Wright v. Carter Products

• Decision Date: 01 May 1957
• Docket Number: No. 161,Docket 24256.,161
• Citation: 244 F.2d 53
• Parties: Florence WRIGHT and Roy Wright, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CARTER PRODUCTS, Inc., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

244 F.2d 53 (1957)

Florence WRIGHT and Roy Wright, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CARTER PRODUCTS, Inc., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 161, Docket 24256.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Submitted January 22, 1957.

Decided May 1, 1957.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Budd, Quencer & Commette, New York City (Albert S. Commette, New York City, of counsel), for plaintiffs-appellants.

William S. O'Connor, New York City (Leonard Garment, New York City, of counsel), for defendant-appellee.

Before CLARK, Chief Judge, and LUMBARD and WATERMAN, Circuit Judges.

WATERMAN, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiffs, Florence and Roy Wright, appeal from a judgment below dismissing their complaint and awarding judgment to the defendant. Florence sought damages for personal injuries suffered by her from the application of a deodorant and anti-perspirant manufactured by the defendant and distributed under the tradename "Arrid." Roy, her husband, sought recovery for medical expenses and damages for loss of services.

Mrs. Wright, a resident of Belmont, Massachusetts, had used Arrid two or three times a week for approximately five years prior to June 1951 without suffering any ill effects. In June 1951 she bought a jar of Arrid at a nearby store, used it once, and immediately thereafter contracted a rash in both armpits. Although the rash soon subsided, Mrs. Wright discontinued the use of this deodorant for several months until late October or early November 1951, when she again applied Arrid, using the same jar that she had purchased in June. No harmful effects resulted from this application. Later, in the latter part of November, she again used Arrid from this jar. As a result of this last application Mrs. Wright sustained a severe case of contact dermatitis, which initially was confined to an eruption in both armpits but later spread to her arms, and on occasion, to other parts of her body. This condition can be ameliorated by treatment, but unless continually treated it tends to be reactivated.

At the trial it was conceded that Arrid contains aluminum sulfate. This ingredient is an astringent that causes the pores of the skin to close for a period of time. Perspiration is thus temporarily reduced. The plaintiffs introduced expert testimony and other evidence tending to show that some individuals are allergic to aluminum sulfate. When applied to the skin of such persons it will cause contact dermatitis in varying degrees of severity. The plaintiffs also established that for at least three years prior to Mrs. Wright's purchase in June 1951, the defendant had advertised that Arrid was "safe," "harmless," and "would not irritate the skin."

Evidence was also introduced tending to establish that prior to June 1951 the defendant was aware of this peculiar property of its product, for in the four years from 1948 to 1951, the defendant, according to its own files, had received 373 complaints of skin irritation allegedly caused by Arrid. During this same period, however, the defendant had sold over 82,000,000 jars. The plaintiffs also attempted unsuccessfully to introduce findings of the Federal Trade Commission, affirmed by a court of appeals prior to Mrs. Wright's purchase in 1951, to the effect that the use of Arrid will cause dermatitis in some people.¹

No evidence was adduced at the trial to show that the defendant was negligent in the preparation of the particular batch of Arrid that precipitated Mrs. Wright's condition. Thus the trial court concluded that the only issue of negligence presented was whether the mere use of aluminum sulfate in Arrid was sufficient to charge the manufacturer with liability to these plaintiffs when no warning was given by it of the possible harmful effect that Arrid might have to a very small proportion of the potential users of that deodorant.

Relying on the statistical infrequency of injury caused by the use of Arrid, the trial court held that the defendant was not negligent, and that "the injury suffered by the plaintiff was the result of her own allergy rather than being caused by any inherent defect in the product itself." The court below apparently believed, since the evidence before it indicated that only a minuscule percentage of potential customers could be endangered by using Arrid, that the defendant was under no duty to warn of any harmful propensities the product might have despite the defendant's own knowledge thereof.

With such a conclusion we cannot agree, for we believe that duties to warn are not, in all cases, measured by solely quantitative standards. We believe that the trial court erred in defining the scope of this defendant-manufacturer's liability, and we remand the case for further findings in the light of our discussion herein.

I

The Duty to Warn.

Because federal jurisdiction in this case was based solely on diversity of citizenship, the trial court was required to apply the substantive law of the state in which it sat, i. e., New York. Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 1938, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188. But conflict of laws principles are substantive for Erie purposes, Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Co., 1941, 313 U.S. 487, 61 S.Ct. 1020, 85 L.Ed. 1477, and, according to the conflict of laws rules of New York, the applicable law of torts is that of the place of wrong. Conklin v. Canadian-Colonial Airways, 1935, 266 N.Y. 244, 194 N.E. 692. Thus the trial court properly looked to the local law of Massachusetts to determine the nature and extent of the plaintiffs' rights.

In Massachusetts a remote vendee can recover damages from a manufacturer for injuries sustained as the result of using a manufacturer's product if negligence is shown on the part of the manufacturer either in the utilization of its formula or in the concoction of the particular batch of the product involved. Carter v. Yardley & Co., 1946, 319 Mass. 92, 64 N.E.2d 693, 695, 164 A.L.R. 559. In finding the defendant free of negligence within the meaning of this rule, the trial court held that recovery is not available if "* * * injury to the plaintiff was caused * * * by her own peculiar and unforeseeable susceptibility," quoting the Yardley case, supra, or if the product was "* * * merely unfit for use by one who was constitutionally unable to use the product because of a supersensitive skin," quoting Graham v. Jordan Marsh Co., 1946, 319 Mass. 690, 693, 67 N.E.2d 404, 405. But as applied to the facts of the case at bar, reliance on these two decisions would appear to be misplaced. The full reasoning of the Yardley opinion bears out our belief that the crucial word in the language quoted from that decision is "unforeseeable." For example, the Massachusetts court there stated:

"The defendant could not be found negligent unless injury to the skin of a consumer from the contents of the bottle was to be anticipated." (Emphasis added.) 319 Mass. at page 94, 67 N.E.2d at page 694.

Thus the statistical analysis of injury so heavily relied upon by the trial court would seem relevant only to the issue of foreseeability to the manufacturer of injury to its potential patrons. In Massachusetts foreseeability of harm has been for many years the determinative element in ascertaining the scope of a manufacturer's liability. In Gould v. Slater Woolen Co., 1888, 147 Mass. 315, 317, 17 N.E. 531, 532, in finding for a defendant manufacturer who had been sued for injuries resulting from a dye used in its product, the court based its decision on the following reasoning:

"All that the plaintiff showed against the defendant was that it used an article for dyeing its cloths which was the most common mordant used in wool dyeing * * * which, so far as then known, had never caused injury to anybody who merely handled the cloths, and which the defendant did not know or suppose, and had no reason to know or suppose, to be injurious; and under these circumstances, although there was evidence tending to show that, in point of fact, the plaintiff was injured by merely handling the cloths, this was not a result which the defendant was bound or ought to have contemplated as likely to happen." (Emphasis added.)

The rationale of the Gould case was reaffirmed in another context by the highest court of Massachusetts as late as 1945, when, on a different set of facts, judgment for the plaintiff was sustained. In Taylor v. Newcomb Baking Co., 1945, 317 Mass. 609, 611, 59 N.E.2d 293, 294, the plaintiff, a dishwasher employed by the defendant, had contracted severe dermatitis from the use of "strong" soap prescribed by his employer for performing his duties. The court, in upholding a jury verdict, reasoned as follows:

"It could have been found that the defendant knew or ought to have known that this `strong\' soap powder which had caused trouble before might cause trouble again, and that it knew or ought to have known whatever is `known to be common amongst the trade,\' to wit, that the soap powder was a possible source of danger to a class of persons of whom the plaintiff might be one. It is not necessary that the majority of possible employees be susceptible. It is enough if a sufficient number are susceptible so that a jury could reasonably say that the defendant ought to have known and recognized the danger of injury and ought to have guarded against it." (Emphasis added.)

Although the defendant in the Taylor case was sued as an employer, rather than as a manufacturer, we think the reasoning of that decision is applicable to the case at bar. Perhaps the best statement of the correct law we believe to govern the issue now before us appeared in an old, but enlightened, Michigan decision:

"When the fact is once established and demonstrated by experience that a certain commodity apparently harmless, contains concealed dangers, and when distributed to the public through the channels of trade and used for the purposes for which it was made and sold is sure to cause suffering to, and injure the health of, some innocent purchaser, even though the

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