Court Opinion

ID: 9460220
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:45:01.103661+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:31.964642
License: Public Domain

*1023BRIGHT, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Only rarely and with great reluctance do I ever vote to overrule a jury verdict in a civil ease, but I would do so here to avoid an obvious miscarriage of justice.
The manufacturer, Dover Corp., did not supply the heater in the condition which allegedly caused the fire in plaintiff’s store building. Dover supplied its wholesaler, Iowa Plumbers Supply, with a 300,000 BTU Peerless natural gas heater. When Iowa Plumbers received an order from Green Colonial, Inc., a supplier of heating units, to supply a 300,000 BTU propane heater to Harold Munroe, a plumber servicing plaintiff’s store, it sent the natural gas heater and a conversion unit which Dover supplied for customers but which it did not manufacture. Green Colonial passed this unit on to the plumber, Munroe, who attempted to make a proper installation.
The record shows the plumber, Mun-roe, to have been less than an able artisan. When the time came in the fall of the year to light the heater which had been installed during the prior summer, the local propane distributor, Solar Gas Company, discovered that the plumber had connected the natural gas heater to the propane gas line without installing the conversion kit — creating an extremely dangerous situation. The propane serviceman disconnected the heater from the gas service. Plumber-Monroe then ordered a second conversion kit from his supplier, Green Colonial, and made the installation.
Although the plaintiffs complained of the operation of the heater, the plumber upon learning of this “trouble” with the heater, sought to make adjustments himself without advising his supplier. Munroe asked the propane gas serviceman to check the pressure. The latter found the pressure high in his estimation and turned down the pressure valve, reducing the gas pressure to the heater.
Credible expert testimony indicated that the gas serviceman should have increased rather than decreased the pressure in the line. Finally, the undisputed testimony established that the plumber upon installing the smaller orifices in the heater during conversion to propane gas use failed to properly align these orifices on an equal plane.
What we have here is the case of a manufacturer being held liable for merely supplying a heater — approved by industry standards — which others altered, installed, and serviced. It seems to me that the - doctrine of strict liability should not apply in such a case, unless plaintiff establishes that a defect existed in the heater when it left the plant.
The existence of such a defect rests solely on the testimony of plaintiff’s expert, Alfred Benberg. The majority aptly and properly characterizes his air-adjustment theory as “confusing” and “insufficient to sustain the verdict.” Nevertheless, the majority finds a basis for the verdict in the same witness’ testimony that the absence of a flame tube constituted a factory defect which caused the explosion in the heater.
The flaw in witness-Benberg’s analysis is that, while criticizing the absence of the flame tube, he made no comment concerning the alternate method chosen by Dover to quickly spread the flame in *1024its Peerless heaters. Dover’s chief engineer and a designer of the Peerless heater testified without dispute that the Peerless heater contains a form of flame tube, a continuous row of “carry-over ports” running the total length of the heater. He further testified that a prototype of the Peerless heater was tested under standards of the industry as promulgated by the American Gas Association. The heater met the standard for ignition of main burners and was certified as meeting industry standards including national safety standards. Witness-Benberg simply failed to recognize the existence of a flame tube differing in construction from flame tubes on other heaters with which he apparently was familiar. The Benberg testimony thus does not represent sufficient evidence on which to sustain this verdict.
A representative of the American Gas Association (testing) laboratories testified:
Q. Now, do you have a standard there by which this heater was tested that has to do with the operation and the ignition of the main burners? A. Yes, that would be covered in the ignition test that we conduct. For example, under Section 2.5.2 there is this standard or this provision, “The arrangement of main burners, burner valves and pilot burners shall be such that when only the pilot burners are in operation the gas from any burner or combination of burners will be effectively ignited without delayed ignition, flashback or danger to the appliance under the condition of tests specified under 2.5.1, Clauses A to D, inclusive.”
Q. Now, before you go on, Mr. Kampman, was this heater tested against that standard in the laboratory of the American Gas Association? A. That prototype was tested, yes.
Q. Right. And did it pass the test? A. It did.
Judges properly should give the juries great leeway in assessing the experts’ opinions. But in cases, such as this one, where the expert’s testimony gives an opinion ignorant of the actual operation of the product in question, the opinion, must be ignored and a verdict, resting wholly on such opinion set aside.
I conclude that plaintiff presented no evidence of probative weight showing the heater to be defective when it left the factory. Thus, I find no basis to assess any liability against appellant-manufacturers or the appellant-suppliers. I would reverse the judgment.