Griggs v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.
| Decision Date | 29 April 1975 |
| Docket Number | No. 74-1606,74-1606 |
| Parties | Clifford GRIGGS, Appellee, v. FIRESTONE TIRE AND RUBBER COMPANY, a corporation, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
William M. Freivogel, Ross, Hardies, O'Keefe, Babcock & Parsons, Chicago, Ill., for appellant.
Kenneth L. Dement, Sikeston, Mo., for appellee.
Before MATTHES, Senior Circuit Judge, HEANEY and WEBSTER, Circuit Judges.
On October 2, 1971, plaintiff Clifford Griggs was injured while attaching to a Ford truck a tire mounted on a Firestone multi-piece rim. As plaintiff was securing the wheel to the truck, the tire and rim assembly exploded, resulting in serious and permanent injuries to his face and head. Griggs filed suit against the Ford Motor Company and the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, but on plaintiff's motion the court subsequently dismissed Ford from the case. The cause was tried before a jury and plaintiff was awarded $250,000 in damages. Defendant Firestone, manufacturer of the rim, has appealed from the judgment entered on the verdict.
The case was submitted to the jury on a negligence theory of liability. The principal issues on this appeal are the questions whether the court correctly instructed the jury on the duty owed by Firestone to plaintiff Griggs and whether plaintiff's evidence made a submissible case. For the reasons set out below, we resolve these issues in favor of the plaintiff and affirm the judgment of the district court.
Initially, we review the circumstances of the accident and the proceedings in the district court. The rim assembly involved in this case consisted of three components: the rim itself, a side ring, and a lock ring. The rim was identified from metal stamp impressions thereon as being a Firestone type 20 x 7.5 DA 5o manufactured in 1957. The side ring and lock ring were riveted together and were identified from impressed metal stamps as being a Firestone type "R" side and lock ring combination generically equivalent to the 20 x 7.33 type R. The side ring was manufactured in 1945. There is no dispute that these components were mismatched and were not intended to form a unit.
The defendant conceded at trial and on appeal that mismatched rim components are capable of being assembled into a single unit and that such a mismatched assembly is potentially very dangerous.
The mismatch of the rim components in this case occurred in May, 1971, when Herman Fugate, the prior owner of the Ford truck involved in this case, traded the vehicle to Presson Ford Sales in part payment on a new purchase. Before making the transaction, Fugate removed the tires and rims from the truck, and replaced them with extra tires and mismatched rim components which he had accumulated. The actual assembling and mounting of the mismatched rims was made by the Drummond Service Station, a local garage.
The rims and tires placed on the Ford truck by Drummond in May remained thereon until Presson sold the truck to plaintiff's employer, Murray Maynard, in September, 1971. Shortly after the purchase one of the tires went flat, and Maynard directed plaintiff, who was employed as a truck and tractor driver, to make the necessary repair. Plaintiff on occasion had fixed flat tires mounted on wheels with split rims, but he had never repaired tires mounted on a three-piece assembly exactly like the one that injured him. In repairing the deflated tire, plaintiff removed it from the rim, examined the tube, and, failing to discover any puncture, replaced the tube into the tire. He then placed the tire on the rim base and replaced the split rim and ring. Plaintiff then inflated the tire to 80 pounds per square inch and mounted the tire and rim assembly on the axle of the truck. While plaintiff was fastening the lug nuts which secured the tire and rim assembly to the truck, the "tire blowed off," and the unit struck plaintiff in the face and head. He sustained a fractured skull, nose, cheekbones, and other facial injuries. The injuries caused him to be subject to epileptic seizures and he also lost partial vision in one eye.
Mr. Maynard collected the components of the rim shortly after the plaintiff was injured and retained them until they were delivered to plaintiff's attorney. The rim, side ring, and lock ring were exhibits in the case and were examined by the jury.
A principal issue at trial concerned the type of warnings which Firestone in fact conveyed and the type of warnings which would have been practicable for it to convey. Although the evidence was in some respects conflicting, defendant generally showed that it distributed catalogues containing safety information 1 and various other types of safety literature to the immediate distributors of its rims; namely, parts distributors and the manufacturers of vehicles with Firestone rims as original equipment. Plaintiff's evidence suggested that this literature did not trickle down (at least with any great impact) to the various local service stations which dealt in truck rims and repaired truck tires. There was conflicting testimony about whether it would have been practicable and worthwhile to impress a warning directly on the rim components. Plaintiff's witness, O. J. Hahn, an expert in mechanical engineering, thought that a short warning could appear on the components without creating any significant "stress lines" in the product which would render the rim less durable. 2 Firestone representative Walter D. Benjamin testified by deposition that complete assembly instructions could not be impressed on the rim parts. While admitting that it would be practicable to place a short warning on the pieces, he reasoned that such a warning would not mean anything to the ordinary individual.
At the close of plaintiff's evidence and again at the close of all the evidence, Firestone moved for a directed verdict. These motions were denied. In submitting the case to the jury, the court gave the Missouri Approved Instructions 3 for the negligence liability of a manufacturer of dangerous chattels. The jury was instructed that it must find for the plaintiff if:
Sixth, while the rim base and side ring and lock ring were being used in the manner and for the purpose intended, plaintiff was damaged as a direct result of such dangerous condition.
The court further instructed on Firestone's duty as follows:
If the jury believes from the evidence that in the exercise of ordinary care the defendant should have foreseen the probability that because of a mismatch of the rim and lock ring about which you have heard evidence, he would be exposed to hazards of injury resulting from such action, then it was the duty of the defendant Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, either to:
a) Give such probable user adequate warning of the danger arising from the use of mismatched parts, or,
b) In the absence of adequate warning as set out in (a) hereof, to apply such technology as the jury may believe from the evidence was then available to the defendant to so design the rim and lock ring to prevent the mismatch of those parts.
Firestone made only a very narrow objection to these instructions, stating:
The defendant, Your Honor, has objection to make to instruction number the defendant Firestone objects to the instruction number 2 on the grounds that this instruction by its language of stating that the rim base and side ring and lock ring were susceptible of being mismatched places an unwarranted burden on the defendant and misdirects the jury as to what the law is and directs the jury to believe that they can return a verdict against the defendant Firestone in this case if they find that the rim and lock ring is susceptible of being mismatched and, therefore, amounts to a misdirection to the jury.
The jury found for plaintiff and assessed damages at $250,000. Defendant moved for judgment n. o. v. and, in the alternative, for a new trial. These motions were denied and defendant has perfected this appeal. We proceed to analyze defendant's several assignments of error.
Some articles supplied for commerce are dangerous by their very nature, without regard to any product defect. A manufacturer or supplier of such inherently dangerous chattels is subject to a legal duty to exercise reasonable care in warning those expected to use the product of the danger presented. Liability is imposed where injury resulting from the use of the product is attributable to a breach of this "duty to warn." See Morris v. Shell Oil Co., 467 S.W.2d 39 (Mo.1971); Orr v. Shell Oil Co., 352 Mo. 288, 177 S.W.2d 608 (1944).
This rule of law is more precisely formulated in § 388 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts:
One who supplies directly or through a third person a chattel for another to use is subject to liability to those whom the supplier should expect to use the chattel with the consent of the other or to be endangered by its probable use, for physical harm caused by the use of the chattel in the manner for which and by a person for whose use it is supplied, if the supplier
a) knows or has reason to know that the chattel is or is likely to be dangerous for the use for which it is supplied, and
b) has no reason to believe that those for whose use the chattel is supplied will realize its dangerous condition, and
c) fails...
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