Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Hughes Supply, Inc.

• Decision Date: 02 March 1978
• Docket Number: Nos. 50411 and 52360,s. 50411 and 52360
• Citation: 358 So.2d 1339
• Court: Florida Supreme Court
• Parties: GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. and Travelers Insurance Co., Petitioners, v. HUGHES SUPPLY, INC., Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co., the Hanover Insurance Co. and Joseph Hale, Respondents. DAYTON TIRE & RUBBER CO. et al., Petitioners, v. Clyde E. DAVIS et al., Respondents.

Page 1339

358 So.2d 1339

GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. and Travelers Insurance Co., Petitioners, v. HUGHES SUPPLY, INC., Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co., the Hanover Insurance Co. and Joseph Hale, Respondents.

DAYTON TIRE & RUBBER CO. et al., Petitioners, v. Clyde E. DAVIS et al., Respondents.

Nos. 50411 and 52360.

Supreme Court of Florida.

March 2, 1978.

As Corrected On Denial of Rehearings June 13, 1978.

Janis M. Halker of Gurney, Gurney & Handley, Orlando, for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.

L. William Graham and Joe C. Willcox of Dell, Graham, Willcox, Barber, Ryals & Henderson, Gainesville, and W. C. O'Neal of Chandler, O'Neal, Gray, Lang & Haswell, Gainesville, for Dayton Tire & Rubber Co., petitioner.

Elmo R. Hoffman of Hoffman, Hendry, Smith, Stoner & Schoder, Orlando, for Hughes Supply, Inc.

Dan H. Honeywell of Billings, Frederick, Wooten & Honeywell, Orlando, for Clyde E. Davis, respondent.

ENGLAND, Justice.

Both the Goodyear and Dayton tire companies have asked us to review district court of appeal decisions involving essentially the same set of facts and the identical point of law. ¹ The availability of the reasoning of both district courts on the single legal issue suggested that we consolidate the cases for both analytical and opinion purposes.

These are personal injury cases initiated when an individual was injured while driving a motor vehicle on which a tire blew out. The tire in each case had been manufactured by the respective defendant tire company. In Goodyear's case the incident occurred after the allegedly defective tire had been in the possession and control of the plaintiff for one month, and had been driven 9,500 miles. In Dayton's case the plaintiff had been in possession and control of the tire for six months, and the tire had been driven 4,000 miles. A more complete recitation of the facts of the two occurrences, available in each of the district courts' opinions, is not essential to our review of the legal question presented.

In each case, a divided panel of the district court held that a jury instruction on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur was properly given, in addition to other standard jury instructions, despite the fact that both parties introduced substantial expert and other evidence tending to prove or disprove negligence associated with the plaintiff's use of the tire and in the tire manufacturing process. The basis for our review is the determination by each court that the plaintiff in a controverted negligence case is entitled to the benefit of the inference which the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur provides, a proposition in direct conflict with our decision in Frash v. Sarres, 60 So.2d 924 (Fla.1952). ²

In Frash the plaintiff was struck by the revolving blades of an overhead fan in defendant's restaurant while attempting to open a window shutter. The facts surrounding the injuring occurrence whirling fan blades coming in contact with the plaintiff were not in dispute, and liability hinged on whether the fan had been turned on before or after plaintiff's attempt to open the shutter. This was a factual matter on which "there were direct conflicts in the evidence." ³ Our Court there upheld the trial court's ruling that plaintiff was not entitled to the benefit of the inference which the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur would supply. In South Florida Hospital Corp. v. McCrea, 118 So.2d 25 (Fla.1960), we construed the Frash decision to mean that there is no room for an inference of negligence where direct evidence is adduced to reveal the circumstances surrounding the occurrence and to establish the precise cause of the plaintiff's injury.

The Frash and McCrea decisions are viewed by Goodyear and Dayton as our announcement that res ipsa loquitur is unavailable whenever a defendant introduces specific evidence tending to disprove its asserted negligence. Judges Walden and Smith, dissenting in the two cases now before us, have focused the problem in somewhat different terms. Judge Walden has isolated the factors which take this type of "exploding tire" case out of the mainstream of res ipsa loquitur cases, in particular rejecting his colleagues' acceptance of an attenuated "exclusive control" requirement for tire manufacturers. Judge Smith views the majority position in his court's case more broadly, and in developing his point he traces what he perceives to be an evolutionary departure from the basis on which the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur was first introduced into the fault system of tort liability. Both judges agree, however, that the use of a res ipsa inference in the situations presented here would essentially make it available for plaintiffs in every products liability lawsuit.

We are persuaded, after studying the able arguments of counsel and the thoughtful analyses of the law developed by all of the district court judges who considered these cases, that Judges Walden and Smith are correct in their penultimate conclusion, and that the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur has developed a judicial gloss which was never intended. Having the historical development so well presented in the opinions below, our reiteration of that history is unnecessary. The time seems propitious simply to address the dimensions of the doctrine head-on, and in so doing to restore the inference of negligence to its historically proper bounds that is, when direct evidence of negligence is unavailable to the plaintiff due to the unusual circumstances of the injuring incident.

Res ipsa loquitur "the thing speaks for itself" ⁴ is a doctrine of extremely limited applicability. It provides an injured plaintiff with a common-sense inference of negligence where direct proof of negligence is wanting, provided certain elements consistent with negligent behavior are present. Essentially, the injured plaintiff must establish that the instrumentality causing his or her injury was under the exclusive control of the defendant, and that the accident is one that would not, in the ordinary course of events, have occurred without negligence on the part of the one in control. ⁵ The district courts of Florida have expanded the doctrine far beyond its intended perimeters, both by liberalizing the elements requisite to its application and by allowing the development of inferences not only as to the incident itself but also as to pre-incident acts, such as manufacture or production.

Plainly, the threshold inquiry is whether that which occurred is a phenomenon which does not ordinarily happen except in the absence of due care. The initial burden is on the plaintiff to establish that the circumstances attendant to the injury are such that, in the light of past experience, negligence is the probable cause and the defendant is the probable actor. An injury standing alone, of course, ordinarily does not indicate negligence. The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur simply recognizes that in rare instances an injury may permit an inference of negligence if coupled with a sufficient showing of its immediate, precipitating cause. ⁶

In the cases now before us, persons were injured as a result of tire blowouts. Can it realistically be concluded, on the basis of previous human experience, that this "happening" does not ordinarily occur in the absence of negligence by the manufacturer? American courts have consistently, and thoughtfully, rejected that notion. ⁷ We, too, hold that res ipsa loquitur supplies no inference of the manufacturer's negligence in tire blowout cases, at least where the blowout has occurred after possession and some significant use by another. ⁸

Not only was the use of the negligence inference inappropriate in these cases because the facts surrounding the incident were discoverable and provable, and because they were not of a nature typically suggestive of negligence by the defendants, but the inference was inappropriate because the plaintiffs in these cases failed to allege and prove the essential element of defendant's exclusive control over the injury-causing instrumentality. In Schott v. Pancoast Properties, 57 So.2d 431, 432 (Fla.1952), we held:

"The doctrine may not be invoked unless it appear (sic) that the thing causing the injury was so completely in the control of the defendant that, in the ordinary course of events, the mishap could not have occurred had there been proper care on the defendant's part."

In the two cases before us, the evidence presented to establish the tire companies' sole control was wholly insufficient. Given the time of plaintiffs' control over the tires and the extent of their usage, it is impossible to assert that the tire companies had "exclusive control" at the time of the injuries.

We recognize that there...