Bednar v. Bassett Furniture Mfg. Co., Inc.

Decision Date10 August 1998
Docket NumberNo. 97-4098,97-4098
Parties28 Envtl. L. Rep. 21,316, Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 15,268 Richard BEDNAR, Jr.; Laura Bednar, Individually and as Next Friends of Marian Kristen Bednar, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. BASSETT FURNITURE MANUFACTURING COMPANY, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Stephen A. Matthews, Pine Bluff, AR, argued (R. Scott Morgan, Pine Bluff, on the brief), for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

D. Keith Fortner, Little Rock, AR, argued (G. Spence Fricke, on the brief), for Defendant-Appellee.

Before BOWMAN, Chief Judge, 1 McMILLIAN, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

MURPHY, Circuit Judge.

Richard and Laura Bednar brought this action against Bassett Furniture Manufacturing, Inc., (Bassett) based on diversity of citizenship, 28 U.S.C. § 1332, alleging that a dresser it had manufactured emitted dangerous levels of formaldehyde which injured their baby, Marian Kristen. They appeal from a summary judgment in favor of Bassett. We reverse and remand.

The Bednars purchased the Bassett dresser from Montgomery Ward prior to the birth of Marian for the room they were preparing for the expected baby. They installed the dresser in the room and put various baby clothes, linens, and blankets in it. Several family members noticed the dresser had what they described as a "new" smell. Marian was born on September 26, 1994 with no health problems and was taken to her room at home a few days later. The noticeable odor was still coming from the dresser, and by this time it had permeated the clothes and linens stored in it.

Marian soon began to suffer from unusually rapid breathing and redness in her eyes. Despite repeated visits to the doctor, the problems persisted and the Bednars began to suspect that they were related to the dresser. In late November Marian's breathing problems worsened and caused her parents to take her to the hospital and to contact poison control. They removed the dresser from Marian's room when they returned from the hospital, and her respiratory difficulty and eye inflammation began to subside. She was nevertheless hospitalized again on December 1, and she continued to suffer chronic kidney infections that did not respond to normal antibiotic treatments and she developed reactive asthma and gastrointestinal reflux. The Bednars noticed that Marian seemed irritable and hyperactive, grew quite slowly, and developed several allergies that required almost daily shots to control.

The Bednars filed suit against Bassett and Montgomery Ward, raising claims of negligence, strict product liability, and breach of the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose under the Uniform Commercial Code. The district court administratively terminated the action against Montgomery Ward after an automatic bankruptcy stay went into effect, and subsequently Bassett moved for summary judgment after there had been substantial discovery.

The Bednars provided a variety of evidence to support their claims. Dr. Thomas Rimmer, an industrial hygienist, tested the dresser for formaldehyde emission. He testified at his deposition about the test findings, as well as the levels of formaldehyde exposure that have been found to cause various health problems. Guidelines developed by government and industry for formaldehyde exposure and its effects relied on by Dr. Rimmer were also put in the record. Evidence about the emission of formaldehyde from Bassett products was produced from its employee Wayne Atkins, its retained expert, Dr. Henry Simmons, and its internal testing reports. The baby's treating physicians, Dr. Christian Lindsey and Dr. Alfred Johnson, gave their diagnosis that she suffered from the effects of acute formaldehyde exposure, and several family members described her symptoms and the chemical odors coming from the dresser.

The district court granted summary judgment on the basis that the Bednars had not made a sufficient showing that the dresser's emission of formaldehyde proximately caused Marian's physical problems, citing Wright v. Willamette Industries, Inc., 91 F.3d 1105 (8th Cir.1996). Summary judgment is reviewed de novo, Unigroup v. O'Rourke Storage & Transfer, 980 F.2d 1217, 1219 (8th Cir.1992), and is appropriate only if there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). The key question here is whether the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the Bednars, could support a finding of causation in their favor. Matsushita Electrical Industrial Co., v. Zenith Radio, 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986).

Wright was also a toxic tort case involving Arkansas law. The plaintiffs there had prevailed at trial but lost on appeal because they had not made a submissible case of causation. In Wright the court explained that a plaintiff in such a case must establish both "the levels of exposure that are hazardous to human beings generally" and "the plaintiff's actual level of exposure to the defendant's toxic substance." 91 F.3d at 1106. The plaintiffs in Wright failed to meet either requirement. Although their theory of recovery rested on the effects of formaldehyde in wood fibers, they produced no evidence about what level of exposure to such fibers would be harmful or about what amount of formaldehyde was in the wood fibers present in their house. Id at 1107. Their experts testified about the level of...

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