Court Opinion

ID: 9486139
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:38:54.671549+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:32.676170
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
with whom CUDAHY, Circuit Judge, joins, concurring.
I, like Judge Flaum, accept this court’s judgment only after some pause. My concern focuses on the consumer contemplation test.
The consumer contemplation test has been set forth recently by the Supreme Court of Illinois in Lamkin v. Towner, 138 Ill.2d 510, 150 Ill.Dec. 562, 563 N.E.2d 449 (1990). “A plaintiff may demonstrate that a product is defective in design ... by introducing evidence that the product failed to perform as safely as an ordinary consumer would expect when used in an intended or reasonably foreseeable manner.” Id. at 457. The issue with which we must grapple is the definition of a consumer for purposes of the Lamkin test. This issue is especially important in light of BIC’s concession that Cori Smith is a foreseeable user of the lighter. If foreseeability is the crux of Lamkin’s consumer contemplation test, it would appear that BIC has conceded, not just a factual issue, but liability.
Most recently, in Doser v. Savage Manufacturing & Sales, Inc., 142 Ill.2d 176, 154 Ill.Dec. 593, 568 N.E.2d 814 (1990), the Illinois Supreme Court revisited the circumstances that will make a product unreasonably dangerous.
The issue for the jury’s determination was whether the press was unreasonably dangerous. In deciding this issue, the jury also had to determine whether the accident or injury was reasonably foreseeable. The liability of a manufacturer extends to those individuals to whom injury from an unreasonably dangerous product may be reasonably foreseen.
Id., at 824 (emphasis added). In the majority’s view, this last sentence only describes the extent of duty, it does little to resolve the crucial question: “[Wjhether foreseeable risks to non-purchasers are themselves enough to make the product ‘unreasonably dangerous.’ ” See Opinion ante at 7. Therefore, it concludes, certification is warranted.
If the text of Doser were our sole concern, the need for certification would be weak. In the sentences preceding the statement quoted by the majority, the Supreme Court of Illinois clearly stated that the issue for the jury’s determination was whether the product was unreasonably dangerous. The Court then continued, “In deciding this issue, the jury also had to determine whether the accident or injury was reasonably foreseeable.” Doser, 142 Ill.2d 176, 154 Ill.Dec. 593, 603, 568 N.E.2d at 824 (emphasis added). This statement, I believe, makes it clear that foreseeability is an element in determining whether a product is unreasonably dangerous.1
If Doser were the only authority addressing the consumer contemplation test, I would favor simply applying Doser, the most recent statement from the Supreme Court of Illinois, and holding BIC liable under the consumer contemplation test because of its concession that Cori Smith is a foreseeable user of the lighter. However, I do not believe that we can consider only Doser. Over the years, the Illinois Supreme Court has had numerous occasions to consider liability under the consumer contemplation test. Some of these eases have focused on the ordinary consumer as an important factor in determining whether a product is unreasonably dangerous:
The injuries must derive from a distinct defect in the product, a defect which sub-*1225jeets those exposed to the product to an unreasonable risk of harm. The Restatement (Second) of Torts concludes that strict liability applies only when the product is “dangerous to an extent beyond that which would be contemplated by the ordinary [person] ..., with the ordinary knowledge common to the community as to its characteristics.”
Hunt v. Blasius, 74 Ill.2d 203, 23 Ill.Dec. 574, 578, 384 N.E.2d 368, 372 (1978) (emphasis and changes in original). Similarly, Lamkin states this general standard for an unreasonably dangerous product before setting forth the two-prong design defect test. 138 Ill.2d 510, 150 Ill.Dec. at 570, 563 N.E.2d at 457 (“A product is ‘unreasonably dangerous’ when it is ‘dangerous to an extent beyond that which would be contemplated by the ordinary consumer who purchases it, with the ordinary knowledge common to the community as to its characteristics.’” (citations omitted)). Cori Smith, in all likelihood, is not within the group of people contemplated by the Blasius formulation, but a test that focuses on foreseeability alone surely would encompass her.
Doser, while stating its own formulation, leaves undisturbed the prior statement in Blasius. The existence of seemingly irreconcilable statements is one of the situations that justifies certification. Certification ensures that the law we apply is the law of the state, not a federal view superimposed on state caselaw. Covalt v. Carey Canada Inc., 860 F.2d 1434, 1441 (7th Cir.1988). Although we would be justified in applying Doser as the last pronouncement of Illinois’ highest tribunal, prudence dictates that we afford the Supreme Court of Illinois an opportunity to construe definitively the consumer contemplation test. Accordingly, I concur in the certification of this issue. If the Supreme Court of Illinois should decline to accept this certification, however, we must accept the Doser formulation as definitive and apply it in all cases within our diversity jurisdiction.

. The dissent maintains that the Illinois Supreme Court never has mingled the concepts of foreseeable user and ordinary consumer — the first defines the extent of the manufacturer’s duty and the second defines when a product is unreasonably dangerous. Doser is just such an example.