Court Opinion

ID: 9759096
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:04:12.29567+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:14:31.232022
License: Public Domain

*175Dissenting opinion by SONNER, Judge, in which HOLLANDER, J., joins.
Because I understand the majority’s opinion to create a “gun exception” to Maryland strict products liability law, I respectfully dissent. The majority’s opinion affirms the circuit court’s decision to apply the consumer expectation test, and reject the risk-utility test, as the standard to determine whether the P89 pistol was defectively designed because of its failure to include a safety device. I believe the application of the consumer expectation test is flawed because it fails to recognize the evolution of the law from 1985, when the Court of Appeals decided Kelley v. R.G. Industries, Inc., 304 Md. 124, 497 A.2d 1143 (1985), to the present. The application of current Maryland strict products liability law reveals that the circuit court applied the incorrect standard to determine defective product design.
Maryland courts have applied the consumer expectation test in all strict products liability design defect claims, unless the product either malfunctions or the alleged design defect is a failure to include a safety device. Under those two very particular circumstances, a plaintiff is entitled to the application of the risk-utility test. The genesis of this rule can be traced to Phipps v. General Motors Corp., 278 Md. 337, 363 A.2d 955 (1976), when the Court of Appeals adopted § 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1965), and the consumer expectation test standard. The Phipps Court, however, stated that “in some circumstances the question of whether a particular design is defective may depend upon a balancing of the utility of the design and other factors against the magnitude of the risk.” Phipps, 278 Md. at 348, 363 A.2d 955. Although the Phipps Court gave no examples of the “some circumstances” when the risk-utility test is applicable, the Court of Appeals in Kelley did. The Kelley Court announced that the risk utility test
is inapplicable to the present situation. This standard is only applied when something goes wrong with the product. In Barker [v. Lull Eng. Co., Inc., 20 Cal.3d 413, 143 Cal.Rptr. 225, 573 P.2d 443 (1978) ], an unbalanced machine *176tipped over. In Back v. Wickes Corp. [375 Mass. 633, 378 N.E.2d 964 (Mass.1978) ], a motor home exploded, and in Duke v. Gulf & Western Mfg. Co. [660 S.W.2d 404 (Mo.App. 1983) ], a power press caught the plaintiffs hands. These products malfunctioned.
Kelley, 304 Md. at 138, 497 A.2d 1143. Thus, after Kelley, the Maryland test for determining whether a product was defectively designed was the consumer expectation test, unless the product malfunctioned. The majority opinion in the instant case begins and ends its analysis of appellant’s claim at this point. The majority’s opinion entirely overlooks the last sixteen years of strict products liability law.
Since the Court of Appeals decided Kelley and announced the first exception to the consumer expectation test, three noteworthy trends continue to question our defective product design standard. First, because of the continued legal criticism of the consumer expectation test, at least twenty-four states have adopted some form of the risk-utility test for determining strict products liability design defects. See John F. Vargo, The Emperor’s New Clothes: The American Law Institute Adams a “New Cloth” for Section lp02A Products Liability Design Defects — A Survey of the States Reveals a Different Weave, 26 U. Mem.L.Rev. 493 (1996). Second, the Restatement (Third) of Torts rejects the consumer expectation test as an independent standard for judging defectiveness of product designs. Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability, § 2, cmt. g (1998). Third, and most important, this Court, beginning in 1985, began to expand the “some circumstances” of Phipps to include, in addition to malfunction, the absence of a safety device, the very same claim made by appellant. See Troja v. Black & Decker Mfg. Co., 62 Md.App. 101, 107, 488 A.2d 516, cert. denied, 303 Md. 471, 494 A.2d 939 (1985); C & K Lord, Inc. v. Carter, 74 Md.App. 68, 86, 536 A.2d 699 (1988); Valk Mfg. Co. v. Rangaswamy, 74 Md.App. 304, 313, 537 A.2d 622 (1988), rev’d an other grounds, Montgomery County v. Valk Mfg. Co., 317 Md. 185, 562 A.2d 1246 (1989); Ziegler v. Kawasaki Heavy Indus., Ltd., 74 Md.App. 613, 623, 539 A.2d 701, cert. denied, 313 Md. 32, 542 A.2d 858 *177(1988); Klein v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., 92 Md.App. 477, 486, 608 A.2d 1276, cert. denied 328 Md. 447, 614 A.2d 973 (1992).
Appellant’s claim is distinguishable from Kelley because, although the products are similar, the claim is different. The majority’s opinion creates a “gun exception” to the line of cases, decided after Kelley, that created the second exception to the consumer expectation test. The majority apparently justifies this “gun exception” because of the overtly dangerous propensities of a handgun. I cannot subscribe to a strict products liability formula that assigns the least liability to the manufacturers of the most dangerous products. The majority’s opinion freezes the technological advancements of handgun safety devices at 1985 levels. Handgun users and their children should not be deprived of the same standards of quality and safety afforded to users of every other product, because of this Court’s reluctance to hold the appellee liable for the P89 pistol it placed within the stream of commerce.
Furthermore, the majority’s opinion unjustifiably removes from the trier of fact (1) the question of whether, under the risk-utility test, the incorporation of a safety device into the P89 pistol is a workable design option, (2) whether the storing of the P89 pistol under a mattress is reasonably foreseeable and therefore not a misuse of the product, and (3) whether the warnings or instructions provided by the appellees sufficiently warned against the reasonably foreseeable, yet unintended or incorrect use of the product. As the Court of Appeals stated in Fenwick Motor Co., Inc. v. Fenwick, 258 Md. 134, 138, 265 A.2d 256 (1970), “[e]ven where the underlying facts are undisputed, if those facts are susceptible to more than one permissible inference, the choice between those inferences should not be made as a matter of law, but should be submitted to the trier of fact.” The balancing of the risk-utility test and the question of product misuse as an intervening and superseding cause should be determined by the trier of fact. I believe the proper disposition of the instant case should have been to vacate the judgment of the circuit court and remand the case for further proceedings.