Chappuis v. Sears Roebuck & Co.

• Decision Date: 10 April 1978
• Docket Number: No. 60725,60725
• Citation: 358 So.2d 926
• Parties: Robert Daniel CHAPPUIS v. SEARS ROEBUCK AND COMPANY et al.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 926

358 So.2d 926

Robert Daniel CHAPPUIS v. SEARS ROEBUCK AND COMPANY et al.

No. 60725.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

April 10, 1978.

Rehearing Denied May 19, 1978.

Arthur Cobb, Arthur Cobb, Ltd., Baton Rouge, for plaintiff-applicant.

Ben Louis Day, Dale, Owen, Richardson, Taylor & Mathews, Baton Rouge, for intervenor.

H. Evans Scobee, Durrett, Hardin, Hunter, Dameron & Fritchie, Boris F. Navratil, Breazeale, Sachse & Wilson, Baton Rouge, for defendants-respondents.

DIXON, Justice.

Robert Daniel Chappuis was injured at work when a fragment of steel from a hammer he was using hit him in an eye. He brought suit against the retailer and the manufacturer of the hammer and an insurer. ¹ A jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendants. The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court judgment, 349 So.2d 963 (1st Cir. 1977), and we granted writs. 351 So.2d 1208 (La.1977).

Chappuis was a twenty-two year old fine arts graduate of Louisiana State University, married, who took a summer's job as a sheet metal worker's helper in June of 1974. His employer was a small corporation operated by Tucker, who was home recuperating from surgery when Chappuis was hired. Chappuis worked exclusively with the sheet metal man, Smith, installing cooling and heating systems in houses under construction.

Chappuis was nailing two pine boards together with common nails when injured. He had worked only about three weeks, and had obtained the hammer from the employer's truck. Neither Chappuis nor Smith nor Tucker was aware that the hammer had been damaged before the accident. Tucker's wife had bought this hammer and two others from Sears in December of 1972 for $9.51.

All the relevant evidence is undisputed. The hammer was an ordinary claw hammer with curved claws and a fiberglass handle, of the kind commonly used by carpenters for driving nails. It and about two million other such hammers a year were manufactured by Vaughan and Bushnell, from whom Sears ordered hammers to their specifications, with Sears' name and their "Craftsman" trademark and a warning label on the handle. The witness from Sears said the warnings had been on the hammers since about 1972; Vaughan and Bushnell had added the warning labels to hammers since 1966. The label was mutilated when Chappuis used the hammer, but, when new, was of this size and content:

                WARNING                    BE SAFE                    WEAR SAFETY GOGGLES
                

This hammer is intended for driving and pulling common nails only. Hammer

face may chip if struck against another hammer, hardened nails, or other

hard objects, possibly resulting in eye or other bodily injury.

The surgeon removed a steel chip about two and one-half mm long and one mm wide from the eye of Chappuis. The chip was later fitted in a larger chipped place from the edge of the hammer; experts located seven chipped places in the edge of the face of the hammer.

The evidence established careful manufacture and quality control of hammers by the manufacturer. Traditional and good quality steel was used, hardened to a depth of about three-sixteenth inches to a satisfactory hardness for the intended use of the hammer. The face of the hammer was called both the "ball" and "crown," denoting its rounded, convex surface. There was a 45o chamfer, or beveled edge, about one-eighth inch deep around the face.

The manufacturer had never seen a chipped face on any of the thousands of damaged hammers which had been returned to it, but chipped edges were relatively common. A hammer in good condition could not be chipped when striking common nails. Chipping could occur when metal or tools as hard or harder than the hammer were struck a "foul blow," or struck with the edge of the hammer.

However, once chipped, the hammer became unsafe, since it would likely chip again. Even striking a common nail with a chipped hammer might cause it to chip again. Once chipped, a hammer should be discarded. The manufacturer knew this, and all the experts agreed.

A trade association to which the manufacturer belonged had printed and distributed a few thousand booklets containing this information in 1973, after the manufacturer of the hammer here involved, but the warning was not on the warning label on the hammer, nor was it disseminated at the store where the hammer was bought.

The Court of Appeal held that "(T)here is ample evidence in this case from which the jury could have concluded that there was no defect in the design or manufacture of the hammer, and that it had been misused prior to the accident." 349 So.2d at 965. Indeed, the jury answered "no" to the special interrogatory: "Do you find any defect in the design or manufacture of the hammer or do you find the defendants otherwise at fault which caused plaintiff's injury?"

What the Court of Appeal overlooked (and the interrogatory to the jury omitted) was that, to recover, plaintiff need not prove defective design or manufacture, if he proves he was injured by a product 'unreasonably dangerous to normal use.' Weber v. Fidelity v. Casualty Ins. Co. of N.Y., 259 La. 599, 250 So.2d 754, 756.

The evidence is uncontradicted that Chappuis did not abuse the hammer, and that he was using the hammer 'for driving and pulling common nails,' as stated in the warning, a remnant of which was still on the hammer when the accident happened. Chappuis' use of the hammer was 'normal use.' When all the experts and all the officers and employees of the manufacturer who testified agreed that a chipped hammer is so dangerous that it should be discarded, we can only conclude that such a hammer, placed in commerce without a warning that it must be discarded when chipped, is unreasonably dangerous to normal use. (See C.C. 2474: 'The seller is bound to explain himself clearly respecting the extent of his obligations: any obscure or ambiguous clause is construed against him.').

We find, therefore, that the knowledge which seems to have been peculiarly with the manufacturer and the experts-that a chipped hammer is dangerously likely to chip again in normal use-and the failure to inform the user of the danger is 'fault' referred to in C.C. 2315. ² The failure to warn falls below the reasonable standard of care, established by statute: 'The seller, who knows the vice of the thing he sells and omits to declare it, . . . is answerable to the buyer in damages. ' C.C. 2545. The standard of care is fixed in Title VII, Of Sale; the liability to Chappuis is fixed by C.C. 2315, if he shows the failure to act 'causes damage' to him.

The responsibility of Sears is the same as that of the manufacturer. First, it held the product out to the public as its own. Penn v. Inferno Manufacturing Corp., 199 So.2d 210 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1967). Second, the size, volume and merchandising practices of Sears, unlike those of Reliable Motors in Spillers v. Montgomery Ward et al., 282 So.2d 546 (La.App.2d Cir. 1973), bring Sears within the class of "professional venders," who are presumed to know of the defects in their wares. See Morrow, Warranty of Quality, 14 Tul.L.Rev. 529, 539 (1940). Reliable Motors, Inc. was a relatively small truck retailer. The relationship between a retailer like Sears and its manufacturers on the other hand, with its capabilities for controlling the quality of its merchandise, justifies the imputation to Sears of knowledge of its defects.

The causal relationship between the injury to plaintiff and the absence of a warning about a danger known to the manufacturer is adequately demonstrated. It would be an unjustified assumption to say that store clerks, builders, tradesmen and hammer users of all kinds would be ignorant of the fact that a chipped hammer should be discarded if that warning were disseminated with each sale (at the rate of two million a year from one manufacturer alone). If Chappuis knew, or should have...