Pryor v. Lee C. Moore, Corporation
| Decision Date | 21 January 1959 |
| Docket Number | No. 5871.,5871. |
| Parties | Emmett W. PRYOR and Pacific Employers Insurance Company, Appellants, v. LEE C. MOORE, CORPORATION, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
Clyde J. Watts, Oklahoma City, Okl. (Claude Briggs, Oklahoma City, Okl., and the firm of Looney, Watts, Looney & Nichols, Oklahoma City, Okl., on the brief) for appellants.
Alex Cheek, Oklahoma City, Okl. (Villard Martin, Jr., Tulsa, Okl., on the brief), for appellee.
Before BRATTON, Chief Judge, and MURRAH, PICKETT, LEWIS and BREITENSTEIN, Circuit Judges.
The appellant, Pryor, was injured in the course of his employment on an oil well drilling rig, when the mast, sometimes called a derrick, collapsed under the tensile strain of a pipe-loosening and pulling operation. Having received workmen's compensation under the laws of Oklahoma, Pryor and his employer's compensation insurance carrier sued the appellee-manufacturer of the derrick as in MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co., 217 N.Y. 382, 111 N.E. 1050, L.R.A.1916F 696,1 claiming that a defective weld at the foot of one leg of the derrick caused it to collapse under the tensile strain. There was expert evidence to the effect that properly fused, the weld would be expected to have the same useful life as the parent metal, and that its failure indicated a defective weld at the point of failure.
The trial court, however, directed a verdict and entered judgment for the defendant-manufacturer, on the grounds that fifteen years of safe use for the purposes for which the equipment was intended foreclosed any probability that it was defectively or negligently made. The court followed Lynch v. International Harvester Co. of America, 10 Cir., 60 F.2d 223, 224, in which this court, while recognizing the MacPherson rule, held that five years of constant use of a threshing machine for its intended purposes was a "conclusive denial and contradiction of the allegation that the machine was imminently dangerous to life and limb when the defendant sold it."
The appellant would distinguish that case from ours for latent defects here and readily discoverable ones in the Lynch case. But the question whether mere lapse of time forecloses probability of negligent manufacture was squarely presented and decided in the Lynch case. The same question is presented here, and we must therefore now decide whether we will follow or recede from the Lynch doctrine. The Lynch case also arose in Oklahoma, but no Oklahoma case was cited in support of the rule. And, while Oklahoma has embraced the full vigor of MacPherson (i. e. see footnote 1), it has neither approved Lynch nor had occasion to consider the precise question. It has said only that if a device is suitable and safe for the purpose for which it is to be used when sold, the manufacturer has then discharged his duty to those who thereafter use it. Jamison v. Reda Pump Co., 190 Okl. 593, 126 P.2d 71. But this statement clearly presupposes nonnegligent manufacture, and is thus not helpful to a consideration whether any probability of negligent manufacture is legally foreclosed by prolonged safe use.
Only recently, the Fifth Circuit, following its conception of Texas law, deliberately refused to adopt a policy of foreclosing liability after prolonged use without defective failure. It did not think the lapse of seven years per se relieved a derrick manufacturer from liability for injuries caused by a defective weld. International Derrick & Equipment Co. v. Croix, 241 F.2d 216. Nor does the Second Circuit believe that mere passage of time confers immunity upon a negligent wrongdoer under the MacPherson doctrine. Fredericks v. American Export Lines, 2 Cir., 227 F.2d 450. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals has reached the conclusion that "the law itself does not say that the passage of nearly seven years, or the action of the elements * * * constituted an efficient intervening cause * * so that any causal connection between Gichner's negligence and the giving away was necessarily broken." Hanna v. Fletcher, 97 U.S.App.D.C. 310, 231 F. 2d 469, 475, 58 A.L.R.2d 847. All of the cases agree, however, that proximity of time and events is cogently relevant in the determination of the ultimate factual issue whether the negligent manufacture caused the harm. Hewitt v. General Tire & Rubber Co., 3 Utah 2d 354, 284 P.2d 471; Reed & Barton Corp. v. Mass, 1 Cir., 73 F.2d 359; Lill v. Murphy Door Bed Co. of Chicago, 290 Ill.App. 328, 8 N.E.2d 714. Our problem is not one of duty owing to the injured party under the MacPherson concept, rather it is one of causation which traditionally lies in the realm of fact,...
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