Court Opinion

ID: 9465782
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:55:30.979267+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:22.064271
License: Public Domain

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
BY THE COURT.
Appellants have provided a transcript of the jury charge and have made further arguments explaining Puerto Rico law in a petition for rehearing. Because we are cognizant of the sometimes extreme difficulty of obtaining trial transcripts during the period in question, we have taken the extraordinary measure of permitting supplementation of the record.
While it may be true, as appellant now argues, that a manufacturer’s strict liability and liability for negligence are synonymous under 31 L.P.R.A. § 5141, a proposition we doubt in light of the Puerto Rico Supreme Court’s discussion of the two theories in Montero Saldana v. American Motors, No. 1978-52 (May 31, 1978), the problem remains that appellants failed to explain this congruence to the trial court. Rather, the jury charge clearly establishes that plaintiff-appellants proceeded upon a theory of defendants’ failure to use reasonable care. More important, the charge, to which appellants did not object, expressly excludes the “crash-worthiness” theory presented on appeal. The jury was instructed: “The manufacturer does not have the duty to warn of potential dangers which can only come to a user solely because of its own negligence or because of acts of third persons or from the use of the product in an unintended manner or for ap unintended-purpose.”
Sailing into power lines was not an intended purpose of the product. Nothing in the charge allowed the jury to impose liability for failure to provide safety measures for unintended misuse and nothing argued below suggested that the jury should be charged differently.
The petition for rehearing is hereby denied.