Court Opinion

ID: 9654852
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:53:01.090861+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:14.169730
License: Public Domain

NYE, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The majority would hold General Motors liable for failing to warn of overloading and failing to give instructions for the safe modification of a vehicle which it sold nearly twenty years ago and which had undergone serious subsequent modifications and ownerships. I would hold that the warnings that GM provided the subsequent owner satisfied any duty it had to warn purchasers of unmodified vehicles of the load characteristics and weight requirements. In any event, the adequacy of the warnings given were neither a proximate nor producing cause of the accident. This case should be reversed.
In 1972, GM manufactured and sold the Chevrolet C-50 truck cab with a bare chassis which became the subject of this suit. The purchaser converted it into a wrecker by installing winch equipment and used it as a wrecker for 15 years. Later the truck was stripped down to the bare chassis and resold. Sascon, a subsequent owner, installed a 2,000 gallon water tank on the truck, attached splash guards to it, and sold the Chevrolet C-50 truck as a tank truck to Cantu Lease, Inc.
The night before the accident in question, Cantu welded “spacers” to the truck’s frame believing that this modification would “make the overload springs kick in faster.” He noted that the splash guards rubbed the rear tires when the tank was full. After the spacers were installed, Cantu filled the tank with water to test how they worked. Gary Hollowed, Cantu’s co-owner, testified that he was satisfied that the spacers would perform as intended and then allegedly ordered the tank to be drained to a point that it was only half-full. The evidence at trial also showed that air was added to one of the outside rear tires because it had a slow leak. After filling *245the tire with air, the pressure was not checked with a gauge.
The next day, while hauling water to a job site, the tank truck’s inside right rear tire blew out due to overdeflection. The truck continued to travel in a straight line to the right, but the unlicensed, untrained driver of the owners steered sharply to the left to keep the truck on the road. This steering input caused the truck to yaw, eventually causing it to flip over one and three-quarters times killing the driver.
Appellees filed suit against several defendants. By the time the case got to trial, only Sascon and GM remained in the case. Sascon settled during the course of the trial, leaving GM as the sole defendant. Judgment was entered against GM for $4,784,497.06.
The undisputed facts showed that GM manufactured only the bare chassis and marketed it as such. The variety of bodies and equipment that might have been installed on the chassis to make it a complete vehicle was limitless. GM had no way of knowing how its vehicle would be converted. The GM chassis contained a metal plate bolted to the door jamb at eye level. The location of the warning plate conformed with'federal regulations. The plate showed gross vehicle weight for this vehicle as manufactured to be 16,000 pounds and maximum capability with any subsequent modifications as 24,000 pounds. The gross vehicle weight included the weight of the base truck, all added equipment, driver, and passengers, all properly located in the truck. The plate further stated in capital letters to refer to the owner’s manual for intermediate or maximum gross vehicle weight ratings and for other loading information including tire inflation. The plate satisfied federal standards at the time it was manufactured. The owner’s manual, which was undisputedly in the glove compartment of the modified vehicle at the time of the accident, indicated in bold, black type “Important Information On Vehicle Loading”, with the subheading, “Overloading Safety Caution”. It then stated:
The weight of the payload must be properly distributed over both the front and rear axles, although not necessarily evenly. The plate shows the maximum weight that the rear axles can carry. Note that the sum of these may be greater than the GVW, so that it is not necessarily proper to load both axles at the same time to the maximum capacity shown for each.
The GVW rating represents the weight that the complete vehicle is designed to carry taking into consideration the engine, transmission, frame, spring and tire capabilities. Actual front and rear end weights at the ground can only be determined by weighing the vehicle. This can be accomplished through highway weight stations or other such commercial facilities. For assistance in this regard, consult your local Chevrolet dealer. Care should also be exercised to see that the payload is distributed on both sides of the center line of the truck as equally as possible.
The components of your truck are designed to provide satisfactory service if the vehicle is not loaded in excess of either the gross vehicle weight, or the maximum front and rear end weights, specified on a permanent plate which is attached to the cab left door pillar. Overloading can create serious potential safety hazards and can also shorten the service life of your vehicle. Your local Chevrolet Dealer can advise you concerning proper loading conditions of your vehicle. The use of selected heavier suspension components for added durability purposes does not increase the weight rating stamped on GVW plate.
The evidence at trial showed that no Sas-con employee had ever read the door plate or manual. Herman Skloss of Sascon testified that he never looked at the door plate showing the gross vehicle weight rating or read the owner’s manual before installing the tank. Alvaro Alvarez, the Sascon foreman in charge of mounting the tank in the GM chassis also never looked at either the plate showing the weight ratings or the owner’s manual. The employees of Cantu Leasing neither looked at the door plate nor the owner’s manual.
*246The duty to warn is determined at the time the product is marketed. See Petree v. Victor Fluid Power, Inc., 831 F.2d 1191 (3d Cir.1987). A warning must adequately and effectively communicate the risk or danger associated with the use of the product. Ford Motor Co. v. Nowak, 638 S.W.2d 582, 592 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1982, writ ref’d n.r.e.).
Here, the warnings and load information provided were adequate. The plate location on the door met the federal standards which were in place at the time the vehicle was manufactured. The vehicle in question was manufactured with the obvious purpose of being subsequently modified. The warnings which GM provided had to be general because the potential modifications were, according to the undisputed evidence, limitless. The warnings specified that specific loading requirements could be discussed with the local Chevrolet dealer. They provided the gross vehicle weight. They warned of the potential safety hazards if overloaded. It is important to note that the purchasers of the product in question were not uninformed consumers of goods, but parties whose business it was to modify these vehicles for their own specific purposes.
Even if the warnings could be held to be inadequate in this case, there is no evidence that the adequacy of the warning was either a proximate or producing cause of the accident. Under both negligence and strict liability theories, the inadequacy must be established to be the cause in fact in order to give rise to liability. Technical Chemical Co. v. Jacobs, 480 S.W.2d 602 (Tex.1972); Stewart v. Janssen Pharmaceutica, Inc. 780 S.W.2d 910 (Tex.App.—El Paso 1989, writ denied). The undisputed evidence here was that no one from Sascon or Cantu had even read the owner’s manual or looked at the door plate, so that any change in wording would not have avoided the accident in this case. It is inconceivable that Sascon would not have checked the weight requirements before modifying the vehicle and give appropriate warnings to affected users. Sascon, as the modifier, was in a better position to know the weight requirements and understood better the use to which the vehicle would be put than did GM.
Cab and bare chassis trucks, like the C-50, are not purchased for general consumption; they are purchased for commercial use with the understanding that some type of modification is required to make it suitable for their intended use.
The evidence showed that in the creation of the water tank truck, Sascon did not seek out the warnings GM provided regarding overloading. Further, there was evidence that Cantu was aware of the danger associated with driving the tank truck on the highway at highway speeds with a tank of water. To avoid injury, Cantu drained the tank to a certain level, added the spacers, and added air to a leaky tire, but never consulted the owner’s manual or door plate to determine if he was overloading the truck.
I would hold that in a case like this, the law requires and should require only the second-stage manufacturer to warn of hazards arising from the additions which the second-stage manufacturer has made to the truck. Verge v. Ford Motor Co., 581 F.2d 384 (3rd Cir.1978). In Verge, a second-stage manufacturer installed a garbage compacting unit to a Ford truck chassis. The plaintiff was injured when the modified vehicle backed up, crushing him. The plaintiff alleged that the truck was unreasonably dangerous because Ford failed to install a backup warning device.
The court concluded that when a finished product is the result of substantial work by more than one party, it would look to trade custom, relative expertise and practicality in determining responsibility. Utilizing these factors, the court held plaintiff had failed to present proof sufficient to impose liability upon Ford.
Likewise, in Elliott v. Century Chevrolet Co., 597 S.W.2d 563, 564-65 (Tex.Civ.App.—Fort Worth 1980, writ ref’d n.r.e.), a GM manufactured truck chassis was modified for beer storage by a third party. This modification obscured the rear view from the cab. The plaintiff was crushed between the beer truck and a loading dock *247because the truck’s driver could not see him. The plaintiff alleged that GM should have installed a warning buzzer on the truck chassis to prevent such accidents because GM should have foreseen that a beer storage unit would be added which would block the driver’s view to the rear of that modified truck.
The court disagreed, primarily because like the case at bar, the chassis had been substantially modified following its original sale. The court, following the Verge factors, found that GM did not have the expertise of the secondary manufacturer to assess design implications on safety which any design changes might require. It also found that it would be more practical for the party adding the beer storage unit to also install the buzzer because there were so many possible uses of a GM chassis for which a buzzer would be unnecessary.
Recently, the Fifth Circuit followed the Verge and Elliott rationales in Trevino v. Yamaha Motor Corp., 882 F.2d 182, 185-87 (5th Cir.1989). The court held that the second-stage manufacturer, who modified the vehicle and sold it as modified, clearly was in a better position than the first-stage manufacturer to warn of defects in the modified vehicle.
Applying the Verge factors to this case, it is clear that GM met all required burdens and duties. Second, Sascon was in a much better position than GM to warn of the dangers of its manner of modification. The evidence at trial was that the tank truck was more than half-full and may have been full at the time of the accident. Sascon’s president said that it was standard in the industry to drive an empty truck to a job site, fill the tank at the site, and drive slowly while dispersing water as needed. Jerry Wallingford, a forensic engineer, stated that in the business Cantu was in, a water tank truck customarily would be filled at the job site and when loaded, driven off-road at extremely slow speeds. On the facts of this case, Sascon was in a much better position than GM to warn of any defect in the tank truck and splash guards to the bare chassis-cab unit.
Third, the evidence showed that Sascon is more expert in water-tank truck design than GM and it would certainly be more practical for Sascon to warn of the safe use and loading of a water tank truck. Certainly, it is not the duty of GM to install a special plate to warn of water tank loading when such a warning would be impractical or ill advised should the truck be modified into countless other possible configurations.
I would hold that GM’s duty stops far short of that advocated by the majority here. It is clear to me that the cause of this accident was not the failure of GM to provide additional or specialized warning in the truck. The loaded water tank truck was being driven by an untrained, unlicensed driver at speeds which were far too high. There was evidence that the driver was not instructed on correct speed to drive the truck which was standard in the industry. The company (Sascon) that modified the truck never checked the weight requirements and limitations of the vehicle as specified by the warning on the door jamb and service manual. The owners never checked the weight requirements and limitations that were on and in the truck. The leaky tire was never checked for correct pressure. The splash guards rubbed the rear tires when the truck was full and there was evidence that the truck was full of water. Nobody ever checked the weight requirements and limitations of the vehicle that GM provided to Sascon.
GM is being held liable for failing to warn of the danger of something that it could not possibly have anticipated at the time of manufacture. The concept of duty simply cannot be thinned to cover the facts of this case.
The burden of any additional warnings, which would be necessary because of some unique characteristic resulting from subsequent modifications, would be solely Sas-con’s responsibility. Any warning inadequacy was as a matter of law neither a proximate nor producing cause of the accident. I would reverse and render the judgment of the trial court.