Court Opinion

ID: 9464275
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:29:30.683422+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:32.961220
License: Public Domain

FAIRCHILD, Chief Judge,
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
I join that part of the court’s opinion which holds that question of fact exists as to whether the defendant had received notice of claims of injury and, therefore, had a duty to warn earlier purchasers of a dangerous condition in the product.
But I respectfully dissent from the holding that a successor company can be held liable for injuries caused by the defective product of its predecessor only when (1) there is an express or implied agreement of assumption, (2) the successor company consolidated or merged with the predecessor, (8) the successor is a “mere continuation” of the predecessor, or (4) the transfer of assets had the fraudulent purpose to allow the predecessor to escape liability for its obligations. The rule relied on pre-dates Wisconsin’s adoption of the policy of strict liability in tort, see Dippel v. Sciano, 37 Wis.2d 443, 155 N.W.2d 55 (1967); accord Arbet v. Gussarson, 66 Wis.2d 551, 225 N.W.2d 431 (1975); Schuh v. Fox River Tractor Co., 63 Wis.2d 728, 218 N.W.2d 279 (1974), and, there seems to be no decision of the Wisconsin courts applying this rule to strict liability for harm caused to the user of an unreasonably dangerous product. See, however, Bazan v. Kux Machine Company, 358 F.Supp. 1250 (E.D.Wis.1973).
Accordingly, our task is to conclude what rule the Wisconsin courts would select if confronted by the same question. When a federal court or the court of some other state is put to the task, it seems to me that unless existing decisions of the state whose law is to be determined indicate that a particular rule would be chosen, the court deciding the case should choose what it thinks is the soundest rule.
In this area, I find most persuasive the reasoning of the Supreme Court of California in Ray v. Alad Corp., 19 Cal.3d 22, 136 Cal.Rptr. 574, 560 P.2d 3 (1977), that only by extending strict liability to successor companies that carry on the product line of their predecessors and that trade on the good name and good will of their predecessors can the policy underlying the strict products liability rule be given full effect. In Ray v. Alad, supra, the California Court justified imposing strict liability upon a successor company continuing the product line on three grounds:
(1) the virtual destruction of the plaintiff’s remedies against the original manufacturer caused by the successor’s acquisition of the business, (2) the successor’s ability to assume the original manufacturer’s risk-spreading role, and (3) the fairness of requiring the successor to assume a responsibility for defective products that was a burden necessarily attached to the original manufacturer’s good will being enjoyed by the successor in the continued operation of the business.
I find this reasoning sound and assume that the courts of Wisconsin would concur.