Craig Woods v. A.R.E. Accessories, LLC

SECOND DIVISION
MILLER, P. J.,
ANDREWS and BROWN, JJ.
NOTICE: Motions for reconsideration must be
physically received in our clerk’s office within ten
days of the date of decision to be deemed timely filed.
http://www.gaappeals.us/rules
May 24, 2018
In the Court of Appeals of Georgia
A18A0292. WOODS et al. v. A.R.E. ACCESSORIES, LLC
ANDREWS, Judge.
While working for Fayette County Fire and Emergency Services (Fayette Fire),
Craig Woods suffered a head injury when the rear hatchback door on a pick-up truck
cap installed over the bed of a Fayette Fire truck fell on his head as he stood behind
the truck bed under the raised door. Woods and his wife (who asserted loss of
consortium) brought a product liability action against A.R.E. Accessories, LLC
(ARE), which manufactured the truck cap, and Custom Camper Manufacturing
Company, Inc. (Custom Camper), which sold the truck cap and installed it over the
bed of the pick-up truck. The action asserted strict liability and negligence claims on
the basis that the truck cap was defectively designed, and alleged that there was a
negligent failure to warn of the design defect. The trial court granted summary
judgment in favor of ARE and Custom Camper. Woods and his wife appeal from the
grant of summary judgement to ARE.1 We affirm because there was an absence of
evidence in the record that the truck cap was defectively designed. Rather, undisputed
facts showed that the truck cap door fell from the raised position and harmed Woods
solely because it was damaged by Fayette Fire’s unforeseeable misuse of the product.
Shortly after buying the pick-up truck, Fayette Fire bought the truck cap
product from Custom Camper, which installed it over the bed of the truck on
November 16, 2012. Thereafter, the truck and the truck cap were used by Fayette Fire
on a daily basis without any problems until the truck cap rear door fell on Wood’s
head about a year later on November 17, 2013. The accident occurred when Woods
raised the rear door to access the truck bed, and about 10 to 15 seconds later the door
fell from the raised position and hit Wood’s head. On November 8, 2013, nine days
before the accident, Fayette Fire took the truck to a non-party company, 144th
Marketing Group, LLC, which installed in the truck bed (under the ARE truck cap)
a product known as the “Extendobed,” a type of truck bed extender product. The
Extendobed was designed as a shelf which rolled in and out of the truck bed (with the
truck cap rear door in the raised position) to provide extended access to items placed
1
Woods and his wife dismissed their appeal from the trial court’s grant of
summary judgment in favor of Custom Camper.
2
on the shelf. Immediately after the November 17 accident, Woods asked another
Fayette Fire employee, Samuel Lindsey, to look at the rear door on the truck cap to
determine why the door fell from the raised position. Lindsey examined the rear door
and the recently installed Extendobed and determined: (1) that the door was held up
in the raised position by two gas struts (one on each side of the door) which attached
the door to the truck cap; (2) that the Extendobed installed in the truck bed had
insufficient clearance between the Extendobed rails and the gas struts; and (3) that,
when the Extendobed was rolled out of the truck bed with the rear door on the truck
cap in the raised position, the Extendobed hit and dislodged a joint on one of the gas
struts which caused the strut to detach from the door and caused the door to fall.
Evidence showed that, although the remaining undamaged gas strut provided some
resistence, it could not support the full weight of the door, so the door fell from the
raised position. To confirm that this caused the door to fall, Lindsay reattached the
strut joint to the raised rear door and physically rolled out the Extendobed while
observing the Extendobed strike the strut joint on the driver’s side strut. Lindsey also
observed that this problem was evidenced by visible scratch marks on the driver’s
side strut where the Extendobed had previously hit the strut. As an immediate
attempted fix, Lindsey bent the bracket attaching the strut to the truck cap to create
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additional clearance between the Extendobed and the strut. Fayette Fire eventually
cut and modified the Extendobed rails to allow clearance between the Extendobed
and the gas struts.
The record shows that ARE distributed a truck bed extender product for pick-
up truck beds with a slide-out shelf that was lower in height (six to eight inches off
the truck bed) than the gas struts on the rear door of the ARE truck cap, and
considerable lower in height than the “double-decker” height of the Extendobed
product which hit and dislodged the gas strut on the ARE truck cap. Although ARE
was aware of the use of other truck bed extender products on trucks using the ARE
truck cap, ARE was not aware (prior to the accident) of the Extendobed company or
its product and had no knowledge (until the accident) that the Extendobed had been
installed on the Fayette Fire pick-up truck. Prior to the accident, there was a single
instance of strut failure on an ARE product on a different product line where both
struts on a door spontaneously failed without any impact, then immediately started
working again, and ARE testing was unable to duplicate the failure. There was no
evidence that, prior to the present accident, ARE had notice of a strut failure on any
truck cap door (or other product line with a strut-supported door) caused by a strut
being hit and detached by a truck bed extender product or any other object.
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Woods provided the expert opinion of a professional engineer, who stated that
the rear door on the ARE truck cap was defectively designed based on his conclusion:
(1) that the installation of the Extendobed on the Fayette Fire truck was reasonably
foreseeable; and (2) that the rear door on the ARE truck cap lacked various safety
features that would have prevented the door from falling from the raised position
when the Extendobed hit and damaged one of the gas struts supporting the door.
According to the expert, ARE should have anticipated damage to the gas strut caused
by possible impact with the Extendobed (or by possible impact from some other
object) and should have (a) designed the struts on the rear door with a lock or latch
mechanism that would have held the door in the raised position if a strut detached as
result of damage, or (b) should have designed the rear door with two struts of
sufficient strength that one undamaged strut would have held the door in the raised
position if impact from the Extendobed (or other object) caused the other strut to fail.
The expert conceded that he had never before analyzed or given any expert opinion
regarding a failed door strut, and he admitted that he had never seen his suggested
safety features incorporated on a truck cap rear door by any manufacturer. Moreover,
the expert testified that his research showed that the Extendobed product at issue was
custom-made for Fayette Fire based on specifications for a prior custom-made
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Extendobed made for Gwinnett County. Although the expert testified that it was a
misuse of the ARE truck cap for Fayette Fire to install and use the Extendobed
product that impacted and damaged the gas strut on the truck cap rear door, he opined
that the misuse was foreseeable.
Woods and his wife alleged that the ARE truck cap was defectively designed
under theories of strict liability, negligence, and failure to warn. See Jones v.
NordicTrack, Inc., 274 Ga. 115, 115 (550 SE2d 101) (2001); OCGA § 51-1-11 (b)
(1). A manufacturer has a duty to exercise reasonable care in the manufacture and
design of its products “so as to make products that are reasonably safe for intended
or foreseeable uses.” Chrysler Corp. v. Batten, 264 Ga. 723, 724 (450 SE2d 208)
(1994). And a manufacturer which (before or after the sale of its product) knows or
reasonably should know of a danger arising from use of the product “has a duty to
give warning of such danger.” Id. at 724-725. “That duty requires warnings of
nonobvious foreseeable dangers from the normal use of its products.” Certainteed
Corp. v. Fletcher, 300 Ga. 327, 330 (794 SE2d 641) (2016).
In considering a claim that a product was defectively designed, the risk-utility
analysis adopted in Banks v. ICI Americas, Inc., 264 Ga. 732 (450 SE2d 671) (1994)
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“balance[s] the risks inherent in the product’s design against the utility of the product
so designed.” Jones, 274 Ga. at 115.
That [analysis] incorporates the concept of “reasonableness” and applies
negligence principles to the determination of whether a product is
defective for strict liability purposes. Thus, the distinction between
negligence and strict liability is not significant for purposes of the risk-
utility analysis.
Ogletree v. Navistar Int’l. Transp. Corp, 269 Ga. 443, 445 (500 SE2d 570) (1998)
(citations and punctuation omitted). “The ‘heart’ of a design defect case [under the
risk-utility analysis] is the reasonableness of selecting from among alternative product
designs and adopting the safest feasible one.” Jones, 274 Ga. at 118; Banks, 264 Ga.
at 736. Thus, the risk-utility analysis “includes the consideration of whether the
defendant failed to adopt a reasonable alternative design which would have reduced
the foreseeable risks of harm presented by the product. [Banks, 264 Ga. at 736]; see
the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability, § 2.” Jones, 274 Ga. at 118.
“[L]iability for defective design attaches only when the plaintiff proves that the seller
failed to adopt a reasonable, safer design that would have reduced the foreseeable
risks of harm presented by the product.” Banks, 264 Ga. at 736 n.4 (citation and
punctuation omitted; emphasis in original). Although Banks set forth a non-
exhaustive list of factors for consideration by the trier of fact under the risk-utility
7
analysis, “Banks does not mean that adjudication as a matter of law is no longer
appropriate in any case in which a design defect is alleged.” Ogletree v. Navistar
Int’l. Transp. Corp., 271 Ga. 644, 646 (522 SE2d 467) (1999). Rather, to obtain
judgment as a matter of law, the defendant must carry the burden “to show plainly and
indisputably an absence of any evidence that a product as designed is defective.” Id.
at 646 (emphasis in original); Certainteed Corp., 300 Ga. at 329.
“[U]nder Georgia law a manufacturer is not an insurer that its product is, from
a design viewpoint, incapable of producing injury.” Banks, 264 Ga. at 737. Rather,
the “reasonableness” test at the heart of risk-utility analysis imposes liability for a
design defect only where the manufacturer has failed to adopt a reasonable alternative
design that would have reduced foreseeable risks of harm posed by the product.
Jones, 274 Ga. at 118; Banks, 264 Ga. at 736; Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products
Liability, §2 (b), cmt. d. The manufacturer’s duty is to exercise reasonable care to
design products “that are reasonably safe for intended or foreseeable uses.” Chrysler
Corp., 264 Ga. at 724. Similarly, a product defect claim based on failure to warn of
danger posed by the product requires warnings of foreseeable dangers from the
normal use of the product. Certainteed Corp., 300 Ga. at 330. As part of the risks of
harm that manufacturers must foresee in choosing a product design, there is no
8
requirement that a product be made safe for a use that is unintended and
unforeseeable. As the Restatement, supra, explains, liability may be imposed on the
basis of design defect (or defect based on failure to warn of a danger arising from use
of a product)
only when the product is put to uses that it is reasonable to expect a
seller or distributer to foresee. Product sellers and distributors are not
required to foresee and take precautions against every conceivable mode
of use and abuse to which their products might be put. Increasing the
costs of designing and marketing products in order to avoid the
consequences of unreasonable modes of use is not required.
Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability, § 2, cmt. m.; see also Restatement,
supra, at § 2, cmt. p. Because “virtually any article, of whatever type or design, is
capable of producing injury when put to particular uses or misuses, a manufacturer
has no duty so to design his product as to render it wholly incapable of producing
injury.” Greenway v. Peabody Int’l. Corp., 163 Ga. App. 698, 700 (294 SE2d 541)
(1982) (citations and punctuation omitted); Hunt v. Harley-Davidson Motor Co., 147
Ga. App. 44, 46 (248 SE2d 15) (1978). Accordingly, a product manufacturer has no
duty to design or warn against harm caused by an unforeseeable misuse of its product,
and a product that causes harm as a result of unforeseeable misuse is not defective.
Restatement, supra, at § 2, cmts. m. and p.; Vol. 2, Dobbs, Hayden, and Bublick, The
9
Law of Torts § 471, p. 983 (2d ed. 2011) (“[T]he product is not defective at all if the
plaintiff’s unforeseeable misuse is the sole cause of the harm.”). On the other hand,
reasonably foreseeable product use or misuse is a factor in considering whether a
manufacturer may be liable for a defective product which was a proximate cause of
harm resulting from the failure to adopt a reasonable alternative design (or from a
failure to warn) to reduce the foreseeable risks of harm posed by the product. Id. at
§2, cmt. p; Jones, 274 Ga. at 117-118; Banks, 264 Ga. at 736-737.
Applying these principles, we conclude that ARE was entitled to summary
judgment.
To prevail on a motion for summary judgment, the moving party must
demonstrate that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the
undisputed facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving
party, warrant judgment as a matter of law. The moving party may carry
this burden either by (1) presenting evidence negating an essential
element of the nonmoving party’s claim, i.e., affirmatively disproving
the element with evidence which makes it impossible for the
[nonmoving party] to prove the element at trial; or (2) demonstrating an
absence of evidence to support an essential element of the nonmoving
party’s claim. If the moving party discharges this burden, the nonmoving
party cannot rest on its pleadings, but rather must point to specific
evidence giving rise to a triable issue. On appeal, we review de novo the
trial court’s ruling on a motion for summary judgment, construing all
facts and reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to
the nonmovant.
10
Parks v. Multimedia Technologies, Inc., 239 Ga. App. 282, 286 (520 SE2d 517)
(1999) (citations and punctuation omitted); Lau’s Corp. v. Haskins, 261 Ga. 491 (405
SE2d 474) (1991); OCGA § 9-11-56.
Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Woods and his wife, we
conclude that ARE showed plainly and indisputably an absence of any evidence in
the record to support a finding that the ARE truck cap was defective for purposes of
the design defect claim or the failure to warn claim.
Undisputed facts show that the truck cap door fell from the raised position and
hit Woods because of Fayette Fire’s misuse of the truck cap product. The truck cap
and the rear door on the cap performed as manufactured and designed by ARE for a
year after Fayette Fire installed the cap over the bed of its pick-up truck. Then nine
days after Fayette Fire installed the Extendobed in the bed of the truck under the truck
cap, the rear door on the truck cap fell and hit Woods. The door fell because a gas
strut supporting the door detached after being damaged by Fayette Fire’s use of the
Extendobed. The Extendobed was installed in the truck bed according to Fayette
Fire’s custom-made specifications, and was designed to roll out of the truck bed when
the truck cap door was in the raised position. As installed, the Extendobed was so
high and wide that, when it was rolled out of the truck bed, it hit, damaged, and
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detached the gas strut supporting the raised truck cap door. Evidence showed that
Fayette Fire’s misuse of the Extendobed and the ARE truck cap under these
conditions caused visible damage to the gas strut, and eventually caused the strut to
detach, which caused the truck cap door to fall from the raised position and hit
Woods.
We find no evidence in the record supporting a claim that the misuse of the
Extendobed and the ARE truck cap was foreseeable to ARE.2 ARE distributed a truck
bed extender product, but that product operated at a much lower height (six to eight
inches off the truck bed) than the Extendobed, and there was no evidence that the
ARE bed extender product ever impacted or damaged the gas struts on the door of an
ARE truck cap. Although it was reasonably foreseeable to ARE that other truck bed
extender products would be installed and used in the beds of pick-up trucks over
which the ARE truck cap product was installed, there is nothing in the record
2
In considering the record on the foreseeability issue, we give no consideration
to the expert opinion from the professional engineer produced by Woods that the
product misuse was foreseeable. Expert opinion is admissible on issues where the
conclusion of the expert is one which the average trier of fact would not ordinarily
be able to draw for themselves – in other words the conclusion is beyond the ken of
the average layman. Raines v. Maughan, 312 Ga. App. 303, 307 (718 SE2d 135)
(2011). Whether or not the misuse was foreseeable to ARE was not “shrouded in the
mystery of professional skill and knowledge,” so no expert opinion was admissible
on this issue. Id.12
showing that, prior to the present accident, any truck bed extender product (or an
object placed on the product) had impacted with or damaged struts on the door of an
ARE truck cap product or similar product. Prior to the accident, ARE was aware of
a temporary strut failure on one of its doors on a different product line that did not
involve any impact to the struts. And prior to the accident, ARE had no knowledge
of the Extendobed company, and was not aware that Fayette Fire had installed the
custom-made Extendobed product in the truck bed under the ARE truck cap. Nothing
in the record supports a finding that ARE had reason to foresee that Fayette Fire
would install a custom-made Extendobed under the ARE truck cap, and then misuse
the Extendobed and the ARE truck cap in the manner that caused the truck cap door
to fail and harm Woods.
On these facts, the record shows as a matter of law that the ARE truck cap
product was not defective for purposes of the design defect or failure to warn claims
because the sole cause of the harm suffered by Woods was the unforeseeable misuse
of the product. Although the trial court granted summary judgment in favor of ARE
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on other grounds, we affirm under the right for any reason rule.3 City of Gainesville
v. Dodd, 275 Ga. 834 (573 SE2d 369) (2002).
Judgment affirmed. Miller, P. J., and Brown, J. concur.
3
We affirm the grant of summary judgment on the loss of consortium claim
brought by Woods’s wife because it was derivative of the product defect claims
brought by Woods. Supchak v. Pruitt, 232 Ga. App. 680, 684 (503 SE2d 581) (1998).
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