Rhynes v. Branick Mfg. Corp., 80-1410
| Decision Date | 27 October 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 80-1410,80-1410 |
| Citation | 629 F.2d 409 |
| Parties | Willie RHYNES, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BRANICK MANUFACTURING CORPORATION, an Applied Power Industry, Defendant, Akron Weldcraft, Defendant-Appellee. Summary Calendar. . Unit A |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Eberstein, Morris, Smith & Kinder, P.C., Paul L. Smith, Dallas, Tex., for plaintiff-appellant.
Vial, Hamilton, Koch, Tubb, Knox & Stradley, Robert H. Frost, Gerald R. Powell, Dallas, Tex., for Akron Weldcraft.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Before GEE, RUBIN and RANDALL, Circuit Judges.
Appellant Rhynes' Texas diversity action claims damages for personal injury suffered when a tire exploded inside a safety cage. That the assertedly defective cage was manufactured by a business predecessor of defendant, rather than by defendant, is not disputed on this appeal from the summary judgment that Rhynes suffered below. 1 Mr. Rhynes' appeal proceeds instead on a theory of product liability known as the "product line" rule, which he urges we should adopt in this case.
The product line rule, as it is represented to us, may be epitomized as declaring that one who acquires a manufacturing business and continues to manufacture a line of its products assumes by force of law strict liability for defects in units of that line manufactured by his predecessor. The meager authority cited by appellant for this rule-a case each from the states of California, Michigan, and New Hampshire-indicates that the rule finds its origins in theories of estoppel and of vicarious liability rather than in those of implied warranty, institutional fault, and the consequent market responsibility of a reputable seller that underlie section 402A of the Restatement of Torts. Indeed, that section commences with the phrase: "One who sells . . . ." The Texas form of strict or product liability rests squarely on section 402A. See, e.g., Pittsburg Coca-Cola Bottling Works v. Ponder, 443 S.W.2d 546, 548 (Tex.1969) ().
The sole Texas authority cited to us by appellant as indicating that Texas would adopt the product line rule is a passage from Justice Campbell's special concurrence in Turner v. General Motors Corp., 584 S.W.2d 844 (Tex.1979). For several reasons, this is not persuasive. In the first place, Turner did not concern or involve in any way the vicarious liability...
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