Tigert v. Admiral Corp.
| Decision Date | 17 July 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 51823,No. 2,51823,2 |
| Citation | 612 P.2d 1381 |
| Parties | Paul K. TIGERT, Appellant, v. The ADMIRAL CORPORATION and Cornish Furniture Company, d/b/a/ AMC Major Appliance Department, Appellees |
| Court | United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma |
Appeal from the District Court of Oklahoma County; William S. Myers, Jr., Trial Judge.
Action for damages arises out of fire loss caused by allegedly defective television set. From an order granting defendant's motion for summary judgment, plaintiff appeals.
REVERSED.
Stephen Peterson, Fenton, Fenton, Smith, Reneau & Moon, Oklahoma City, for appellant.
James M. Robinson, Monnet, Hayes, Bullis, Thompson & Edwards, Oklahoma City, for appellees.
Plaintiff's action to recover losses from a fire said to have been set by an Admiral television was summarily adjudicated in favor of defendants in advance of trial. Plaintiff appeals contending this was error. We agree and reverse.
In his second amended petition plaintiff alleged that in 1973 he bought a television made by the Admiral Corporation from Cornish Furniture Company and placed it in his home for viewing. On June 5, 1975 while plaintiff was out of town on vacation, the 19-inch black and white television set his house on fire and destroyed it. The action was founded on two recovery theories one, manufacturers' product liability, and two, breach of an implied warranty that the product was of merchantable quality and fit for its intended use.
Both theories were premised on the allegation that the television "was defective in design and manufacture." After being ordered to do so by the court, plaintiff set out certain specific things in his petition that could have been causally defective about the set; namely, (1) the high voltage transformer may have improperly generated excessive heat and ignited area materials whose ignition point was insufficient; (2) the low voltage power transformer may have been designed or constructed in such a manner that it generated heat in excess of the ignition point of nearby materials; (3) the off-on switch and related components may have been designed and constructed in such a manner as to allow arcing across certain contacts; (4) the dielectric components of the television may have been designed or constructed so as to permit high voltage arcing in various parts, components, and contacts; and (5) the set could have been constructed of materials that were combustible at temperatures normally achieved during its operation.
Further allegations were that, whatever the defect might have been it (1) was introduced into the set by the manufacturer, (2) rendered the television unreasonably dangerous, and (3) was the proximate cause of plaintiff's fire loss.
Evidence discovered by means of interrogatories and depositions disclosed that no one had repaired or otherwise disturbed the television internally since its acquisition new from the retailer presumably in a factory packed carton. When the fire started, the house was unoccupied and had been for five days.
On July 1, 1975 an expert in the field of "fire and explosions, accident reconstruction, and products failure . . . as they relate to chemistry and physics" examined the residential remains and in a room on the south side of the house found a completely burned out television chassis "setting in a pile of well burned debris on the floor." He said he could tell nothing about the circuitry of the television, of course, but from the "fire pattern" the burning around the television he concluded "that the television set was the most probable origin of the fire because there was nothing else in that area that would use electrical energy and would act as an ignition source for the fire."
On December 9, 1977 the trial court rendered a summary judgment for defendants after finding "that there is no evidence on the issue of liability other than that which appears in Answers to Interrogatories and Depositions on file herein" and it, when taken in a light most favorable to plaintiff, "does not raise the issue of the defendants' liability beyond the threshold of speculation and conjecture" with the consequence that any eventual "verdict for the plaintiff based on such evidence would require an inference on an inference and would constitute speculation and conjecture." In an effort to further bolster his decision the judge said he was aware of plaintiff's expert testimony but this was of no consequence because even if the television did start the fire one would have to "infer that in all probability (it) was defective (since the set was destroyed in the fire) . . . If this were the law in this (s)tate," argued the court, "few would need fire insurance as this (c)ourt is convinced that an expert could always be found who would give an opinion as to 'the most probable cause' of the fire, which would usually be the nearest electrical appliance to the point he thinks is where the fire most probably started."
There are two things wrong with this reasoning. First, it involves a misapplication of Rule 13 relating to summary judgments. That rule authorizes entry of a summary only when a review of all the material on file shows "that there is no substantial controversy as to any material fact." Thus in passing on a motion for summary judgment the question is not whether a party will be able to prove his cause or defense at trial, or persuade the jury to find for him, but whether one or more unresolved issues of material fact exist which must be decided before a judgment can be rendered. Or, to put it differently, if depositions, affidavits or other documentary evidence clearly demonstrate that the parties agree on the existence of all the material facts regarding issues raised by the pleadings, then, absent conflicting inferences, the need for a fact finding proceeding vanishes and the court should render such judgment as the agreed facts warrant. Perry v. Green, Okl., 468 P.2d 483 (1970). But if disputed facts underlie any material issue or if reasonable persons might draw conflicting inferences from the facts then clearly the issue must be resolved at trial. Northrip v. Montgomery Ward & Co., Okl., 529 P.2d 489 (1974).
The other flaw in the judge's reasoning is his conclusion that an inference the Admiral T.V. was defective could...
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