Laaperi v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., Inc.

• Citation: 787 F.2d 726
• Decision Date: 31 March 1986
• Docket Number: Nos. 85-1284,s. 85-1284
• Parties: , 4 Fed.R.Serv.3d 678, Prod.Liab.Rep.(CCH)P 10,972 Albin LAAPERI, Administrator of the Estate of Alan Laaperi, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO., INC., et al., Defendants, Appellants. Albin LAAPERI, Administrator of the Estate of James Laaperi, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO., INC., et al., Defendants, Appellants. Albin LAAPERI, Administrator of the Estate of Paul Laaperi, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO., INC., et al., Defendants, Appellants. Janet LAAPERI, PPA, by Her Father, Albin Laaperi, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO., INC., et al., Defendants, Appellants. to 85-1287.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit)

Page 726

787 F.2d 726

54 USLW 2527, 4 Fed.R.Serv.3d 678,

Prod.Liab.Rep.(CCH)P 10,972

Albin LAAPERI, Administrator of the Estate of Alan Laaperi, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO., INC., et al., Defendants, Appellants.

Albin LAAPERI, Administrator of the Estate of James Laaperi, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO., INC., et al., Defendants, Appellants.

Albin LAAPERI, Administrator of the Estate of Paul Laaperi, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO., INC., et al., Defendants, Appellants.

Janet LAAPERI, PPA, by Her Father, Albin Laaperi, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO., INC., et al., Defendants, Appellants.

Nos. 85-1284 to 85-1287.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Argued Nov. 15, 1985.

Decided March 31, 1986.

Barbara L. Moore with whom Earle C. Cooley, William A. Curry and Cooley, Manion Moore & Jones, P.C., Boston, Mass., were on brief, for defendants, appellants.

Edward P. Reid, President, Automatic Fire Alarm Ass'n, on brief, for Automatic Fire Alarm Ass'n, amicus curiae.

Fredric A. Swartz, with whom Edward M. Swartz, Alan L. Cantor and Swartz & Swartz, Boston, Mass., were on brief for plaintiffs, appellees.

Before CAMPBELL, Chief Judge, BREYER and TORRUELLA, Circuit Judges.

LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Chief Judge.

This is an appeal from jury verdicts totalling $1.8 million entered in a product liability suit against defendants Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Pittway Corporation. The actions were brought by Albin Laaperi as administrator of the estates of his three sons, all of whom were killed in a fire in their home in December 1976, and as father and next friend of his daughter, Janet, who was injured in the fire. Plaintiff's theory of recovery was that defendants had a duty to warn plaintiff that a smoke detector powered by house current, manufactured by Pittway and sold to Laaperi by Sears, might not operate in the event of an electrical fire caused by a short circuit. Defendants contend on appeal that the district court erred in denying their motions for directed verdict and judgment notwithstanding the verdict; that the admission into evidence of purportedly undisclosed expert testimony violated Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(e); and that the award of $750,000 for injuries to Janet Laaperi was excessive and improper. We affirm the judgments in favor of plaintiff in his capacity as administrator of the estates of his three sons, but vacate the judgment in favor of Janet Laaperi, and remand for a new trial limited to the issue of her damages.

I.

In March 1976, plaintiff Albin Laaperi purchased a smoke detector from Sears. The detector, manufactured by the Pittway Corporation, was designed to be powered by AC (electrical) current. Laaperi installed the detector himself in one of the two upstairs bedrooms in his home.

Early in the morning of December 27, 1976, a fire broke out in the Laaperi home. The three boys in one of the upstairs bedrooms were killed in the blaze. Laaperi's 13-year-old daughter Janet, who was sleeping in the other upstairs bedroom, received burns over 12 percent of her body and was hospitalized for three weeks.

The uncontroverted testimony at trial was that the smoke detector did not sound an alarm on the night of the fire. The cause of the fire was later found to be a short circuit in an electrical cord that was located in a cedar closet in the boys' bedroom. The Laaperi home had two separate electrical circuits in the upstairs bedrooms: one which provided electricity to the outlets and one which powered the lighting fixtures. The smoke detector had been connected to the outlet circuit, which was the circuit that shorted and cut off. Because the circuit was shorted, the AC-operated smoke detector received no power on the night of the fire. Therefore, although the detector itself was in no sense defective (indeed, after the fire the charred detector was tested and found to be operable), no alarm sounded.

Laaperi brought this diversity action against defendants Sears and Pittway, asserting negligent design, negligent manufacture, breach of warranty, and negligent failure to warn of inherent dangers. The parties agreed that the applicable law is that of Massachusetts. Before the claims went to the jury, verdicts were directed in favor of defendants on all theories of liability other than failure to warn. ¹

Laaperi's claim under the failure to warn theory was that he was unaware of the danger that the very short circuit which might ignite a fire in his home could, at the same time, incapacitate the smoke detector. He contended that had he been warned of this danger, he would have purchased a battery-powered smoke detector as a back-up or taken some other precaution, such as wiring the detector to a circuit of its own, in order better to protect his family in the event of an electrical fire.

The jury returned verdicts in favor of Laaperi in all four actions on the failure to warn claim. The jury assessed damages in the amount of $350,000 in each of the three actions brought on behalf of the deceased sons, and $750,000 in the action brought on behalf of Janet Laaperi. The defendants' motions for directed verdict and judgment notwithstanding the verdict were denied, and defendants appealed.

II.

Defendants contend that the district court erred in denying their motions for directed verdict and judgment n.o.v. First, they claim that they had no duty to warn that the smoke detector might not work in the event of some electrical fires. Second, they maintain that even if they had such a duty, there was insufficient evidence on the record to show that the failure to warn proximately caused plaintiff's damages. We address these arguments in turn.

A. Duty to Warn

We must look, of course, to Massachusetts law. While we have found no cases with similar facts in Massachusetts (or elsewhere), we conclude that on this record a jury would be entitled to find that defendants had a duty to warn. In Massachusetts, a manufacturer ² can be found liable to a user of the product if the user is injured due to the failure of the manufacturer to exercise reasonable care in warning potential users of hazards associated with use of the product. See, e.g., Mitchell v. Sky Climber, Inc., 396 Mass. 629, 487 N.E.2d 1374, 1376 (1986); Killeen v. Harmon Grain Products, 11 Mass.App. 20, 413 N.E.2d 767, 770 (1980); W. Prosser & W.P. Keeton, The Law of Torts Sec. 96, at 685 (5th ed. 1984). The manufacturer can be held liable even if the product does exactly what it is supposed to do, if it does not warn of the potential dangers inherent in the way a product is designed. It is not necessary that the product be negligently designed or manufactured; the failure to warn of hazards associated with foreseeable uses of a product is itself negligence, and if that negligence proximately results in a plaintiff's injuries, the plaintiff may recover. Schaeffer v. General Motors Corp., 372 Mass. 171, 174, 360 N.E.2d 1062, 1065 (1977). See also Mitchell, 487 N.E.2d at 1376; cf. Martinez v. Dixie Carriers, Inc., 529 F.2d 457, 465 (5th Cir.1976) (in a strict liability case, the failure to warn of the hazards associated with a product is itself a product "defect").

The sole purpose of a smoke detector is to alert occupants of a building to the presence of fire. The failure to warn of inherent non-obvious limitations of a smoke detector, or of non-obvious circumstances in which a detector will not function, can, we believe, "create an unreasonable risk of harm in that the inhabitants of a structure may be lulled into an unjustified sense of safety and fail to be forewarned of the existence of a fire." Butler v. Pittway Corp., 770 F.2d 7, 11 (2d Cir.1985). In the present case, the defendants failed to warn purchasers that a short circuit which causes an electrical fire may also render the smoke detector useless in the very situation in which it is expected to provide protection: in the early stages of a fire. We believe that whether such a failure to warn was negligent was a question for the jury.

To be sure, it was the fire, not the smoke detector per se, that actually killed and injured plaintiff's children. But as the Second Circuit recently held, the manufacturer of a smoke detector may be liable when, due to its negligence, the device fails to work:

Although a defect must be a substantial factor in causing a plaintiff's injuries, it is clear that a "manufacturer's liability for injuries proximately caused by these defects should not be limited to [situations] in which the defect causes the accident, but should extend to situations in which the defect caused injuries over and above that which would have occurred from the accident, but for the defective design."

Butler v. Pittway Corp., 770 F.2d at 9 (citations omitted) (smoke detector manufacturer can be held liable for personal injuries suffered in fire where defective detector failed to sound in timely fashion). See also Trust Corp. of Montana v. Piper Aircraft Corp., 506 F.Supp. 1093, 1094-95 (D.Mont.1981) (airplane manufacturer can be held liable for lack of shoulder harnesses where harnesses might have prevented some of injuries suffered in crash); Stahl v. Ford Motor Co., 64 Ill.App.3d 919, 21 Ill.Dec. 667, 670-71, 381 N.E.2d 1211, 1214-15 (1978) (auto manufacturer held liable for increased damages resulting from failure of seat belt during accident). The "crashworthiness" or "enhanced injury" automobile cases are to the same effect. See Larsen v. General Motors Corp., 391 F.2d 495, 503 (8th Cir.1968).

It is true that, unlike the above, there was no defect of design or manufacture in this case. But there was evidence from which it could be inferred that the absence of a warning enhanced the harm resulting from the fire. Plaintiff testified that if he had realized that a short circuit that caused an electrical fire might at the same time disable the smoke detector, he would have purchased a back-up battery-powered detector or wired the...