Supreme Court Posts

FLASHBACK: The Birth Of Modern Product Liability Law

Morningstar v. Black & Decker Mfg. Co., 162 W. Va. 857, 253 S.E.2d 666 (1979), remains the guiding force behind products liability claims in the state of West Virginia, even almost forty years later. The opinion involves a thorough examination of academic legal topics, including an interpretation of the “certification issue” under W. Va. Code 51-1A-1, et seq., the effects of Article VIII, Section 13 of the West Virginia Constitution and W. Va. Code 2-1-1 on the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals’ ability to modify the common law, and an extensive history of tort products liability law throughout both the state and country. While the Court’s discussion of the procedural issues and issues of statutory interpretation are certainly insightful, the case is best known for addressing products liability claims and the legal framework under which such claims are to be analyzed.

Sometimes the evolution of the law is as much about language as legal theory. In this vein, the Court acknowledged that, though somewhat of a misnomer when really analyzing the effect of the rule, the term “strict liability in tort” had become “so imbedded in the judicial decisions and commentaries in the field of product liability that little would be gained by adopting a new term.” The Court did make clear, however, that “strict liability” will not impose absolute liability on a manufacturer or seller, nor does it make such parties insurers of their products. Rather, to impose “strict liability” upon a product manufacturer means that the plaintiff will be required only to prove that the product was defective, and the defect gave rise to the injury. The Court explained that, “[o]nce it can be shown that the product was defective when it left the manufacturer, and the defect proximately caused the plaintiff’s injury, a recovery is warranted absent some conduct on the part of the plaintiff that may bar his recovery.” No negligence on the part of the manufacturer need be proven.  This was a fundamental change in West Virginia law—shifting the focus away from the tortfeasor’s conduct and looking, instead, at the product itself.

The Court went on to examine various tests applied in other jurisdictions to determine whether a defect existed at the time the product left the hands of the manufacturer. The Court identified three different categories of defects which may give rise to products liability claims, (1) design defectiveness, (2) structural defectiveness, and (3) use defectiveness, otherwise known as “failure to warn.” These categories are not mutually exclusive, and can be pled individually or in combination.

The test to be applied to the first two categories, design defect and structural defect, directs the examining court to look at the physical condition of the product, and determine what physical aspect of the product causes the product to be unsafe, when the product is being used in its reasonably intended manner. The third category of defect, failure to warn, looks to whether the product is unsafe due to an absent, or inadequate, warning to users of the product. Whether a product is “unsafe” is determined by the standard of what a reasonably prudent manufacturer would have done with respect to the safety of the product, having in mind the general state of the art manufacturing process, design, labels, and warnings, at the time that the product was made.

Ending just as it began, the Court reiterated that these rules pertaining to products liability claims do not make the manufacturer the insurer of its product in all circumstances, but that plaintiffs seeking to recover on theories of products liability claims will need to focus their efforts to meet their evidentiary burden on the defective nature of the product, rather than the mentality or intentions of the manufacturer.

With Morningstar, West Virginia product law was propelled into the twentieth century to meet the realities and the needs of our growing consumerism.