Prentis v. Yale Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 11 February 1985
• Docket Number: Docket No. 69581
• Parties: John PRENTIS and Helen Prentis, his wife, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. YALE MANUFACTURING COMPANY, Defendant-Appellant. 421 Mich. 670, 365 N.W.2d 176
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 176

365 N.W.2d 176

John PRENTIS and Helen Prentis, his wife Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. YALE MANUFACTURING COMPANY, Defendant-Appellant.

Docket No. 69581.

421 Mich. 670, 365 N.W.2d 176

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Argued March 6, 1984.

Decided Dec. 28, 1984.

Released for Publication Feb. 11, 1985.

Jaques Admiralty Law Firm by Leonard C. Jaques, Detroit, for plaintiffs-appellees.

Kerr, Russell & Weber by C. Kenneth Perry, Jr., Louis G. Corey, Detroit, for defendant-appellant Yale Mfg. Co.

Dickinson, Wright, Moon, VanDusen & Freeman by John E.S. Scott, Michael G. Vartanian, Detroit, for amicus curiae Michigan Defense Trial Counsel.

BOYLE, Justice.

This products liability action arose out of injuries sustained in an accident involving the operation of a hand-operated forklift manufactured by defendant. The procedural events leading up to this appeal include two trials ¹ and two reversals and remands for new trials by the Court of Appeals. ² 2] Plaintiffs John Prentis and his wife, Helen, brought suit alleging both negligence and breach of implied warranty, predicating defendant manufacturer's liability upon the alleged defective design of the forklift. Although the trial judge included both negligence and breach of warranty in his statement of plaintiffs' theory of the case to the jury, he refused to give plaintiffs' requested instructions on breach of implied warranty. ³ A judgment for the defendant, upon a jury verdict of no cause of action, was reversed by the Court of Appeals, which held that the trial court's failure to charge the jury as requested was reversible error, mandating a new trial. Prentis v. Yale Mfg. Co., 116 Mich.App. 466, 323 N.W.2d 444 (1982).

We granted leave to appeal and limited our inquiry to the following issue: whether the trial judge's refusal to instruct the jury on breach of warranty was reversible error in this products liability action against a manufacturer for an alleged defect in the design of a product, where the jury was properly instructed on the theory of negligent design.

I FACTS

The facts of this case are not seriously in dispute. In April of 1970, plaintiff John Prentis, who was employed as foreman of the parts department at an automobile dealership, sustained a hip injury in an accident involving the use of a forklift manufactured by defendant Yale Manufacturing Company and sold to plaintiff's employer in 1952. The forklift was a stand-up or walking type, termed by defendant a "walkie hi-lo" model, rather than a riding or sit down variety. It was operated by lifting its handle up, much like the handle of a wagon. The forklift was estimated by plaintiff to weigh about two thousand pounds and was powered by a large battery, which had to be recharged every night. The machine was equipped with a hand controlled "dead-man" switch which normally prevented it from moving if the operator let go of the handle or controls.

Mr. Prentis, who was sixty-three years old at the time of the accident, had been working at the automobile dealership for two years prior to his injury, and testified that he had occasionally operated the forklift during that period, although he had never been formally instructed as to its operation by his employer. He testified that he was aware of and had previously experienced problems with the machine. After use for five or six hours, the battery charge would run down and the machine would operate erratically. When the battery was low, Mr. Prentis said he would play the handle back and forth to get the machine to start and when he did this the machine was subject to power surges which he said could throw a person off balance if care was not taken. He testified that prior to his accident, the machine had broken through the garage door of the dealership five or six times due to such power surges.

The accident in which Mr. Prentis was injured occurred late in the day, and he testified that he was aware at the time that the battery charge on the forklift was running low. After using the machine to assist him in placing an engine inside the cargo area of a delivery van, while the forklift was in tow behind him on a slightly inclined ramp leading from the delivery bay, Mr. Prentis attempted to start the machine by working the handle up and down. When the machine experienced a power surge, he lost his footing and fell to the ground. It appears that plaintiff's injuries were a result of the fall only, as the machine did not hit or run over him, but continued past him and stopped when it ran into a parked car. Mr. Prentis received extensive treatment for multiple fractures of his left hip.

Plaintiffs filed suit in August of 1972, alleging negligence, failure to warn, and breach of implied warranty, and the case proceeded to trial in August of 1976. Judgment of no cause of action based upon a jury verdict in favor of the defendant was entered on September 17, 1976, and was reversed by the Court of Appeals in an unpublished opinion dated July 7, 1978. The reversal was based upon a finding that the trial court abused its discretion when it prevented plaintiffs' expert on human factors from expressing his opinion on the design of the machine in question, because he had no experience with that type of machine. The court based its reversal upon a finding that the excluded testimony was integrally related to plaintiffs' theory of the case which was a design defect. Denial of leave by this Court on July 19, 1979, resulted in remand for a second trial which commenced on January 16, 1980.

Plaintiffs' proofs in the 1978 and 1980 cases were identical and included the testimony of both Mr. Prentis and his wife, a treating physician and two expert witnesses. In the 1980 trial, plaintiffs' counsel read into evidence the complete testimony of the two experts transcribed in the 1978 trial. The focus of plaintiffs' proofs at both trials was an alleged defect in the design of the forklift, and the substance of the expert witness's testimony was that the design of the forklift failed to properly incorporate the operator as a "human factor" into the machine's function, specifically because it did not provide a seat or platform for the operator. ⁴ However, in the period between the Court of Appeals reversal and the second trial, Michigan had enacted the "products liability statute," M.C.L. Sec. 600.2945 et seq.; M.S.A. Sec. 27A.2945 et seq., which became effective on December 11, 1978, resulting in some confusion as to the proper legal principles to be applied in this case.

During the course of trial, plaintiffs' counsel requested separate jury instructions on implied warranty and negligence theories, ⁵ while counsel for defendant requested a unified jury instruction. ⁶ After considerable discussion and argument and a careful review and analysis of the most recent case law under the new statute, the court instructed the jury on a unified standard of liability by using an amalgam of the common elements of proof under the implied warranty and negligence theories.

The trial judge instructed the jury on:

1) Defendant's duties and liabilities as a manufacturer:

"A manufacturer of a product made under a plan or design which makes it dangerous for uses for which it is manufactured is ... subject to liability to others whom he should expect to use the product or to be endangered by its probable use from physical harm caused by his failure to exercise reasonable care in the adoption of a safe plan or design.

"A manufacturer has a duty to use reasonable care in designing his product and guard it against a foreseeable and unreasonable risk of injury and this may even include misuse which might reasonably be anticipated."

2) Negligent conduct of both plaintiff and defendant:

"Now when I use the word 'negligence' with respect to the Defendant's conduct, I mean the failure to do something which a reasonably careful person would do or the doing of something which a reasonably careful person would not do under the circumstances which you find existed in this case.

"It is for you to decide what a reasonably careful person would do or not do under the circumstances.

"When I use the words 'ordinary care,' I mean the care a reasonably careful person would use under the circumstances which you find existed in this case. The law does not say what a reasonably careful person would do or would not do under such circumstances. That is for you to decide.

"Now it was the duty of the Plaintiff in connection with this occurrence to use reasonable care for his own safety, and it was the duty of the Defendant in connection with this occurrence to use ordinary care for the safety of the Plaintiff." (83a-84a)

Following the jury instructions on liability, the court read both parties' written theories of the case to the jury, including plaintiffs' claims under both negligence and breach of warranty. The jury panel was then given a special verdict form which first asked the following question:

"Question No. 1: Was the motorized hand truck defectively designed by Yale Manufacturing Company?

"Answer: ______ (Yes or No).

"(If your answer is no, do not answer any further questions)."

Question No. 1 was answered in the negative by the jury panel, and a judgment of no cause of action was entered by the trial court on February 28, 1980.

Plaintiff filed a timely claim of appeal in the Court of Appeals. On May 20, 1982, the Court of Appeals issued a published per curiam opinion reversing the trial court judgment and remanding for a new trial. Prentis v. Yale, 116 Mich.App. 466, 323 N.W.2d 444 (1982). The Court of Appeals held that the trial court's failure to give the properly requested jury instruction on implied warranty was reversible error requiring a new trial. We granted defendant's application for leave to appeal on June 28, 1983. 417 Mich. 1039 (1983).

II

ANALYSIS OF THE CURRENT STATUS OF THE LAW REGARDING

MANUFACTURERS' LIABILITY FOR DEFECTIVE DESIGN

The development of the law...