Smith v. Regina Manufacturing Corporation
| Decision Date | 14 June 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 11976.,11976. |
| Parties | Cole L. SMITH, Appellee, v. REGINA MANUFACTURING CORPORATION, and Sears Roebuck and Company, Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
David W. Robinson, Columbia, S. C., (William Elliott, Columbia, S. C., on brief) for appellants.
J. Clator Arrants, Camden, S. C., for appellee.
Before SOBELOFF, BRYAN and CRAVEN, Circuit Judges.
Sears, Roebuck & Company and Regina Manufacturing Corporation, defendants in this products liability action brought under the diversity jurisdiction, appeal from a judgment for $85,000 entered upon a verdict of negligence. They raise certain common defenses, and other separate ones. Each challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury finding that it was negligent and argues that appellee's injuries resulted from his own negligence. The defendants further contend that, assuming arguendo that they are liable, the award was excessive. Separately, Sears denies liability for a product it neither designed nor manufactured, and Regina, the manufacturer, a Delaware corporation with headquarters in New Jersey, insists that it is not subject to process in South Carolina, where the injury occurred and this action was brought. Finding appellants' contentions devoid of merit, we affirm the judgment of the District Court.
Briefly stated, the facts are that plaintiff Cole L. Smith, a citizen of South Carolina, purchased from Sears' catalog store in Camden, S. C., an electric floor polisher-scrubber manufactured by Regina by sold under the Sears' tradename "Kenmore." After taking the polisher home and assembling it in his kitchen, Smith filled a special dispenser attached to the unit with a scrubbing solution, poured water on the floor and plugged the appliance into the nearest socket. Upon flipping the switch, Smith received a violent electric shock which threw him across the room and against a stove, causing a severe back injury.
Appellants insist that even if the manufacturer's stringent safety standards failed to disclose any defects before the machine left the plant, the proximate cause of the accident was Smith's contributory negligence in turning the polisher on while it was standing on a wet floor. The jury found that the polisher was defective at the time Smith threw the switch, and that the accident would not have occurred but for this defect. The trial transcript clearly supports this finding. Moreover, the manufacturer's instructions gave no warning against using the polisher on a wet floor.
Since it is not the manufacturer of the defective polisher, Sears further contends that under South Carolina law, which clearly governs this action, it may not be held liable for plaintiff's injuries. We disagree.
In Carney v. Sears Roebuck & Co., 309 F.2d 300 (4 Cir. 1962), this court, relying heavily on Judge Soper's opinion in Swift & Co. v. Blackwell, 84 F.2d 130 (4 Cir. 1936), recognized the doctrine that a retailer (in that case also Sears) who sold as its own a product manufactured by a third party could be held responsible for injuries resulting from defects arising in the course of manufacture, and we concluded that Virginia had adopted this rule. See Restatement of the Law of Torts, Vol. 2, § 400, comment c. While it is true that the state of South Carolina had not at the time of this trial adopted the rule per se, the pronouncements on products liability emanating from the highest court of that state clearly demonstrate a desire to protect consumers and correspondingly to impose stringent duties on sellers. Revealingly, the state has never recognized the rule of caveat emptor and has held non-warranty clauses inapplicable unless clearly brought to the buyer's attention. Stevenson v. B. B. Kirkland Seed Co., 176 S.C. 345, 180 S.E. 197, 201-202 (1935); Sanders v. D. Landreth Seed Co., 100 S.C. 389, 84 S.E. 880 (1915). For over 130 years, South Carolina has held to the principle that a retailer, "whether he was ignorant of the defect or conscious of it, is bound to take back the thing or to abate the price, and to make good the damages which the buyers shall have suffered." Stevenson v. B. B. Kirkland Seed Co., supra, 180 S.E. at 201. For a recent example of the liberal posture generally assumed by the state's Supreme Court in products liability cases see Springfield v. Williams Plumbing Supply Co., et al., 249 S.C. 130, 153 S.E.2d 184 (1967). Moreover, in 1966 the South Carolina legislature adopted its version of the Uniform Commercial Code which provides:
"(1) Unless excluded or modified, a warranty that the goods shall be merchantable is implied in a...
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