For today’s post we will delve into the realm of Aesthetics. I promise that I will not wax eloquently about Aristotle and his views on the subject. Instead, I want to talk about the place where products manufacturers and the objects of their desire converge with the statutory and common law of your jurisdiction. Yep, you guessed it, I’m talking about warnings. More specifically, the placement of such warnings on a product. I can only imagine that one of the most difficult topics for manufacturers to discuss is where to put the warning(s) on a product. Just think about the sheer number of man-hours spent on deciding where a warning should be placed in order to adequately warn the consumer. I can only imagine executives having a meeting with the follow questions on the agenda: Will the warning be conspicuous enough? Is it in a place the consumer will look or be expected to look? Will the warning make our beautiful product look ugly if we put it here? Will our product look more like a NASCAR vehicle than the thing of beauty that our engineers designed? The United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, Athens Division, touched on this issue in a decision last week.

In Morris v. Harley Davidson Motor Co., No. 3:09-CV-74(CDL), 2010 WL 2723079 (M.D. Ga. July 7, 2010), the court addressed Harley’s Motion for Summary Judgment. The facts of the case were that the plaintiffs (husband and wife) were involved in a single motorcycle accident. Morris at *2. At the time of the accident, the plaintiffs were riding the motorcycle and pulling a trailer. Id. The rear tire failed, resulting in the accident and the death of the plaintiff’s wife. Id. The plaintiff also sustained serious injuries. The owner’s manual contained several warnings, including a warning to not exceed the motorcycle’s Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) or Gross Axle Weight Rating (GAWR). Id. Based on the motorcycle’s GVWR from the factory, plus a full tank of gas, the motorcycle allows for an additional 420 pounds of weight capacity. Id. at *1. There was not a warning anywhere stating that the motorcycle was only rated to carry an additional 420 pounds. Id. at*2.

The manual also contained a warning against pulling a trailer with the motorcycle. In addition to the warnings contained in the manual, the motorcycle had warnings posted on the motorcycle itself. There was a warning placed inside the cargo compartment on the motorcycle and an information plate on the steering head, which listed the motorcycle’s GVWR. Id. The plaintiff testified that he did not see these warnings and apparently he did not read the owner’s manual either. Id. at *2-3.

Under Georgia law, there are two theories that a plaintiff can pursue to establish a breach of the duty to warn: first, by failing to adequately communicate the warning and second, by failing to provide and adequate warning of the potential risks associated with the product. Id. at *3. The plaintiff contended that the warnings were not adequately communicated to him. Interestingly, under this theory, failure to read the warnings does not act as a bar to recovery for a plaintiff. The court found that under such a theory, issues “as to location and presentation of the warning” are involved and thus there was a genuine issue of a material fact for the jury to determine.

This case is interesting to me as I consider my self somewhat of a car buff. Admittedly, there is a vast difference between cars and motorcycles, but I would suggest that there is one common ground between enthusiasts of cars and bikes. Most would agree that they prefer to drive or operate a vehicle that they think looks good. For me personally, I love the classic and venerable Jeep CJ-7. I simply love the way it looks. However, I can’t imagine I would want to drive a Golden Eagle that has a big ugly warning plastered all over the dash. In the case of a motorcycle, this issue is all the more problematic. There simply aren’t that many places on a motorcycle that a warning could be placed, due to the size of a bike, that wouldn’t detract from the aesthetics of the motorcycle. However, I do think that this is a real difficult issue where the manufacturer has to wrestle with finding a solution to try and meet the aesthetic requirements of the consumer and at the same time adequately communicate any warnings with the user.

No, today’s post isn’t an homage to Arnold. Or maybe it is . . . . If you are like me, you are likely growing tired of all of the product recalls that have been issued this year. We here at Abnormal Use try to stay on the cutting edge and provide our readers with up-to-date and timely information whenever a recall is issued. Think of us as the informant to the informed.Whether it’s McDonalds’ Shrek glasses, SpaghettiOs, Tylenol, or baby strollers, we were there for our readers. Despite the wonderful content for our blog, I believe that our readers, like most Americans, are beginning to hit their saturation point with all of these product recalls.

Recently, there was a great article in The Washington Post that addressed this very issue. This phenomenon actually has a name: “product fatigue.” In her article, the writer points out that people are becoming confused by the number or recalls or even worse, simply ignoring the recalls.

To foresee or not to foresee, that is the question. Well, at least its the question when you are arguing for summary judgment on the basis of the plaintiff’s failure to produce evidence on the issue of proximate cause. In a recent unpublished decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the court reviewed the seemingly symbiotic relationship between the proximate cause element in a negligence action and the requirement that the injury be a foreseeable consequence from an act or an omission. Graham v. Progress Energy, Inc., No. 08-1906 (4th Cir. June 25, 2010) (unpublished) [PDF].

In Graham, the court was reviewing the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendants. The case arose out of an incident in which the plaintiffs’ home caught on fire. The fire started after the plaintiffs began using candles as a source of light. The reason that they had to use candles was that they failed to pay their electric bill and thus the power to their home was disconnected. On the date that the fire occurred, the plaintiffs had fallen asleep before extinguishing their candles. The plaintiffs sued Progress Energy on a negligence based claim.

The court framed the narrow issue as being “whether a reasonable jury could conclude that Progress’s alleged negligent conduct proximately caused the Grahams’ alleged harm.” The defendants did not dispute causation-in-fact. They admitted that it was foreseeable for the plaintiffs to use candles to illuminate their home. However, Progress Energy contended that the plaintiffs actions (i.e., falling asleep before extinguishing the candles) was an intervening cause that broke the chain of causation. Furthermore, the defendants claimed that while using candles to illuminate their home may have been foreseeable, …”going to sleep with the candles lit or otherwise failing to attend to the candle so as to prevent them from falling was certainly by no means so.”

The court opined that the defendants’ argument “misconstrues the relevant inquiry because South Carolina law does not require that particular events be foreseeable.” The court went on to reason that only the general harm and general intervening cause need to have been foreseeable. The court found that since candle use was foreseeable, a reasonable jury could have concluded that some amount of candle misuse was also foreseeable. Finally, the court pointed to evidence within the record that supported the conclusion that the plaintiffs’ alleged harm was also foreseeable. As such, the court reversed the grant of summary judgment.

The court’s analysis, albeit sound, leaves the ordinary practitioner wondering what is the true meaning of an intervening cause. The answer is found in the procedural posture of this case – this appeal involved the review of a summary judgment order. Perhaps on remand, the once (and future?) fixture of the American judicial system will resolve this issue. Of course, I’m referring to the jury trial. For all of you out there, who like me, have only been practicing law within the last decade, allow me to explain. A jury is the fact finder that resolves factual disputes during a trial. We’ll discuss the term “trial” during our next lesson. As for our weary candle users, one thing we can be sure of– it is foreseeable that the jury will have to determine issues like comparative and contributory negligence before these plaintiffs will be permitted to recover for leaving the light, I mean candle, on.

I was on vacation last week. My family and I visited one of the most sacred of all family vacation spots – the beach! Our family goes to Litchfield Beach every year the week of Memorial Day. Litchfield is a quaint little beach, found just north of Pawleys Island and just south of Murrells Inlet, the seafood capital of South Carolina. As I sat there during my vacation at the beach, I couldn’t help but think of all of the products liability cases waiting to happen.

Last week, the North Carolina Court of Appeals analyzed the language of this statute which outlines the affirmative defense of modification or alteration of a product in Stark v. Ford Motor Co., No. COA09-286, 2010 WL 1959851 (N.C. Ct. App. May 18, 2010) [PDF]. In Stark, the case was originally filed in the name of all of the members of a family. The parents’ claims, along with the claims of one of the children, were dismissed pursuant to the defendant’s motion for summary judgment. Stark at *2. The only plaintiffs remaining in the case at the start of the trial were Cheyenne Stark (age 5 at the time of the accident) and her brother Cody Stark (age 9 at the time of the accident). Id. The minor plaintiffs were injured when their parents’ vehicle allegedly and unexpectedly accelerated while the mother was operating the vehicle in a parking lot. Id. The remaining plaintiffs’ theory was that their injuries were enhanced by an alleged design defect with the seat belts of the vehicle. Id.

The defendant asserted the affirmative defense of “Alteration or Modification of Product” available under N.C. Gen. Stat 99B-3. Specifically, the defendant argued that Cheyenne Stark had the shoulder belt behind her back at the time of the accident and thus the alleged design defect of “film spool” could not have been the cause of her injuries. Id. at *2. At the end of the trial, the jury returned a verdict finding the defendant “act[ed] unreasonably in designing the 1998 Ford Taurus and its component parts, proximately causing enhanced injury to Cheyenne Stark.” Id. at *3. However, the jury also found that Cheyenne’s enhanced injuries were caused by an alteration or modification of the vehicle. Id. Finally, the jury found that the defendant’s product did not cause the enhanced injury of the other minor plaintiff, Cody Stark. Id.

On appeal, the plaintiffs presented two arguments. First, since Cheyenne Stark was only 5 years old at the time of the accident, she was legally incapable of negligence and therefore unable to foresee that any modification or alteration could proximately cause her injury. Id. at *5. Second, the plaintiffs rebutted the defendant’s argument that Cheyenne’s parents modified the seat belt by putting the shoulder belt behind her back by relying on the statutory language that the modifier must be a party to the action. Id. at *6.

As to the plaintiff’s first argument, the court reasoned that the alteration or modification of a product must be the proximate cause of the injury in order for the defense to apply. As such, the court then engaged in a “foreseeability” analysis and pointed to longstanding North Carolina case law which held that children under the age of 7, as a matter of law, are incapable of negligence. Id. at *5. Thus, the court reasoned that under the appropriate standard of care for a child under the age of 7, the “…[d]efendant is unable, as a matter of law, to prove the requisite element of foreseeability inherent in the proximate cause portion of its N.C.G.S. 99B-3 defense.” Id. Since the defendant would be unable to establish proximate cause, the defense was unavailable as to any alleged modification or alteration performed by Cheyenne Stark herself.

With regard to the plaintiffs’ second argument, the court essentially applied the rules of statutory construction and held that “the plain language of N.C.G.S. 99B-3 states that he entity responsible for the modification or alteration of the product must be a party to the action in order for the defense to apply.” Id. at *7. The court recognized that the requirement that the modifier or alterer be a party to the case was an issue not previously determined by the courts in North Carolina. Therefore, the affirmative defense available under N.C. Gen. Stat. 99B-3 is only available if the one that modifies or alters the product is a party to the action. Which begs the question: was it really party time when the parents were kicked out the case shortly before the trial began? To be fair, hindsight is 20-20.

Consider the recent decision in White Elec. Servs., Inc. v. Franke Food Servs., No. 09-CV-0504-CVE–PJC, 2010 WL 1542575 (N.D. Okla. Apr. 15, 2010). The case arose from an underlying lawsuit brought by Sarah Austin against an electrical contractor, White Electrical Services, Inc. Austin alleged that she received an electrical shock when she attempted to plug in a food preparation table while working at McDonald’s. Id. at *1. White settled with Ms. Austin and then brought suit against Franke, the alleged manufacturer of the food preparation table. Id.

Finally, the court analyzed White’s claim for contribution and found that contribution “represents a sharing of joint and several liability by providing for proportional reimbursement from other parties who are liable to the plaintiff.” Id. at *3. Since there was at least a possibility that both White and Franke could have been jointly and severally liable to Ms. Austin, the court allowed for White’s contribution claim to go forward. The moral of this case is that practitioners must exercise caution when using seemingly synonymous terms in any document filed with the court.