Court Opinion

ID: 9716316
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:34:12.371549+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:43.842331
License: Public Domain

Pashman, J.
(concurring in result only). While I concur in the result reached by the majority in this products liability case, two points seem to me to require further comment.
Eirst, in Sabloff v. Yamaha Motors Co., Ltd., 59 N. J. 365, 366 (1971), we stated:
[W]henever the facts permit an inference that the harmful event ensued from some defect (whether identifiable or not) in the product, the issue of liability is for the jury, and the plaintiff is not necessarily confined to the explanation his expert may advance.
This rule is implicit in Justice Erancis’s opinion in Henningsen v. Bloomfield Motors, 32 N. J. 358, 409 (1960), and we have continued to adhere to it. Scanlon v. General Motors Corp., 65 N. J. 582, 591 (1974); Jakubowski v. Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing, 42 N. J. 177, 183-184 (1964).
The dissenting judge below would limit the Sablof rule to cases in which the allegedly defective product was “new” at the time of the mishap. To this position the majority below responded:
[W]e do not perceive the concept noticed in the dissent to be tenable. To the contrary, it is our opinion that prolonged uneventful use prior to the injurious occurrence does not legally bar the raising of an inference from the totality of the existing circumstances that the vehicle was defective and that such defect was casually related to the mishap, nor does it mandate that a plaintiff must identify a specific defect in order to establish a jury question of strict liability. Rather, we feel that the age of and the number of miles traversed by the vehicle are relevant factors to be considered by the jury, together with all other existing circumstances, in determining whether a manufacturer’s defect existed and if it did, whether it was the proximate *462cause of the vehicle’s malfunction. See Tucker v. Unit Crane & Shovel Corp., [256 Or. 318], 473 P. 2d 862 (Ore. Sup. Ct. 1970) ; Hawkeye-Security Insurance Co. v. Ford Motor Co., 174 N. W. 2d 672, 679-681 (Iowa Sup. Ct. 1970).
[Moraca v. Ford Motor Co., 132 N. J. Super. 117, (1974)].
It is common experience that manufacturing and design defects often do not reveal themselves immediatley to the purchaser of the product. A defect may lie, latent and hidden, for months or years until the right combination of circumstances causes it to manifest itself in product malfunction and mishap. To limit the Sablojf rule to products “new” at the time of the mishap would significantly cripple the policies which have motivated the development of the law of products liability in this State.
Age and prior usage of the pi’oduct in relationship to its expected life span and durability are, of course, important considerations for the jury in its evaluation of the circumstantial evidence presented by plaintiff. In practice, as age and prior usage of the product increase, it may become increasingly difficult for plaintiff to persuade the jury that the defect existed while the product was in the control of the manufacturer. They are, however, no more than facts to be considered by the jury; they are not grounds for depriving plaintiff of the opportunity to have the jury draw what inferences it can from all circumstantial evidence.
On a proper motion for judgment, B. 4:40-1, the trial judge must determine whether the existence of a defect while the product was under the control of the manufacturer and whether the existence of a causal relationship between the defect and the mishap are something more than mere “guess or speculation.” Henningsen v. Bloomfield Motors, supra at 411; Jakubowski v. Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing, supra at 182. That is the full extent of his role in such cases. Having made that threshold determination, he has no discretion as to whether or not to charge the jury that it may infer all the elements of plaintiff’s case from circumstantial proofs. Further evaluation of plaintiff’s case is exclusively within the realm of the jury.
*463Second, the majority recognizes that its decision in the present matter would, on its face, appear to be inconsistent with its decision in the recent case of Scanlon v. General Motors Corp., 65 N. J. 582 (1974). It attempts, somewhat lamely, to distinguish the cases.
Undoubtedly Moraca has presented a more thorough and carefully prepared affirmative ease than did his counterpart in Scanlon. Nevertheless, like my dissenting Brother Clifford, I find the cases indistinguishable in principle. In each case, the mishap occurred suddenly, under good driving conditions, and without any apparent negligence by the driver. In each case, plaintiff, while seeking to implicate a specific, identified defect, also sought to rely on the ability of the jury to apply its collective common sense and experience to all the circumstances surrounding the mishap, to determine whether some defect, perhaps some defect other than the one identified by plaintiff, existed while the product was in the control of the manufacturer and was the proximate cause of the mishap. In each case the trial judge intervened and, in effect, substituted his judgment for the judgment of the jury.
The majority now emphasizes as being of decisive importance the fact that the plaintiff in Scanlon initially characterized the mishap as “loss of control” rather than specifically attributing it to product defect. Review of the opinion of the Court in Scanlon does not reveal that the majority in that case placed any such importance on this rather innocuous fact.
I adhere to my dissent in Scanlon, 65 N. J. 582, 601-605:
It is the jury which passes on what “human experience tells us” as to why an accident such as this occurred, given whatever ambiguities and gaps exist in a plaintiff’s case. That defendant’s case is stronger or that plaintiff’s case is inconclusive or, at best, weak, does not justify taking a case from the jury. [65 N. J. at 604],
Insofar as today’s decision marks a retreat from the approval by this Court in Scanlon of intrusion by the trial *464judge into the proper realm of the jury in products liability cases, I wholeheartedly join in it. But insofar as it reaffirms its approval of such intrusions, I am obliged to disagree.