Court Opinion

ID: 9572219
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:39:44.152563+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:57.054318
License: Public Domain

LINDE, J.,
concurring.
While I join in the court’s decision, the relationship between the allegedly defective design of the aircraft and the FAA’s certification of that design perhaps deserves additional discussion.
Defendant contends that the approval of the design by a federal agency charged with responsibility for aircraft safety "preempts” any state law that would predicate liability on the production and sale of this aircraft type for use within the conditions for which it is certified. The contention blends two arguments: an argument based on federal supremacy, particularly with respect to equipment used in transportation across state lines, and another argument that the lawmaker has assigned the decision on the acceptable *80safety of the design to someone other than common-law courts and juries.
The question of federal preemption is essentially one of statutory interpretation or, if one prefers, of Congressional "intent.” See Derenco, Inc. v. Benj. Franklin Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass’n, 281 Or 533, 577 P2d 477 (1978). If Oregon undertook to declare that an aircraft type certificated by the Federal Aviation Administration is not safe enough to fly in Oregon and therefore prohibited such flights, this would present a serious issue of federal preemption.1 But Oregon interposes no such prohibition against the operation of FAA-approved aircraft; it only imposes a certain measure of civil liability for injuries caused thereby. It might seem that exposure to potential civil liability of millions of dollars, under state rules which might even be closer to absolute liability than Oregon’s, is a greater state-created obstacle to the federally approved operation than, for instance, a moderate fine would be, and we do not suppose that Congress could not also preempt such state rules of civil liability if it chose. But there is no reason to believe that it did so. In the rare case when Congress has considered the question, e.g., in the Consumer Product Safety Act, it adopted a policy against preempting state laws on civil liability,2 and we have been offered no evidence that it *81intended a different policy under the Federal Aviation Act and its 1938 predecessor.
The second argument concerns the reexamination in a common-law trial of a determination first assigned to an expert agency, either by Congress or by the state legislature. This problem arises not from any federal or legislative "preemption” but from the particular nature and elements of the test for the aircraft manufacturer’s civil liability for alleged design defects. In a state where common law or legislation imposed absolute liability on a producer for certain kinds of harm in fact caused by his product, the fact that it had been thoroughly tested and approved for safety would be immaterial. But when liability is predicated on finding a design "dangerously defective,” not "duly safe,” or short of some similarly phrased standard of safety, then a careful comparison of that standard and the one attested to by the certificate becomes important. Under such a test for civil liability, as well as under government regulation, the question, at least within the limits of the state of the art, is "how much safety is enough.” But the factors that enter into the answer may or may not be the same.
It is true that compliance with government safety standards will generally not be held to negate a claim of "dangerously defective” design, but it would equally be an oversimplification to say that it can never do so. The role of such compliance should logically depend on whether the goal to be achieved by the particular government standards, the balance struck between safety and its costs, has been set higher or lower than that set by the rules governing the producer’s civil liability. It may well be that when government intervenes in the product market to set safety standards, it often confines itself to demanding only minimum safeguards against the most flagrant hazards, well below the contemporary standards for civil liability. But that was not necessarily the case when the first *82safety standards were legislated, and it is not necessarily so for all products today.
In the design of aircraft, government regulation obviously places a much greater weight on the side of safety than it does for most products. The FAA not only sets detailed performance standards for the operational aspects of the design, it also requires that the design be tested for compliance with these standards by the producer and ultimately by the agency itself before a certificate is issued.3 This does not mean that an aircraft design, to be certified, must be the safest that could be built at any cost in money, speed, or carrying capacity. No doubt the FAA does not demand for small, single-engined recreational aircraft the redundant circuits and fail-safe systems expected in commercial airliners, not to mention the space program. It does mean, however, that FAA certification of a design represents a more deliberate, technically intensive program to set and control a given level of safety in priority to competing considerations than is true of many run-of-the-mill safety regulations.
The question remains how this policy assigned to the FAA compares with Oregon’s standards of products liability for design defects. In two decisions in 1974, this court quoted a series of factors suggested by Professor Wade as posing the preliminary issue for a court whether a claim of "defect” crosses the legal threshold for submission to the jury.4 The difficulty in the present case springs from the fact that most of these factors — briefly summarized, the safety risks, *83the availability of safer design, the financial and other costs of the safer alternative, and the user’s awareness of and ability to avoid the risks — are at least very similar to the factors that are presumably meant to enter into the FAA’s judgment whether an aircraft design is safe enough.5
It must be kept in mind that this aircraft is alleged to be defective not because it fell short of the safety standards set for its type, but on the ground that these standards provide insufficient safety for the whole series. But once the common-law premise of liability is *84expressed as a balance of social utility so closely the same as the judgment made in administering safety legislation, it becomes very problematic to assume that one or a sequence of law courts and juries are to repeat that underlying social judgment de novo as each sees fit.6 Rather, when the design of a product is subject not only to prescribed performance standards but to government supervised testing and specific approval or disapproval on safety grounds, no further balance whether the product design is "unreasonably dangerous” for its intended or foreseeable use under the conditions for which it is approved needs to be struck by a court or a jury unless one of two things can be shown: either that the standards of safety and utility assigned to the regulatory scheme are less inclusive or demanding than the premises of the law of products liability, or that the regulatory agency did not address the allegedly defective element of the design or in some way fell short of its assigned task.7
*85It is these two questions, rather than a de novo evaluation of the safety of a design and the technological feasibility and costs of an even safer alternative, that properly become the issues for preliminary determination by a trial court in deciding whether a "design defect” claim against a product specifically tested and approved under government safety regulations should nevertheless go to a jury. In other words, it should be defendant’s burden to show that a governmental agency has undertaken the responsibility of making substantially the same judgment that the court would otherwise be called on to make; and if so, it should then be plaintiff’s burden to show that the responsible agency has not in fact made that judgment with respect to the particular "defect” at issue. When the product has been tested and approved by a federal agency, these issues can normally be decided simply by examining the statutory assignment of the agency (including relevant legislative history), the further standards adopted by the agency itself, and the records and reports underlying its approval of the product. In the case of a state agency, the documentation may be less extensive but other evidence of the actual process may be more accessible to a state court.
With respect to the present case, the cited sources seem likely to show that the FAA’s goals and standards match this court’s criteria for a "duly safe” design, at least as far as an aircraft’s airworthiness is concerned. See note 3 supra. It is not inconceivable that the answers might prove to come out one way with respect to FAA criteria and tests for aircraft engines and differently with respect to seat belts, or *86instrument knobs, or entry and exit steps, or other features whose risks are less central to airworthiness. Of course we do not know all that the parties might be able to show in this regard.
I repeat that this need to examine the precise standards and findings of the governing safety program results not from legislative preemption of common-law standards of liability, absent indications to that effect, but rather from these standards themselves when they are identical with those underlying the regulatory scheme. It may be that the tension between the policies embodied in intensive safety regulation and licensing and in case-by-case civil liability premised on "dangerously defective” design cannot remain unresolved, especially with respect to goods federally approved for a national market. A choice may have to be made between a theory of recovery premised on the need to compensate victims of product-caused injuries and one premised on liability for "faulty” products, no matter how attenuated the "fault” has become. Since 1976 this question has been one part of a larger study of product liability conducted by an interagency task force under the direction of the United States Department of Commerce, which also encompasses questions of liability insurance, improved preventive measures, and alternatives to present modes of compensating the victims of product-caused injuries. The final report of the task force, which contains suggestions for possible legislative action, became available early this year.8 Meanwhile, given our present premises for "design defect” *87liability, I believe we must deal with cases involving products that have been tested and certified for safety according to the principles here stated.

 Compare, e.g., Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 US 132 (1963); Maurer v. Hamilton, 309 US 598 (1940); and Kelly v. Washington ex rel Foss Co., 302 US 1 (1937) with Ray v. Atlantic Richfield Co., 46 USLW 4200 (1978); Jones v. Rath Packing Co., 430 US 519 (1977); and Napier v. Atlantic Coast Line R.R., 272 US 605 (1926). Cf. Askew v. American Waterways Operators, Inc., 411 US 325 (1973) (state imposition of absolute liability for oilspill damage not preempted by federal act providing for recovery of federal cost of oilspill cleanup); Huron Portland Cement Co. v. City of Detroit, 362 US 440 (1960) (local air pollution regulations not preempted by federal safety inspection of ship boilers), in which the state objective differed from that entrusted to the federal agency.

 15 USC § 2074 (1976). See also 15 USC § 1397(c) (1976) (discussed in McMullen v. Volkswagen of America, 274 Or 83, 88-89, 545 P2d 117 (1976)). The Consumer Product Safety Act excludes automobiles and aircraft from its coverage. See 15 USC § 2052 (1976).

 See 14 CFR §§ 21.11-21.53 (1977); id. pt. 23; Federal Aviation Administration, US Dep’t of Transportation, Type Certification (Dec. 28, 1967) (No. 8110.4). For each type certificate issued, the FAA prepares a Type Inspection Report which contains the test results that establish compliance with the performance standards applicable to the type.

 Roach v. Kononen/Ford Motor Co., 269 Or 457, 525 P2d 125 (1974); Phillips v. Kimwood Machine Co., 269 Or 485, 525 P2d 1033 (1974). The factors were:
(1) The usefulness and desirability of the product — its utility to the user and to the public as a whole.
*83(2) The safety aspects of the product — the likelihood that it will cause injury, and the probable seriousness of the injury.
(3) The availability of a substitute product which would meet the same need and not be as unsafe.
(4) The manufacturer’s ability to eliminate the unsafe character of the product without impairing its usefulness or making it too expensive to maintain its utility.
(5) The user’s ability to avoid danger by the exercise of care in the use of the product.
(6) The user’s anticipated awareness of the dangers inherent in the product and their avoidability, because of general public knowledge of the obvious condition of the product, or of the existence of suitable warnings or instructions.
(7) The feasibility, on the part of the manufacturer, of spreading the loss by setting the price of the product or carrying liability insurance.
269 Or at 464, quoting from Wade, On the Nature of Strict Tort Liability for Products, 44 Miss L J 825, 837-838 (1973). Since it is at least uncommon to test whether a sufficient case has been made to go to the jury by criteria different from those which the jury would be called upon to apply, it must be assumed that these factors are considered a more elaborate equivalent of the "prudent manufacturer” standard on which the jury is to be instructed. See Phillips, 269 Or at 499-500, and note 3 of the court’s opinion in the present case.

 A final factor listed by Wade, but of no apparent concern to the FAA, is the producer’s ability to spread the risk of injury from his product through its price, with or without liability insurance. As stated previously, if a state predicates a producer’s civil liability on a theory of loss-spreading or "enterprise liability,” then of course compliance even with the most demanding government safety standards will not relieve the producer of liability. But this court has in the past downplayed the loss-spreading capacity of an enterprise as a premise for tort liability. See Phillips v. Kimwood Machine, 269 Or 485, 503, 525 P2d 1033 (1974); Wights v. Staff Jennings, Inc., 241 Or 301, 310, 405 P2d 624 (1965).

 Difficulties with "balancing” economic, social, and other factual elements in deciding a preliminary issue of law include the extent to which trial courts should accept evidence on the relevant factors or may act on judicial notice, the role of the record and the scope of review of those factual matters on appeal, and the possible result that the utilitarian balance may appear adequate to send the identical claim of defective design to the jury in one court and withhold it in another. Of course, we do not leave it to a jury to strike the balance de novo in a negligence case when the law itself has set a standard of conduct to guard against the risk at issue. See, e.g., Stachniewicz v. Mar-Cam Corp., 259 Or 583, 488 P2d 436 (1971); Blaine v. Ross Lumber Co., 224 Or 227, 355 P2d 461 (1960); Stone v. Shaw Supply Co., 148 Or 416, 36 P2d 606 (1934); Peterson v. Standard Oil Co., 55 Or 511, 106 P 337 (1910).
In an analogous determination of the "extrahazardous” character of an activity for purposes of strict liability, a judgment also sometimes described as a balance of utilitarian factors, we have followed the legislative judgment expressed in safety regulation without de novo trial of that issue. Bella v. Aurora Air, Inc., 279 Or 13, 566 P2d 489 (1977).

 According to one study, this may have been the court’s judgment in a case rejecting an FAA standard, Berkebile v. Brantly Helicopter Corp., 219 Pa Super 479, 281 A2d 707 (1971), and in similar decisions rejecting reliance on compliance with the Federal Flammable Fabrics Act. See IV Interagency Task Force on Product Liability, Product Liability: Final Report of the Legal Study 134-136 (1977).
*85When a defendant claims that government regulation precludes it from taking steps toward greater safety than the level set by the agency, we have placed the burden on the defendant to show this as a matter of justification or excuse. Koch v. Southern Pac. Trans. Co., 274 Or 499, 547 P2d 589 (1976). See also McEwen v. Ortho Pharmaceutical Corp., 270 Or 375, 398-400, 528 P2d 522 (1974) (defendant’s reliance on FDA-mandated warnings failed under amended FDA regulations).

 Interagency Task Force on Product Liability, Final Report ch VII (1978); I Interagency Task Force on Product Liability, supra note 7.
In a similar search for uniform products liability under separate legal systems in a common market, the Commission of the European Communities has recommended a directive to the member states to enact laws that would make producers liable for a "defective” product if the product "does not provide for persons or property the safety which a person is entitled to expect.” Liability would cover, besides death and personal injury, damage to consumer property other than the defective article itself, *87and it could not be disclaimed. There would be special time limits and a maximum total liability for products having the same defect. These rules of liability, if enacted, would apply also to enterprises importing goods made outside the Common Market. Product Liability, Bull. European Communities, Nov. 1976 (Supp).