Sidwell v. William Prym, Inc.

• Decision Date: 19 December 1986
• Docket Number: No. 16307,16307
• Citation: 730 P.2d 996,112 Idaho 76
• Parties: , Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 11,235 Michelle SIDWELL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. WILLIAM PRYM, INC., a Delaware corporation, Defendant-Respondent, and Smiths Management Corp., a Utah corporation, Defendant.
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

Page 996

730 P.2d 996

112 Idaho 76, Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 11,235

Michelle SIDWELL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. WILLIAM PRYM, INC., a Delaware corporation, Defendant-Respondent and Smiths Management Corp., a Utah corporation, Defendant.

No. 16307.

Supreme Court of Idaho.

Dec. 19, 1986.

Ronald S. George, Morgan & George, Pocatello, for plaintiff-appellant.

William D. Olson, Pocatello, for defendant-respondent.

SHEPARD, Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment in favor of defendant, entered following a directed verdict at the conclusion of plaintiff's case in a product liability case. Appellant asserts that the trial court erred in directing a verdict in favor of the defendant, and also erred in excluding certain proffered testimony of plaintiff's expert witness. We affirm.

Plaintiff Sidwell was wearing a dress, and her mother was using pins to place a hem in the dress. When Sidwell bumped or brushed against a coffee table the impact drove a pin into her knee area with sufficient force to strike the end of her femur. The pin broke into three pieces, two of which remained in the knee. One of those fragments was surgically removed, but the other had lodged in the bone and since its removal would cause permanent impairment of the knee, it was not removed. There has been resultant pain and a serious curtailment of the activities of Sidwell. The pins were manufactured by Prym and were sold by Smith's.

Sidwell has alleged that the pins were defective and unusually dangerous, that they were defectively designed, and that there was a duty to warn of the brittle nature of the pins. Sidwell asserted that the pins in question here differ from common ordinary pins used in dressmaking. She asserts that common ordinary pins are made from a material which is ductile, and hence the pins will bend when placed under stress. The pins at issue here, however, are made from a different type of material which is not ductile and hence are brittle, with a tendency to break rather than bend when placed under stress.

Albeit the verdict was directed at the conclusion of plaintiff's case, and therefore the defense presented no evidence as such, plaintiff called an officer of the defendant who testified at length regarding the pins. While plaintiff called that witness for cross-examination, and hence is not bound by that testimony, nevertheless that testimony is in the record, is before us, and is uncontroverted. That testimony, as well as all the other testimony, indicates that the pins in question here were labeled and sold as "needle-steel" pins. The metal used in the manufacturing process is of hardened tempered steel so it can be drawn to a thousandth of an inch. The pins are longer and thinner than common pins, are sold for use on fine materials, and hence the points are much sharper than a common pin so that the fine materials will not be damaged. They are brass plated and colored and designed to resemble as closely as possible a hand-sewing needle. In order to achieve the above purposes, hardened tempered steel is used because those purposes cannot be achieved with a low-carbon steel. Ordinary common pins are made from a low-carbon steel which is ductile when drawn. The type of pins here are brittle because of the inherent nature of the material from which they are made. The pins in question are manufactured by Prym in Europe, and during the years they have been manufactured Prym has sold billions of those pins. Although popular in Europe, only approximately five percent of the dressmaking pins sold in the United States are of the Prym type of needle-steel pins.

As above noted, Sidwell asserts that the trial court erred in directing a verdict for Prym at the conclusion of plaintiff's case. On a motion for a directed verdict the moving party admits the truth of the adverse party's evidence and every legitimate inference that may be drawn therefrom. Fousch v. Chrysler Motors Corp., 107 Idaho 701, 692 P.2d 345 (1984). A directed verdict should only be granted when the evidence is so clear and undisputed that all reasonable minds must reach the same conclusion. Shields & Co., Inc. v. Green, 100 Idaho 879, 606 P.2d 983 (1980); Thomas Helicopters, Inc. v. Spray-Rite, Inc., 102 Idaho 567, 633 P.2d 1145 (1981). A motion for directed verdict presents a trial judge with a pure question of law, i.e., whether, as a matter of law, plaintiff produced sufficient evidence (not a mere scintilla) from which reasonable minds could conclude that a verdict in favor of the plaintiff was proper. Upon appeal the standard of review is the same, i.e., to determine whether as a matter of law plaintiff produced sufficient evidence from which reasonable minds could conclude that a verdict in favor of the plaintiff was proper. Gmeiner v. Yacte, 100 Idaho 1, 592 P.2d 57 (1979); 9 Wright & Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure §§ 2524, 2536 (1971).

It is also stated in Gmeiner, supra, and Wright & Miller, supra, that although the court has power to grant a directed verdict at the close of plaintiff's case, the better and safer practice is to defer a ruling upon the motion until both sides have finally rested. It is also stated that even at the close of all the evidence it may be desirable to refrain from directing a verdict and submit the cause to the jury. Thereafter, on appellate review, if it is determined the trial court was in error in its appraisal of the evidence, judgment on the verdict can be entered without the need for an entire new trial.

We thus review the record to determine if Sidwell produced sufficient evidence upon which reasonable minds could find in favor of Sidwell. The evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to Sidwell. In any event, the evidence is essentially uncontroverted. At this juncture there is no question but the accident happened and that Sidwell suffered some damage therefrom. While there is some conflict in the evidence as to whether Sidwell's complaints of disability result from the accident at issue here, or from other causes, at this juncture that conflict must be resolved in favor of Sidwell.

The uncontroverted evidence reveals that in order to obtain the thin profile and their sharp point, the "needle-steel" pins had to be manufactured from a material which was not ductile, i.e., they would break rather than bend under pressure. It is the focus of Sidwell's contention that such lack of ductility or "brittle design" poses "a danger to anticipated users that could only be eliminated by taking the pins off the market or providing a proper warning."

This Court has stated in Rindlisbaker v. Wilson, 95 Idaho 752, 759, 519 P.2d 421, 428 (1974):

It is clear that a failure to warn may be used as a basis for a strict liability case. Comment H, Restatement Torts 2d, § 402A, provides that where the defendant has "reason to anticipate that danger may result from a particular use" of his product and he fails to give adequate warnings of such a danger, "a product sold without such warning is in a defective condition." This rule, however, is limited to situations wherein the danger is not obvious.

In the instant case it is clear that the manufacturer could anticipate the danger of a pin pricking, puncturing, or piercing dressmaking or other materials or the bodily surface of a user. However, it is equally clear that such danger is as obvious to the user as it is to the manufacturer. Hence, there was no requirement that the manufacturer give notice of such a danger, and a jury could only have found that such danger was obvious.

The focus in the instant case, however, is not the danger of piercing or puncturing, but rather the danger that a pin will be driven into the body with such force that it strikes a bone and shatters because of its brittle nature. In this regard these pins are no different than many other objects such as a needle, a knife, or a pointed piece of lead in a pencil. All, no doubt, if driven into a solid object with sufficient force will break rather than bend.

It is argued that such pins and their brittle nature might pose a danger in different circumstances, i.e., that the use of a sewing machine to stitch over the top of a row of such pins might fracture a pin and result in flying fragments. The evidence indicates, however, that billions of such pins have been sold throughout the world without any complaints or problems. Even plaintiff's own expert witness admitted that while billions of such pins have been sold, that he had no knowledge of any other accident or complaint of injury caused by such pins.

As noted by the Restatement, supra, a manufacturer may be liable for failure to give adequate warning when the manufacturer has "reason to anticipate that danger may result from a particular use" of the product. As noted in Rindlisbaker, supra, quoting from Thomas v. General Motors Corp., 13 Cal.App.3d 81, 91 Cal.Rptr. 301 (1971), the manufacturer must anticipate the product being used "for the uses for which it is manufactured" or "by its probable use."

Here, the manufacturer it seems, could anticipate that a user might attempt in dressmaking to bend such a pin or attempt to sew over the top of such pins, and in either event a fracture might result.

In the instant case, however, the manufacturer is asked to anticipate not only that pins will pierce, but they will be driven into the body with such force as to strike a bone and thus shatter. The circumstances of this case have been described as a freak accident that probably could not be duplicated under any conditions. Defendant's knee and the dress material had to strike the coffee table at a precise point and angle, and with such force that the pin was driven into the knee area to a depth where it struck a bone. It is argued that such a series of events could never be experimentally duplicated. We hold as a matter of law that reasonable minds could not differ on the inability of Prym to foresee the danger that the pins would be...