Love v. Mack Trucks, Inc.
| Decision Date | 03 July 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. C-840530,C-840530 |
| Parties | , 27 O.B.R. 238 LOVE et al., Appellants, v. MACK TRUCKS, INC. et al., Appellees. * |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court
1. The rule imposing an obligation on the manufacturer or seller to give suitable warning of a dangerous propensity of a product is a rule fixing a standard of care, and any tort resulting from the failure to meet this duty is, in essence, a negligent act. (Temple v. Wean United, Inc. [1977], 50 Ohio St.2d 317, at 325, 364 N.E.2d 267 , followed.)
2. A manufacturer is negligent when he has knowledge of a latent defect rendering a product unsafe and fails to provide a warning of such defect.
3. In a products liability case, when the record indicates that the truck tractor in question was free from defects at the time it was sold, but that a "fifth wheel" was welded to the frame of the tractor (for purposes of attaching a trailer) by an unknown person at some point subsequent to the sale, the granting of a motion for a directed verdict in favor of the manufacturer-dealer is not error, for the plaintiffs have failed to prove that the tractor was defective at the time it left the seller's hands. Restatement of the Law 2d, Torts (1965), Section 402A(1)(b).
William C. Knapp and Robert A. Gibson, Cincinnati, for appellants.
Rendigs, Fry, Kiely & Dennis and Ralph F. Mitchell, Cincinnati, for appellees.
This cause came on to be heard upon an appeal from the Court of Common Pleas of Hamilton County.
Plaintiffs-appellants, Woodrow and Clarabelle Love, appeal from the judgment of the trial court which granted a directed verdict in favor of defendants-appellees, Mack Trucks, Inc. (the manufacturer and dealer) ("Mack") and C.T. Corporation, Mack's statutory agent, at the close of appellants' case-in-chief. We find no merit to any of appellants' three assignments of error; consequently, we affirm the judgment below.
On June 30, 1980, appellant Woodrow Love was operating a 1969 Mack tractor on Interstate 40 near Lexington, Tennessee. Appellant, who was employed by H & H Steel Company, was pulling a trailer loaded with thirty-eight thousand pounds of steel plates. Appellant had just left an expressway entrance ramp and was slowly accelerating the tractor-trailer onto the interstate when he felt the trailer break away from the tractor. The trailer swung wildly from side to side and eventually struck a guardrail. The front end of the tractor was forced upward onto its rear wheels and subsequently flipped over. Appellant suffered serious injuries.
Thereafter, appellants instituted this action against appellees to recover damages for personal injuries. Appellants alleged in their complaint that the accident occurred because the fifth wheel had detached from the tractor chassis and caused the trailer to jackknife. The complaint alleged that appellees were liable to respond in damages under alternate theories of products liability, negligence, and breach of express and implied warranties. The complaint contained a claim by Woodrow Love's wife, Clarabelle, for loss of consortium.
At trial, appellants abandoned their claims against appellees for negligence and breach of warranty, and elected to proceed solely on a theory of products liability. Appellants' position was simply that the truck was in a defective condition when sold by Mack and was unreasonably dangerous to the plaintiff when used for its intended purpose, and for that reason, Mack was strictly liable to appellants for their resulting physical harm. As noted, appellees' motion for a directed verdict at the close of appellants' case-in-chief was granted by the trial court. From the judgment entry dated June 19, 1984, appellants timely filed the instant appeal.
On appeal, appellants urge us to reverse the judgment and remand this case for a new trial on the ground that the lower court committed three errors. The first assignment of error is that the trial court erred in directing a verdict for appellees for the reason that appellants had failed to prove that the truck contained a defect when it left the hands of the manufacturer; the second assignment is that the trial court erred in viewing the case as one which sounded in negligence, rather than strict products liability, merely because appellants alleged that Mack had failed adequately to warn consumers of a known danger; and the third assignment is that the trial court erred in directing a verdict for appellees on the ground that appellants had failed to prove that a weld failure had occurred. The resolution of appellants' first and third assignments depends upon an application of current products liability law to the evidence presented by appellants at trial; consequently, we will address these two assignments of error simultaneously.
Review of "[a] motion for a directed verdict does not present a question of fact or raise factual issues, but instead presents a question of law, even though in deciding such a motion it is necessary to review and consider the evidence. * * * " Ruta v. Breckenridge-Remy Co. (1982), 69 Ohio St.2d 66, 430 N.E.2d 935 , paragraph one of the syllabus. The trial and appellate courts, without weighing the evidence, must construe the evidence most strongly in favor of the nonmoving party and determine whether reasonable minds could come to but one conclusion on the evidence submitted, that conclusion being adverse to such party. If so, a directed verdict should be granted or affirmed. Strother v. Hutchinson (1981), 67 Ohio St.2d 282, 423 N.E.2d 467 ; Humphrey v. Dent (1980), 62 Ohio St.2d 273, 405 N.E.2d 284 ; Civ.R. 50(A)(4).
At trial, Woodrow Love testified that he inspected the tractor-trailer shortly after the accident and noticed that the fifth wheel, the large circular plate where a trailer is attached to a tractor, had detached from the tractor. Appellant stated that he could see that the fifth wheel had been welded, rather than bolted, to the frame of the tractor. Appellant also testified that two tires on the driver's side of the tractor had blown out.
Appellants' expert witness is a consultant who engages in the reconstruction of accidents and the analysis of mechanical failures. The expert testified that in his opinion, the cause of the accident was the separation of the fifth wheel from the frame of the tractor. The expert also testified that the truck was defective when it was placed into the stream of commerce because Mack failed adequately to warn of the dangers of welding, rather than bolting, a fifth wheel to the tractor.
Mr. Love's employer, H & H Steel Company, purchased the truck in question from Mack several years prior to the date of the accident. A Mack dealership sold the truck to H & H Steel Company without a fifth wheel attached. However, when the Mack manufacturer shipped the truck to its dealership in Omaha, Nebraska, it included a three-page document which carefully described the correct method for mounting fifth wheels. This document contained instructions for bolting the fifth wheel to the frame, and ended with the following statement:
The above warning was not given to H & H Steel Company by the Mack dealer. Rather, Mack placed a bright yellow sticker on the frame of the truck which stated:
There was no evidence adduced at trial to indicate who had welded the fifth wheel to the tractor in disregard of the above warning and caution sticker. Appellants freely admit that Mack did not weld the fifth wheel to the frame of the truck. A senior project engineer responsible for the installation of fifth wheels at Mack testified that Mack installs fifth wheels on "only ten to twenty percent of their trucks." He indicated that Mack does not manufacture fifth wheels, but that they will purchase and install fifth wheels if requested to do so by a buyer. He testified that a fifth wheel could be safely welded to the frame of a tractor if done by an experienced, highly skilled welder. He stated, however, that Mack included the warning and the caution sticker as a safety measure, because Mack could not be sure that a highly skilled welder would actually do the welding. Finally, he testified that from Mack's point of view, the warning and caution sticker adequately warned consumers of the potential danger associated with welding a fifth wheel to the frame of the tractor.
Aside from the above evidence and testimony, appellants introduced no evidence which indicated that the truck was in a defective condition or was unreasonably dangerous when sold by Mack. There was no direct evidence that a weld failure occurred, or that if it did, that such failure was the cause of the accident. Finally, there was no evidence which even remotely suggested that Mack had welded the fifth wheel to the frame of the tractor.
In the seminal case of Temple v. Wean United, Inc. (1977), 50 Ohio St.2d 317, 364 N.E.2d 267 , the Supreme Court of Ohio adopted Section 402A 1 of the Restatement of the Law 2d, Torts, thus providing a cause of action in strict liability for injury from a product in this state. The doctrine of strict liability evolved to place liability on the party primarily responsible for the injury, viz., the manufacturer of the...
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