Accordingly, under the LPLA, plaintiff had to make a sufficient evidentiary showing that, at the time of manufacture, Lufkin should have reasonably expected an ordinary consumer or user of its pumping unit would use its product as a “ride.  Significantly, all the evidence and examples relied
upon by the appellate court and plaintiff to establish that the intentional misuse in this case, i.e., the riding, could be considered a reasonably anticipated use involved occurrences well after the date the pump was manufactured.  This the decision was reversed, and summary judgment to be entered for the manufacturer.

This is an important reversal of a decision seemingly motivated by sympathy, however natural, rather than the law. A manufacturer is not responsible for every conceivable or foreseeable use of its product. All this scanty evidence suggested was that the misuse seemed, in hindsight, like it might have been foreseeable. Not that it was reasonably foreseeable, not that a manufacturer should reasonably expect such misuse, certainly not that this was the act of an ordinary person under the circumstances, and not that it was reasonably foreseeable in the 1950’s.