Mass Tort Defense : Mass Tort Defense Lawyer & Attorney : Sean P. Wajert : Dechert Law Firm : Products Liability, Class Actions, Pharmaceutical Litigation

Sometimes, manufacturers have to wonder, what good does a warning do if the courts won't require people to read and heed the warning given?

Harley Davidson is an iconic American product manufacturer. In 1903, William S. Harley and Arthur Davidson made available to the public the first production Harley-Davidson® motorcycle. The bike was built to be a racer, with a 3-1/8 inch bore and 3-1/2 inch stroke. The factory in which they worked was a 10 x 15-foot wooden shed with the words "Harley-Davidson Motor Company" crudely scrawled on the door.

William and Arthur would likely be scratching their heads over a recent ruling denying the company's summary judgment motion on a failure-to-warn claim in a suit filed after a motorcycle crash. Steven Morris v. Harley-Davidson Motor Co., et al., No. 3:09-cv-74 (M.D. Ga.).

Plaintiff alleged that the rear tire of his motorcycle failed, resulting in a crash that killed plaintiff’s wife and left plaintiff seriously injured. Plaintiff contended that the defendants (including the tire company) failed to provide an adequate warning regarding the dangers of overloading the motorcycle. With a full tank of gas weighing 31 pounds, the plaintiff's Ultra Classic’s Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) allowed for an additional 420 pounds of weight capacity for the rider, any passenger, cargo, and accessories. Plaintiff, who weighed 250 pounds, was with his wife, who weighed 204 pounds, riding as a rear passenger. Plaintiff was also pulling a trailer.

When plaintiff purchased the Ultra Classic, he was provided with an owner’s manual, which contained warnings and instructions regarding the Ultra Classic. Specifically, the Owner’s Manual warned against exceeding the GVWR; that exceeding these weight ratings can affect stability and handling, which could result in death or serious injury; explaining that GVWR is the sum of the weight of the motorcycle, accessories, and the maximum weight of the rider, passenger and cargo that can be safely carried.  It tells the owner that the GVWR is shown on the information plate located on the frame steering head.

The court found it significant that the weight of the trailer was not listed in the components of the GVWR, but that was because the Owner’s Manual also warned against pulling a trailer, ever: “Do not pull a trailer with a motorcycle. Pulling a trailer can cause tire overload, reduced braking efficiency and adversely affect stability and handling, which could result in death or serious injury.”  That is exactly what happened, according to plaintiff!

Plaintiff admitted he never read the Owner’s Manual. But in addition to the warnings in the Owner’s Manual, there were also warnings on the Ultra Classic. One warning was located inside the storage compartment on the back end of the Ultra Classic, over the rear wheel, and behind the passenger’s seat, and the Ultra Classic also contained an information plate on the steering head, which listed the Ultra Classic’s GVWR, recommended tire pressures, and other information.  Plaintiff testified that he did not see these warnings either.

Harley-Davidson contended that plaintiff’s failure to warn claim failed as a matter of law because he did not read the warnings in the Owner’s Manual or the warnings on the Ultra Classic.  The court construed  the claim as not relating to the substance of the warning, but the procedure, the method by which the information was communicated.  The court concluded that plaintiff contended that he never read the warnings because Harley-Davidson failed to communicate them adequately. Failure to read a warning does not bar recovery when the plaintiff is challenging the adequacy of the efforts of the manufacturer or seller to communicate the dangers of the product to the buyer or user, found the court.

Failure to communicate an adequate warning involves such procedural questions as location and presentation of the warning. The court found that it was a jury question whether or not the manufacturer was negligent in failing to place a warning in such position, color and size print or to use symbols that would adequately convey the information. Thus, based on the present record, said the court, a reasonable fact-finder could conclude that Harley-Davidson failed to place useful load information regarding the Ultra Classic where a user would likely see it.

But, even accepting the substance/procedure distinction, the only evidence the court focused on concerning the alleged inadequacy of the warnings was plaintiff's self-serving testimony. A plaintiff should not be able to create an issue of fact on the procedural aspects of the warning simply by saying, "I didn't see it, so it must have been inadequate." Where was the genuine issue of fact?  Where was the proof that the vehicle's Owner's Manual is not the right place to put a warning about safe operation of the vehicle.    Bottom line - there can be no genuine issue of fact when an admittedly adequate warning is placed in the Owner's Manual and the owner never opens the manual. Where is the genuine dispute about warnings right on the motorcycle itself? Where was the proof of where else the manufacturer was supposed to put a warning?

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In a case that may impact some of the litigation rising from the Gulf Oil Spill, the Florida Supreme Court last week ruled in favor of a group of commercial fishermen who alleged damages arising from pollution in the Tamp Bay. See Howard Curd, et al. v. Mosaic Fertilizer LLC, (No. SC08-1920 Fla. 6/17/2010). The issue on appeal -- which the court took as a certified issue of great public importance -- was whether Florida law permits commercial fishermen to recover for economic losses proximately caused by the negligent release of pollutants, despite the fact that the fishermen do not own any property damaged by the pollution.

The defendant owned/operated a phosphogypsum storage area near Archie Creek in Hillsborough County. The storage area included a pond enclosed by dikes, containing waste water from a phosphate plant.  The dike gave way and pollutants were allegedly spilled into Tampa Bay.
The fishermen claimed that the spilled pollutants resulted in a loss of underwater plant life, fish, bait fish, crabs, and other marine life. They did not claim an ownership in the damaged marine and plant life, but claimed that it resulted in damage to the reputation of the fishery products the fishermen were able to catch and sought to sell.

The lower court concluded that the state statute on water pollution did not permit a claim by these fishermen for monetary losses when they did not own any real or personal property damaged by the pollution. After initially permitting the fishermen to proceed on their claims of negligence and strict liability, the lower court ultimately ruled that these claims were not authorized under the economic loss rule. The court reasoned that an action in common law either through strict liability or negligence was not permitted because the fishermen did not sustain bodily injury or property damage. The strict liability and negligence claims sought purely economic damages unrelated to any damage to the fishermen's property. Accordingly, the court further reasoned that Mosaic did not owe the fishermen an independent duty of care to protect their purely economic interests. 

The state supreme court disagreed.  The court pointed to a number of factors on the statutory claim:  it expressly protected public and private interests; it is to be liberally construed to effect the purposes set forth in the state statute and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act.  Moreover, the Florida  Legislature found and declared that escape of pollutants “poses threats of great danger and damage . . . to citizens of the state, and to other interests deriving livelihood from the state.”   Also, under the definition of statutory damages cited above, one can recover for damages to real or personal property and for damages to natural resources, including all living things. Finally, not owning property affected was not a listed defense to the cause of action in the act.

The lower court found that the economic loss rule barred the common law claims, as the fishermen's negligence and strict liability claims sought purely economic damages unrelated to any damage to the fishermen's property. Second, Mosaic did not owe an independent duty of care to protect the fishermen's expectation of profits. The supreme court found instead that neither the contractual nor products liability economic loss rule was applicable to this situation. The parties to this action were not in contractual privity. Moreover, the defendant in this case was not  a manufacturer or distributor of a defective product that has caused damage to itself.  Rather, plaintiffs brought traditional negligence and strict liability claims against a defendant who had allegedly polluted Tampa Bay and allegedly caused them injury.

Turning to the issue whether Mosaic owed an independent duty of care to protect the fishermen's purely economic interests—that is, their expectations of profits from fishing for healthy fish, the court found Mosaic did owe a duty of care to the fishermen, a duty that was not shared by the public as a whole.  The court admitted that as a general principle of common law negligence, some courts have not permitted recovery for purely economic losses when the plaintiff has sustained no bodily injury or property damage. See Union Oil Co. v. Oppen, 501 F.2d 558, 563 (9th Cir. 1974) (noting “the widely recognized principle that no cause of action lies against a defendant whose negligence prevents the plaintiff from obtaining a prospective pecuniary advantage”). The reasoning behind this general rule is that if courts allowed compensation for all losses of economic advantages caused by a defendant's negligence, a defendant would be subject to claims based upon remote and speculative injuries that it could not foresee. Such courts have concluded that the negligent defendant owes no duty to plaintiffs for such losses.

The Florida court concluded that the defendant here did owe a duty of care to these commercial fishermen, and that the commercial fishermen thus had a cause of action sounding in negligence. Under Florida law, the question of whether a duty is owed is linked to the concept of foreseeability. In the present case, the duty owed by Mosaic arose out of the nature of Mosaic's business and the special interest of the commercial fisherman in the use of the public waters. The court concluded that Mosaic's activities created an appreciable zone of risk within which Mosaic was obligated to protect those who were exposed to harm. Mosaic's business involved the storage of pollutants and hazardous contaminants. It was foreseeable, said the court, that were these materials released into the public waters, they would cause damage to marine and plant life as well as to human activity in the water.

Further, the commercial fishermen had a special interest within that zone of risk, an interest not shared by the general community, found the state supreme court.  The fishermen were licensed to conduct commercial activities in the waters of Tampa Bay, and were dependent on those waters to earn their livelihood. Mosaic's activities placed the fishermen's peculiar interests directly within the zone of risk created by the presence of its facility. As a result, Mosaic was obligated to exercise prudent foresight and take sufficient precautions to protect that interest.

As pointed out in the dissent, the majority opinion decided the case for a more narrow class than those bringing the suit -- and more narrowly than the claims they alleged. Although Curd's proposed class consisted of “all fishermen and those persons engaged in the commercial catch and sale of fish,”  the majority's decision did not extend to distributors, seafood restaurants, fisheries, fish brokers, or the like whose incomes may also have been affected by the alleged pollution. Additionally, the majority only addressed economic harm that allegedly resulted from the depletion of marine life and the resulting inability to harvest the commercial fishermen's usual yield—not from harm to reputation as alleged in the complaint. The fishermen presumably must still prove all of the elements of their causes of action, including damages.
 

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California's high court is preparing to address a split among the state's lower courts on what seems to be a straightforward issue of product liability law governing component parts.

The Restatement of Torts (Third): Products Liability says that in the context of a final, finished product that injures a user and which is made up of components from different manufacturers, if a given component is itself defective and the defect causes the harm, then the supplier of that component is of course liable. In addition, the supplier can be liable even if the component by itself is not defective, but only if the seller substantially participates in the integration of the component into the design of the product (and the defect causes the harm). Restatement 3d, Section 5.

In essence, the doctrine holds that an entity supplying a non-defective raw material or a non-defective component part is not strictly liable for defects in the final product over which it had no control.  In this respect the Third Restatement of Torts simply codified the doctrine of various states’ common law. E.g., TMJ Implants Products Liability Litigation, 872 F. Supp. 1019 (D. Minn. 1995), aff’d, 97 F.3d 1050 (8th Cir. 1996) (applying Minnesota law)); Kealoha v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., 844 F. Supp. 590 (D. Hawaii 1994), aff’d, Kealoha v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., et al., 82 F.3d 894 (9th Cir. 1996) (applying Hawaii law); Jacobs v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., 67 F.3d 1219 (6th Cir. 1995) (applying Ohio law); Apperson v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., 41 F.3d 1103 (7th Cir. 1994) (applying Illinois law); Crossfield v. Quality Control Equip. Co., Inc., 1 F.3d 701 (8th Cir. 1993) (applying Missouri law); Childress v. Gresen Mfg. Co., 888 F.2d 45 (6th Cir. 1989) (applying Michigan law); In Re: Silicone Gel Breast Implants Products, 996 F. Supp. 1110 (N.D. Ala. 1997); Travelers Ins. Co. v. Chrysler Corp., 845 F. Supp. 1122 (M.D.N.C. 1994); Sperry v. Bauermeister, 786 F. Supp. 1512 (E.D. Mo.1992); Estate of Carey v. Hy-Temp Mfg., Inc., 702 F. Supp. 666 (N.D. Ill. 1988); Orion Ins. Co., Ltd. v. United Tech. Corp., 502 F. Supp. 173 (E.D. Pa. 1980); Mayberry v. Akron Rubber Machinery Corp., 483 F. Supp. 407 (N.D. Okla. 1979); Artiglio v. General Electric Co., 61 Cal.App.4th 830 (Cal. Ct. App. 1998); Bond v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., 868 P.2d 1114 (Colo. Ct. App. 1993); Shaw v. General Motors Corp., 727 P.2d 387 (Colo. Ct. App. 1986); Castaldo v. Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Co., Inc., 376 A.2d 88 (Del. 1977); Depre v. Power Climber, Inc., 263 Ill.App.3d 116 (Ill. App. Ct. 1994); Curry v. Louis Allis Co.,
Inc., 100 Ill.App.3d 910 (Ill. App. Ct. 1981); Murray v. Goodrich Eng’g Corp., 30 Mass. App. Ct. 918 (Mass. App. Ct. 1991); Welsh v. Bowling Electric Machinery, Inc., 875 S.W.2d 569 (Mo. Ct. App. 1994); Zaza v. Marquess & Nell, Inc., 144 N.J. 34 (N.J. 1996); Parker v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., Inc., 121 N.M. 120 (N.M. Ct. App. 1995); Munger v. Heider Mfg. Corp., 90 A.D.2d 645 (N.Y. App.
Div. 1982); Hoyt v. Vitek, Inc., 134 Ore. App. 271 (Or. Ct. App. 1995); Moor v. Iowa Mfg. Co., 320 N.W.2d 927 (S.D. 1982); Davis v. Dresser Indus., Inc., 800 S.W.2d 369 (Tex. App. 1990); Bennett v. Span Indus., Inc., 628 S.W.2d 470 (Tex. App. 1982); Westphal v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., 192 Wis. 2d 347 (Wis. Ct. App. 1995); Noonan v. Texaco, Inc., 713 P.2d 160 (Wyo. 1986).

Sometimes the issue is analyzed as one of no duty on the part of the component seller; other courts view it as an absence if causation.  The policy reasons behind the component parts doctrine are well established. Multi-use component and raw material suppliers should not have to assure the safety of their materials as used in other companies' finished products. That would require suppliers to retain experts in a huge variety of areas in order to determine the possible risks associated with each potential use. And finished product manufacturers know exactly what they intend to do with a component or raw material and therefore are in a better position to guarantee that the component or raw material is suitable for their particular applications.  In the drug and device area, liability is inconsistent with the FDA regulatory scheme because suppliers cannot warn consumers of dangers created by the design of the finished product; the FDA controls who warns and what the warning says.

But when a component manufacturer sufficiently participates in designing a defective and unreasonably dangerous final product, the component manufacturer may be held liable for injuries caused by the final product even though the component itself was not defective or unreasonably  dangerous.  Which raises the question what is ‘‘substantial participation.’’ The Restatement suggests the courts look at whether: (1) the manufacturer or assembler of the integrated product invited the component manufacturer to design a component that would perform specifically as a part of the integrated product;  (2) the component part manufacturer assisted the seller in modifying the design of the integrated product so that it would accept the component part, or (3) the component part manufacturer played a substantial role in deciding which component best serves the requirements of the seller’s integrated product.

A common mass tort battleground for these issues is asbestos.  In O'Neil v. Crane Co., 177 Cal.App.4th 1019, 99 Cal.Rptr.3d 533 (2009)(review granted 12/23/09), the plaintiffs, the widow and children of a naval officer who died of mesothelioma, sued the manufacturers of shipboard pumps and valves, alleging that asbestos insulation used with those components caused the injury.  The trial court dismissed the claims under the component part make doctrine, but last Fall, a panel of the Second Appellate District overturned the trial court's dismissal and said the pump and valve makers could be liable for the officer's death.

The court found that the defendants did not supply a “building block” material, dangerous only when incorporated into a final product over which they had no control. Rather, they sold finished valves and pumps, which needed insulation of some kind. That analysis did not give sufficient attention to the notion that the steam system of the ship ought to be viewed as the finished product, as that term is used in the context of the component parts defense. And it gave insufficient weight to the basic policy underlying the compnent part doctrine.

The panel disagreed with the trial court and with two other appellate decisions going the other way. The state's First Appellate District in Taylor v. Elliott Turbomachinery Co., 171 Cal. App. 4th 564 (2009), found  that pump and valve manufacturers were not liable —as manufacturers of non-defective component parts of a greater whole, and as manufacturers of separate products from those (asbestos) that actually caused the alleged harm. And a different panel of the Second District, Merrill v. Leslie Controls Inc. (Cal. Ct. App., 2d App. Dist., No. B200006, 11/17/09), had also declined to find liability in similar circumstances. See generally Lindstrom v. A-C Product Liability Trust, 424 F.3d 488 (6th Cir.2005)(no liability; causation focus). 

That a component seller knew or should have known that the product maker might use potentially hazardous materials in its design should never be sufficient to impose liability for the design that is the responsibility of the finished product seller.  It makes no sense to have suppliers act as "design police" for every possible item their non-defective part could possibly be combined with in a finished product. 

Under a proper analysis, a warning claim should fare no differently. See Braaten v. Saberhagen Holdings, 198 P.3d 493 (Wash. 2008); Simonetta v. Viad Corp., 197 P.3d 127 (Wash. 2008)(no liability for failure to warn of the hazards of exposure to another manufacturer's asbestos insulation).  The Washington court found the duty to warn under common law negligence was limited to those in the chain of distribution of the hazardous product. Because the defendants did not manufacture, sell, or supply the asbestos insulation, the defendants could not be found liable for breaching a duty to warn. The defendants were not strictly liable because only a product's manufacturer, seller, or marketer is in the position of knowing its dangerous aspects.  To hold a defendant strictly liable for another party's product would be manifestly unfair.

The California Supreme Court has recently agreed to review the issue. O'Neil v. Crane Co., Cal., No. S177401, (petition for review granted 12/23/09).  Here's hoping the doctrine is applied correctly, and this does not become another "asbestos" law exception to common sense rules.

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A federal court has granted a software maker summary judgment in a case arising from the use of "spyware."  The plaintiff failed to convince the court that product liability claims were proper against the company who made the software the plaintiff's former wife allegedly targeted him with.  Hayes v. SpectorSoft Corp., 2009 WL 3713284 (E.D.Tenn. 11/3/09).

Plaintiff alleged that his former wife purchased software, including one called the “Spector Professional Edition for Windows," and installed it on his computer.  Plaintiff contends that following the installation of these software programs, the software recorded all his chat conversations, instant messages, e-mails sent and received, and the websites visited by plaintiff whenever he used his laptop computer, and re-transmitted such electronic communication to her (or a sister). SpectorSoft's software is apparently primarily used by parents and employers to monitor Internet use by children and employees.

The parties disputed whether SpectorSoft knew of the illegal use of the SpectorSoft software to gain access to plaintiff's private laptop communications. Plaintiff alleged that SpectorSoft knew or should have known about such usage. He thus asserted several causes of action (including negligence) against SpectorSoft for its alleged role in allowing his personal computer usage to be captured--  and that defendant  “aided and abetted” in the violation of his rights.

The court concluded first that plaintiff had not created a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether SpectorSoft aided and abetted the alleged invasion of his privacy. There was no evidence that SpectorSoft took an affirmative act that encouraged the women to violate plaintiff's rights. In fact, SpectorSoft attempted to protect the rights of persons like plaintiff by requiring purchasers to accept its licensing terms prior to being allowed to install its software (which prohibited this kind of use). There was similarly no evidence that SpectorSoft knew anything about how the women were using its software. While some retailers marketed SpectorSoft's products to spouses concerned about adultery, SpectorSoft itself did not market its product for such uses, and it provided its users with a licensing agreement that it had reason to believe was valid. Furthermore, said  the court, even a broad-based marketing campaign does not provide the requisite affirmative act of specific encouragement or assistance to the individuals at issue in this case.

Turning to the claim under the state Products Liability Act , a seller of a consumer product may be liable for “injury to a person or property caused by the product” if “the product is determined to be in a defective condition or unreasonably dangerous at the time it left the control of the manufacturer or seller.”  The court did not reach the issue whether software constitutes a “product” under the statute (nor the "misuse" issue which springs to mind), because the  Act defines a “product liability action” as one brought “for or on account of personal injury, death or property damage."  But plaintiff cited to no Tennessee authority suggesting that a products liability claim can be brought for emotional injuries alone, unaccompanied by some sort of physical injury or actual damage to property. Plaintiff did not allege in his Complaint that the alleged invasion of his privacy actually damaged his property, such as his computer or his business.

Similarly, plaintiff failed to provide appropriate legal support for his general negligence claim. Tennessee law does recognize a claim for general emotional distress caused by the negligent actions of another in the form of a negligent infliction of emotional distress claim. See Eskin v. Bartee, 262 S.W.3d 727, 733 (Tenn.Sup.Ct.2008). But the Tennessee Supreme Court has established that where a case is purely one for emotional injury unaccompanied by damages for physical injury or other damages, the plaintiff must present material evidence as to each of the five elements of general negligence --duty, breach of duty, injury or loss, causation in fact, and proximate or legal, cause -- and, in order to guard against trivial or fraudulent actions, the law ought to provide recovery only for “serious” or “severe” emotional injury. 

On the duty element, the general duty of care does not include an affirmative duty to act for the protection of another, unless the defendant stands in some special relationship to either the person who is the source of the danger, or to the person who is foreseeably at risk from the danger.  There is no precedent for the proposition that a manufacturer of spyware software owes a duty to avoid emotional injury to the victim of the misuse of that software in violation of the software's licensing agreement. Plaintiff fails to demonstrate legal support for the proposition that SpectorSoft had a special relationship or that SpectorSoft somehow assumed a duty of care towards plaintiff.

Finally, plaintiff failed to present evidence of his severe or serious emotional distress. Without such evidence of severe emotional distress, plaintiff's negligence claim that asserts only garden variety anxiety and mental distress as damages must be dismissed. 

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The Iowa Supreme Court last week issued an interesting decision clarifying the subsequent remedial measure doctrine in that jurisdiction, and offering some good general notions. Scott v. Dutton-Lainson Co., 2009 WL 3415937 (Iowa 10/23/09).

A little background.  Readers of MassTort Defense know that despite the nostalgic effort of some courts to try to maintain a bright line between strict liability and negligence claims, it is pure semantics to try to confine certain product defect claims to a "strict" regime.  Specifically, failure to warn claims and design defect claims (as opposed to manufacturing defect claims) have been largely recognized as sounding, at least in part, in negligence.  In the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability, the standards for design defect and failure-to-warn claims require consideration of reasonableness and therefore incorporate negligence principles.

Beyond the articulation of the causes of action, the classification of the claims has other potential impact in a products liability claim, such as in this case. Plaintiff worked for a boat dealership and suffered an injured foot when the jack on a boat trailer collapsed.  Plaintiff offered a design defect theory, that the jack's pin should have been longer, allowing users to better see whether the pin was engaged. (A competitor allegedly made a longer pin.)  Below, plaintiff sought to introduce three bits of testimony regarding defendant's alleged subsequent changes to the pin tooling, which lengthened it and thus allowed it to reach further into the pin hole.  The first was deposition testimony from a company officer concerning changing the tooling.  Second was a deposition of a witness who reportedly heard a company official say the pin was lengthened as a result of plaintiff's accident. The third was proposed testimony that the redesign allowed the pin to move further into the hole.

As in some states, Iowa Rule of Evidence 5.407 excludes evidence of subsequent remedial measures to prove negligence or culpable conduct, but not in strict liability claims.  Plaintiff, of course, argued that the proposed testimony was for his strict liability claims.  The trial court excluded the evidence at trial, which resulted in a defense verdict.

The state supreme court held that design defect and failure-to-warn claims sound in negligence, rather than strict liability.  Thus, the lower court had been correct to exclude evidence of the subsequent measures at the trial. Evidence of subsequent remedial measures, which a party seeks to introduce in an action based on a design defect claim, a failure to warn claim, or a breach of warranty claim brought under either theory, is not categorically exempt from exclusion under rule 5.407, because these claims are not strict liability claims. Instead, trial courts must analyze the reason a party seeks to admit such evidence. According to rule 5.407, evidence of subsequent remedial measures is not admissible to show negligence or culpable conduct. Such evidence is admissible to show “ownership, control, or feasibility of precautionary measures, if controverted, or impeachment.” Iowa R. Evid. 5.407.

The court found that the exceptions in the rule adequately accommodate a plaintiff's burden to prove a reasonable alternative design.  A plaintiff has the opportunity to introduce evidence of subsequent remedial measures if the defendant disputes the feasibility of a suggested alternative design.

The court found that important policy reasons, including the need to avoid deterring individuals from making improvements or repairs after an accident, supported the exclusion. Plaintiffs, and misguided academics, often assert that manufacturers will choose to make improvements to a product even if those improvements are admissible because the producer would otherwise risk litigation and negative publicity.  But there is a substantial body of criticism of that notion, which overstates the relevance of subsequent remedial measures, appears to have an over-focus on mass product producers (when the rule applies to everyone), and invites confusion of the jury, both by diverting its attention from whether the product was defective at the relevant time to what was done later, and by facilitating, in the minds of jurors, an inappropriate equation between subsequent design modification and an admission of a prior defective design.  This plaintiff's argument premises its conclusions concerning hypothetical manufacturer conduct upon the assumption that the product at issue is in fact defective, overlooking the situation where the product is not defective but could have been, and may be later, improved.

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The judge overseeing the federal MDL involving genetically modified rice has granted partial summary judgment to the defendants, dismissing several claims, including a public nuisance allegation. In re: Genetically Modified Rice Litigation, No.4-md-1811 (E.D. Mo. 10/9/2009). 

This multi-district litigation relates to the claims of U.S. long-grain rice producers, and others in the rice business, who allege that certain defendants contaminated the U.S. rice supply with non-approved genetically modified strains of rice. The first of a series of bellwether trials will begin in November; this first trial involves Missouri farmer plaintiffs, and the court's Order rules on only the portions of the motions directed to the claims of the Missouri plaintiffs.

The Missouri plaintiffs are seeking damages under a variety of theories, including negligence,  public and private nuisance, negligence per se, and the North Carolina Unfair Trade Practices Act. The plaintiffs are suing to recover allegedly lost income they claim resulted from the drop in market price for rice; following the announcement of the contamination in 2006, some rice companies around the world banned the importation of U.S. rice, which allegedly caused a dramatic drop in the U.S. market price for rice.

Judge Catherine Perry of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri issued an opinion on a host of summary judgment  issues, most notably granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment on plaintiffs’ claims under the North Carolina Unfair Trade Practices Act and on plaintiffs’ claims for public nuisance and negligence per se.

Defendants asserted first that the economic loss doctrine bars all the common-law claims.  The economic loss doctrine bars recovery of purely pecuniary losses in certain tort cases if there is no personal injury or physical damage to property other than the property at issue in the case – usually an allegedly defective product in a products liability case. A plaintiff suing over damage to a product he contracted for is limited to his contract remedies. Many states have adopted the economic loss doctrine for products liability cases, and some states have applied the doctrine to other torts
as well. Here, however, the court found that the alleged damages were not to any property that was the subject of a contract, and the plaintiffs were not claiming damage to any property that is alleged to be defective. Rather, they claim market losses and damage to other property, including equipment, land, and rice. Because they alleged damage to other property, the doctrine does not
apply, concluded the MDL court.

Defendants fared better with plaintiffs' attempt to rely on the more pro-plaintiff North Carolina statute.  The court noted that plaintiffs are not suing based on contracts with Bayer, and although some of Bayer’s decision-making occurred in North Carolina, the claims of plaintiffs cannot be said to arise mainly from those North Carolina activities.  Although there was some conflicting authority, the court concluded that the better reasoned cases require an in-state injury to a plaintiff’s in-state business operations. In other words, the North Carolina Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act is intended to protect the North Carolina consumer.  Plaintiffs had not shown that their claims here had a sufficient effect on North Carolina business for them to benefit from this act intended to protect North Carolina commerce.

Third, in Missouri, a public nuisance is an offense against the public order and economy of the state that violates the public’s right to life, health, and the use of property, while, at the same time annoys, injures, endangers, renders insecure, interferes with, or obstructs the rights or property of the whole community, or neighborhood, or of any considerable number of persons. Bayer was able to show that, as matter of law, plaintiffs cannot recover for public nuisance. There is no evidence in the record showing the sort of public harm or negative effect on the entire community that public nuisance law was developed to remedy.

A private nuisance, on the other hand, is the unreasonable, unusual, or unnatural use of one’s property so that it substantially impairs the right of another to peacefully enjoy his property.  Plaintiffs’ private nuisance claim survived summary judgment because factual disputes remain regarding whether contamination of plaintiffs’ crops may interfere with their enjoyment of their land. The focus of a private nuisance claim, said the MDL court,  is on defendant’s unreasonable interference with the use and enjoyment of plaintiff’s land.  A genuine issue of fact remains regarding whether plaintiffs can prove a private nuisance.

Defendants were entitled to summary judgment on plaintiffs’ negligence per se claim, to the extent it relied on a violation of federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service regulations. This is because they are more in the nature of performance standards that do not provide a standard of
care.  So, for example, if a building code says a stair riser must be six inches tall, that is a precise directive that a builder can follow, and if someone is injured because the riser is taller or shorter, negligence per se might apply.  A building code that says the stair riser should be of a sufficient height not to be dangerous or so that a person will not fall could not provide a basis for a negligence per se claim because the question of what is reasonable was not answered by the building code regulations.

We will keep an eye on the first bellwether case for our readers.

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As due process considerations have taken their more appropriate place in the law of punitive damages, see BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559 (1996), trial courts have struggled with the intersection of traditional product liability law and new rules on evidence necessitated by such due process concerns. 

For example, plaintiffs frequently seek to use evidence of other allegedly similar conduct and allegedly substantially similar accidents, injuries, incidents for liability related issues such as notice and defect.  In Philip Morris USA, Inc. v. Williams, 127 S.Ct. 1057 (2008), however, the Court confirmed a significant constitutional principle limiting punitive damages awards: the Due Process Clause prohibits juries from basing punitive damages awards even in part upon the desire to punish a defendant for harm to persons that are not before the court. 

Williams arose from an Oregon trial wherein a jury awarded $821,000 in compensatory damages and $79.5 million in punitive damages against cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris. At trial, the plaintiff’s attorney had urged the jury to punish Philip Morris for alleged harm to smokers other than the plaintiff by referring to the defendant’s market share and the number of smokers not only in the state of Oregon, but nationwide, who had allegedly contracted a smoking-related illness in the last 40 years. The Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause forbids a jury from assessing punitive damages to punish a defendant for injury that it inflicts upon non-parties or “strangers” to this litigation. While a jury may consider the actual or potential harm to non-parties in the narrow context of determining “reprehensibility” of the conduct, which in turn is one of the factors relevant to an analysis whether the punitive damages award is excessive or not, it may not punish the defendant for the impact of its alleged misconduct on other people, who may bring lawsuits of their own in which other juries can resolve their claims.

The Supreme Court cautioned state courts that they must make sure that the “jury will ask the right question, not the wrong one.”  That is, evidence regarding alleged injuries of those not before the court must be used solely to judge the reprehensibility of the conduct, not to assess damages for the harm caused to those strangers. While the Court commented on the Oregon court’s refusal to give a jury instruction clarifying this distinction, it noted generally that state courts cannot authorize any procedures that create an unreasonable and necessary risk of any such confusion occurring. When evidence is introduced or argument made that risks this confusion, the state court must take steps to protect against that risk. 

Another such conflict was seen in the recent Montana case involving the trial court's exclusion of a car seat manufacturer's evidence of regulatory compliance.  Malcolm v. Evenflo Co., 2009 WL 2917799 (Mont., September 14, 2009).  The state supreme court ruled that while the evidence should have been excluded from the jury's consideration of liability for compensatory damages, the evidence should have been admitted for purposes of assessing punitive damages.  It let stand the compensatory award, but vacated the punitive damages award.

The case arose from a motor vehicle accident during which plaintiff's decedent  rode in the back of an SUV in the OMW model 207 child seat. A northbound motorist swerved into plaintiff Malcolm's lane and forced Malcolm off the road. The vehicle rolled three times, traveled down a steep incline, and stopped in a ditch.  The left belt hook of the OMW broke off during the rollover. The seat belt slipped out from the open-ended belt hook on the opposite side of the seat. The forces of the accident ejected the OMW from the vehicle, which resulted in death, according to plaintiffs.

The theory at trial was strict liability in tort, design defect theory. The Malcolms claimed that the Evenflo OMW model 207 infant child safety seat constituted a defectively designed product that failed even though they had used the seat in a reasonably anticipated manner. The Malcolms pointed to the OMW's open-ended belt hook design that might have prevented the injury. The Malcolms contended that Evenflo could have manufactured the OMW using an allegedly  feasible superior alternative design that required the vehicle's seatbelt to be routed through an enclosed seat belt tunnel even when the seat was used without the base. The Malcolms also sought punitive damages. The Malcolms alleged that Evenflo “continued selling the defective product in conscious, deliberate and intentional disregard of the danger presented.”

Evenflo contended that the OMW model 207 was not defective in any way. Evenflo argued that the severity of the forces involved in the accident were the sole cause of the death. Evenflo argued that the “tremendous forces” that occurred during the rollover forced open the rear passenger door, which was immediately adjacent to Tyler's child seat. Evenflo posited that Tyler's car seat came into direct contact with the ground as the Suburban rolled. Evenflo argued that the contact caused the seat to detach from the seat belt system and ultimately fly out the open door.

The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) requires that all child restraint systems comply with the minimum requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 213. See 49 C.F.R. § 571.213 (2009). NHTSA required Evenflo to conduct internal testing of the OMW to determine if it complied with the FMVSS 213 standards, which it did. NHTSA and Transport Canada, the Canadian testing agency, conducted random audit FMVSS 213 tests in addition to Evenflo's internal testing.

The first issue was the basic products issue: Evenflo argued that the trial court erred when it excluded any evidence that the OMW model 207 complied with FMVSS 213. Evenflo contended that the fact that the OMW model 207 passed 341 tests performed under FMVSS 213 was highly relevant to the claim that the model 207 was defective and unreasonably dangerous.

Evenflo noted that the standard would be admissible in a negligence case, and  there is no reason why such highly relevant evidence should not be used in strict products liability cases. Thus, Evenflo urged the Court to adopt the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability § 4 (1998). Section 4 provides that compliance with an applicable regulation is admissible in connection with liability for defective design. Evenflo noted that a majority of jurisdictions hold that compliance with product safety regulation is relevant and admissible on the question of defectiveness, even if it is not necessarily controlling.

The four-justice majority reiterated this court's adherence to “well-settled, decades-old principles of strict liability” that consider irrelevant a manufacturer's reasonableness and level of care. The court declined to adopt the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability, §4.  Montana thus continues to be one of those few states that cling to the now-discredited "bright line" verbal distinction between cases asserting strict liability in tort and those grounded in negligence theory. (This Court had previously distinguished strict liability from negligence when it rejected the “state of the art” defense, for example, because it raises issues of reasonableness and foreseeability --concepts fundamental to negligence law.)  It still argues that any attempt to inject so-called negligence principles into strict liability law would somehow sever Montana's strict products liability law from the core principles for which it was adopted.  The focus in design defect cases must be on “the condition of the product,” rather than “the manufacturer's conduct or knowledge."  And the way to do this, apparently, is to exclude relevant, material, probative evidence that the product passed regulatory muster.

On the punitive damages issue, Evenflo argued that the trial court's decision to exclude evidence of the OMW model 207's compliance with FMVSS 213 prevented it from introducing evidence bearing on its state of mind. A defendant's state of mind is a “key element” in assessing punitive damages, and the car seat maker should have been able to present evidence of its regulatory compliance. 

The trial court had concluded that the OMW model 207's compliance with FMVSS 213 had “absolutely no bearing at all upon the reprehensibility of the conduct of Evenflo.” But the supreme court could not sustain the verdict on punitives in light of the court's decision to exclude evidence that might show why Evenflo acted as it did, or failed to act, when the jury considered whether to award punitive damages. Evidence of Evenflo's good faith effort to comply with all government regulations, including FMVSS 213, would be evidence of conduct inconsistent with the mental state requisite for punitive damages.

Interestingly, the supreme court noted that while here a new jury here could consider evidence of the OMW model 207's compliance with FMVSS 213 for the purposes of determining whether Evenflo acted with actual fraud or actual malice, generally the Montana system provides for the presentation of evidence regarding liability for compensatory damages and punitive damages to the jury in a single proceeding. Thus, bifurcation is disfavored, and the trial courts must ordinarily trust that the jury will heed the court's instructions as to how to evaluate the evidence presented.

One dissenting justice would have also reversed the compensatory damages. He differed from the majority on how the trial was conducted and saw it as improperly biased against Evenflo. Two other dissenters agreed with the majority on the compensatory damages but would have sustained the punitive award, arguing that Evenflo's inability to present evidence of its compliance with regulations did not prejudice the company.

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