeyer v. Weyerhaeuser Corp., 14 Wash.App. 642, 544 P.2d 107 (1975). Therein, a longshoreman sued a manufacturer under a theory of strict liability for failure to prepare bales of wood pulp properly for shipping. The Washington Court of Appeals, in affirming the summary judgment granted against the strict liability claimant, stated:
Imposition of strict liability is premised on the sound policy consideration that the manufacturer who markets his product for use and consumption by the general public is best able to bear the risk of loss resulting from a defective product. The thrust of Section 402A is, accordingly, to protect the “ultimate user or consumer” of the *240product— In the instant case Weyerhauser produced and packaged a raw material in an intermediate state, which was stored awaiting shipment to another processor. It did not harm or endanger any “ultimate user or consumer”; only expert loaders and expert carriers were required to deal with it. We therefore conclude that, because of the character of the “product” and the status of the plaintiff, the policy considerations which support imposition of strict liability in other contexts are too severely diluted here and dismissal was correct as to the strict liability theory.
Spellmeyer, 544 P.2d 109-110
Similarly, the instant appellee is not a member of the class of ultimate users and consumers which § 402A was developed to protect.
Moreover, Judge Montemuro of this Court, in his dissenting opinion in R.B. Equipment v. Williams, Sheilds, Snyder and Goas, 304 Pa.Super. 31, 450 A.2d 85 (1982), opined that a middleman handling a product does not qualify as an “ultimate user or consumer” and, therefore, § 402A is inapplicable to a middleman’s claim for economic damages. 450 A.2d at 88 (The majority did not reach the issue of whether § 402A applied because the appeal was quashed as interlocutory.)
The implication that an intermediate shipper may be considered an “ultimate user or consumer” of the products which he transports is an extension of § 402A far beyond that contemplated by its drafters and our courts. Such an extension of § 402A would merely subject manufacturers to a myriad of product liability claims for injuries sustained by intermediate shippers of their product. Further, the effects of allowing such an appeal to proceed under § 402A would undermine Workman’s Compensation Law. In sum, I find that § 402A is wholly inapplicable to the case at bar. As stated by the majority, “[The case] would have been more properly based in negligence and not strict liability.”

. The majority in footnote # 16 expressly declined to discuss this issue. By so doing, they have implied that an intermediate shipper may be an "ultimate user or consumer."