Owens v. Allis-Chalmers Corp., ALLIS-CHALMERS

• Decision Date: 08 May 1978
• Docket Number: Docket No. 31521,ALLIS-CHALMERS
• Citation: 83 Mich.App. 74,268 N.W.2d 291
• Parties: Sallie Mae OWENS, Administratrix of the Estate of Dan Owens, Jr., Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v.CORPORATION, a corporation, Defendant-Appellee. 83 Mich.App. 74, 268 N.W.2d 291
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

Page 291

268 N.W.2d 291

Sallie Mae OWENS, Administratrix of the Estate of Dan Owens Jr., Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ALLIS-CHALMERS CORPORATION, a corporation Defendant-Appellee.

Docket No. 31521.

83 Mich.App. 74, 268 N.W.2d 291

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

May 8, 1978.

Released for Publication Aug. 1, 1978.

[83 MICHAPP 76] Hurwitz & Karp by Miles A. Hurwitz, Dearborn, for plaintiff-appellant; Conklin, Benham, McLeod, Ducy & Ottaway by John J. Beach, Detroit, of counsel.

Daniel L. Garan, Gromek & Bendure by Mark R. Bendure, Detroit, for defendant-appellee.

Before BASHARA, P. J., and GILLIS and KAUFMAN, JJ.

BASHARA, Presiding Judge.

This is an appeal by plaintiff from a directed verdict granted to defendant at the conclusion of plaintiff's proofs. On a theory of products liability, plaintiff sought recovery for the [83 MICHAPP 77] death of her husband, who was killed when the forklift truck he was operating for his employer overturned, crushing his skull with the overhead, protective guard.

No one witnessed the occurrence. Decedent reported to his job and was instructed to drive a forklift to another plant on his employer's property. Moments after he left, other employees, en route over the same roadway to the same location, discovered decedent pinned under the overhead guard of the forklift. As it then appeared, the forklift had traveled off the roadway, struck a concrete-filled post, and turned over onto its side.

The forklift was manufactured by defendant and sold with other forklift vehicles to the decedent's employer by one of defendant's dealers. Plaintiff alleged that defendant was negligent in the design of the forklift, that the defective design constituted a breach of warranty, and that defendant was liable under the doctrine of strict liability in tort. Design defect allegations were predicated principally upon the absence of driver restraints on the vehicle, such as seat belts or a protective enclosure.

At trial, plaintiff's expert witness testified at length about the inadequacy of the static stability tests utilized by the forklift manufacturers, generally. His opinion was that dynamic stability tests were essential to ascertain the true handling characteristics of forklift vehicles so that proper design technology could be developed.

He also testified as to the risks of injury created by the absence of some driver restraint apparatus in forklifts equipped with an overhead guard. He opined that, given the unstable handling qualities of a forklift and the concomitant high probability of rollovers, some form of driver restraint system [83 MICHAPP 78] was necessary for a properly designed forklift. Notably, on cross-examination, the expert witness was unable to specify any industry standard, legislative enactment, or government regulation requiring the installation of a driver restraint device on forklifts or establishing dynamic stability testing requirements.

The trial court concluded there was no evidence to show that defendant was negligent in failing to adhere to some standard for testing or designing its forklifts. Further, the trial court found the evidence presented did not establish that any defect in the forklift was causally related to the decedent's death.

Plaintiff claims that the question of whether the forklift was defectively designed should have been submitted to the jury. She urges that the expert testimony, stating that a driver restraint device would have prevented the decedent's death, is itself sufficient to raise a question of fact as to the defective design.

Our discussion of this case may be narrowed by making a number of observations. This Court has recognized that the requisite elements for a cause of action based upon strict liability in tort are congruent to those for breach of warranty. Williams v. Detroit Edison Co., 63 Mich.App. 559, 567, 234 N.W.2d 702, 707 (1975), lv. den. 395 Mich. 800 (1975). See also Johnson v. Chrysler Corp., 74 Mich.App. 532, 535-36, 254 N.W.2d 569, 571-572 (1977), lv. den. 400 Mich. 861 (1977). Therefore, the strict liability count is a mere redundancy, since recovery is equally available by the action for breach of warranty.

Further, we have carefully reviewed the evidence presented by plaintiff on the claim of negligence and defective design, especially the extensive[83 MICHAPP 79] testimony of plaintiff's expert witness. That evidence showed that forklifts are, by their nature, unstable vehicles. There is nothing to show how the vehicles' stability may be enhanced, given the design characteristics mandated by the vehicles' intended uses. Merely because an injury results from the use of a machine does not ipso facto mean that the machine is defective. Manufacturers are not required to make mechanical devices "accident-proof". Parsonson v. Construction Equipment Co., 386 Mich. 61, 64-65, 191 N.W.2d 465, 466 (1971).

At the commencement of this discussion, we deem it important to emphasize that this litigation does not involve a claim that the fatal injury resulted from some machine part that malfunctioned as a result of a defect in its manufacture. The responsibility of the trier of fact for finding a defect and injury causation as a matter of fact is well-established in that context. Caldwell v. Fox, 394 Mich. 401, 231 N.W.2d 46 (1975). See also Kupkowski v. Avis Ford, Inc., 395 Mich. 155, 235 N.W.2d 324 (1975).

When courts are confronted with claims of product design defects, there is a geometric increase in the complexity of the issues. Product design choices are multi-faceted, or as one legal writer has termed it, polycentric. ¹ That is, design choices involve such considerations as the intended use and utility of the product, cost constraints dictated by the marketplace and the manufacturer's competitive position, safety standards established by the industry or government regulation and the [83 MICHAPP 80] feasibility of alternative designs, to name only a few. ² To the extent that another coordinate branch of government has not determined the degree to which public policy shall govern design choices, the task devolves upon the judiciary.

Considering the nature of the design process, we find that adjudication must necessarily play a limited role in setting design standards. Without some extrajudicially established guidelines, the adjudicatory standard-setting process would resort to an assessment of conflicting expert testimony by those not possessed of the requisite expertise to adequately evaluate the interrelated and interdependent design choice criteria. Additionally, this evaluation would be made within an atmosphere susceptible to influence by sympathy for an injured plaintiff, instead of an abstract concern for the desirable effect that public policy should play in governing a manufacturer's design choices. Inevitably, this would lead to varying standards from jury to jury or trial court to trial court. ³

We are merely recognizing from the foregoing considerations that triers of fact are not formulators of public policy and that trial courts are inappropriate for the task in the area of product design choices. ⁴ This is not to say that plaintiffs [83 MICHAPP 81] have no means by which they can seek recovery for injuries resulting from the conscious design choices of manufacturers where extrajudicial design guidelines are absent.

There remains a duty of manufacturers to provide adequate warnings to potential users of their products of the latent risks of injury created by their selection of product design. See Comstock v. General Motors Corp., 358 Mich. 163, 99 N.W.2d 627 (1959). The adequacy of the warning under the particular circumstances of a given case, is a question for resolution by the...