[Torts] MacPherson v. Buick Moter

[강석근]

MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co.

Court of Appeals of New York

1916

CARDOZO 

The defendant is a manufacturer of automobiles. It sold an automobile to a retail dealer. The retail dealer resold to the plaintiff. While the plaintiff was in the car, it suddenly collapsed. He was thrown out and injured. One of the wheels was made of defective wood, and its spokes crumbled into fragments. The wheel was not made by the defendant; it was bought from another manufacturer. There is evidence, however, that its defects could have been discovered by reasonable inspection...

The question to be determined is whether the defendant owed a duty of care and vigilance to anyone but the immediate purchaser.

Thomas v. Winchester (1852, N. Y.). A poison was falsely labeled. ...  "The defendant's negligence," it was said, "put human life in imminent danger." A poison falsely labeled is likely to injure anyone who gets it. Because the danger is to be foreseen, there is a duty to avoid the injury.

Loop v. Litchfield (1870, N. Y.) ...wheel used on a circular saw. ... buyer, who wished a cheap article and was ready to assume the risk. ... the wheel lasted five years before it broke. ...It was held that the manufacturer was not answerable to the lessee.  

Losee v. Clute (1873, N. Y.) ...explosion of a steam boiler. That decision has been criticized... It was put upon the ground that the risk of injury was too remote. The buyer in that case ... had tested it. The manufacturer knew that his own test was not the final one.

Later cases, evince a more liberal spirit.

Devlin v. Smith (1882, N. Y). The defendant ... built a scaffold for a painter. The painter's servants were injured. ...

Building it for their use, he owed them a duty, irrespective of his contract with their master, to build it with care.

Thomas (1852 poison) 

Devlin (1882 scaffold)  

Statler (1909 urn) 

Statler v. Ray Mfg. Co. (1909, N. Y.). ... It was installed in a restaurant. When heated, the urn exploded and injured the plaintiff. ..., it was liable to become a source of great danger to many people ...

It may be that Devlin and Statler have extended the rule of Thomas.

Appeal Ct. decisions...

Burke v. Ireland (26 App. Div. 487), ...builder who constructed a defective building;

Kahner v. Otis Elevator Co. (96 App. Div. 169) manufacturer of an elevator;

Davies v. Pelham Hod Elevating Co. (65 Hun, 573...) to a contractor who furnished a defective rope ...

In England

Heaven v. Pender, 1883, L. R.). ... irrespective of contract, imposed upon the manufacturer by the law itself...

The defendant argues that things imminently dangerous to life are poisons, explosives, deadly weapons ...

The principle of Thomas is not limited to poisons, explosives, ...

If the nature of a thing is such that it is reasonably certain to place life and limb in peril when negligently made, it is then a thing of danger...

... irrespective of contract, the manufacturer of this thing of danger is under a duty to make it carefully. ...

Whether a given thing is dangerous may be sometimes a question for the court and sometimes a question for the jury.  

The proximity or remoteness of the relation is a factor to be considered.

It may be that ... the negligence of the earlier members of the series is too remote to constitute ... an actionable wrong

Beven on Negligence [3d ed.], 50, 51, 54

Wharton on Negligence [2d ed.], § 134

Leeds v. N. Y. Tel. Co., 178 N. Y. 118

Sweet v. Perkins, 196 N. Y. 482

Hayes v. Hyde Park, 153 Mass. 514, 516

We leave that question open.

To make their negligence a cause of imminent danger, an independent cause must often intervene; the manufacturer of the finished product must also fail in his duty of inspection.

Beyond all question, the nature of an automobile gives warning of probable danger if its construction is defective.

Precedents drawn from the days of travel by stagecoach do not fit the conditions of travel to-day. The principle that the danger must be imminent does not change, but the things subject to the principle do change.

Other jurisdictions. 

Cadillac M. C. Co. v. Johnson (221 Fed. Rep. 801, 2nd Cir, 1916) that an automobile is not within the rule of Thomas. There was, however, a vigorous dissent. 

The earlier cases are summarized in Huset v. J. I. Case Threshing Machine Co. (120 Fed. Rep. 865, 8th Cir, 1903). ...

“the contractor who builds a bridge, or the manufacturer who builds a car, cannot ordinarily foresee injury to other persons than the owner as the probable result.”

We take a different view. We think that injury to others is to be foreseen not merely as a possible, but as an almost inevitable result. 

In England the limits of the rule are still unsettled.  Winterbottom v. Wright (10 M. & W. 109, 1842)

The defendant undertook to provide a mail coach to carry the mail bags. The coach broke down from latent defects in its construction. The defendant, however, was not the manufacturer. ...

Heaven v. Pender (supra, at p. 513) the defendant, a dock owner, who put up a staging outside a ship, was held liable to the servants of the shipowner.

Elliott v. Hall (15 Q. B. D. 315) ...In that case, however, as in the earlier one, the defendant was not the manufacturer. He had merely made a contract to keep the van in repair.

... From these cases a consistent principle is with difficulty extracted.

In some cases, however, agree with ours in holding of Devlin 

There is nothing anomalous in a rule which imposes upon A, who has contracted with B, a duty to C and D and others ... that the subject-matter of the contract is intended for their use.

We think the defendant was not absolved from a duty of inspection because it bought the wheels from a reputable manufacturer.

It was a manufacturer.

It was responsible for the finished product. 

It was not at liberty to put the finished product on the market without subjecting the component parts to ordinary and simple tests.
The obligation to inspect must vary with the nature of the thing to be inspected. The more probable the danger, the greater the need of caution.

 

Dissent by: BARTLETT 
... The wheel was purchased ... from ... a reputable manufacturer ... which had furnished the defendant with eighty thousand wheels, none of which had proved to be made of defective wood prior to the accident ... The defendant relied upon the wheel manufacturer ... tests ... and made no such tests itself.

There was no allegation or proof of any actual knowledge of the defect on the part of the defendant or any suggestion that any element of fraud or deceit or misrepresentation entered into the sale.

... the defendant was chargeable with a knowledge of the defect so far as it might be discovered by a reasonable inspection and the application of reasonable tests.

This liability, it was further held, was not limited to the original vendee, but extended to a sub vendee like the plaintiff, who was not a party to the original contract of sale.

"The general rule is that a contractor, manufacturer, vendor or furnisher of an article is not liable to third parties who have no contractual relations ...”

The exceptions ... thus far been recognized in New York ... where the article sold was inherently dangerous.

As has already been pointed out, the learned trial judge instructed the jury that an automobile is not an inherently dangerous vehicle.

In Winterbottom,

An action by the driver of a stagecoach against a contractor who had agreed with the postmaster-general to provide and keep the vehicle in repair ... The coach broke down and upset, injuring the driver, who sought to recover against the contractor on account of its defective construction. ... there was no privity of contract between the parties, the agreement having been made with the postmaster-general alone.

Devlin

In that case the builder of a scaffold ninety feet high ...

... scaffold was deemed to be an inherently dangerous structure ... fairly within the principle of Thomas.

Eighth Circuit, in Huset 

reviews all the leading American and English decisions on the subject up to the time(1903).

Winterbottom was a controlling authority.

That the Federal courts still adhere ...

Cadillac Motor Car Co. (supra)

Action by a sub vendee against a manufacturer of automobiles for negligence in failing to discover that one of its wheels was defective.

It is true there was a dissenting opinion in that case.

... the law did not afford a remedy to strangers ...

[강석근]

The question is whether D owed a duty of care to anyone but the immediate purchaser.

Thomas case.
A poison falsely labeled.
because the danger is to be foreseen, there's duty of care to any one.

Thomas is not limited to poison, explosive.
irrespective of K the Manufactuerer of the inherently dangerous things is under duty to make it carefully.

And there must be knowledge that the danger will be shared by others.

The proximity or remoteness of the relation is the factor to be considered.

[강석근]

An independent cause must often intervene; the manufacturer of the finished product must in his duty of inspection.

In sum, The accident occured by the negligence of manufacturer(M). The M knows or should have known the product is to be dangerous, without proper inspection, when it released to the market.

where the consumers have the damage and complained and the M did not employed reasonable care or the inspection, this theory make M liable for a negligence charge.