Sunday, February 3, 2013

Price v. Blaine Kern Artista, Inc. case brief

Price v. Blaine Kern Artista, Inc. case summary
893 P.2d 367 (Nev. 1995)
Tort Law

PROCEDURAL HISTORY: Appellant consumer filed an action in the Second Judicial District Court for Washoe County (Nevada), claiming damages from appellee manufacturer for injuries that occurred when he fell while wearing the manufacturer's product. The trial court entered summary judgment against the consumer, and the consumer appealed.

FACTS:
- The manufacturer argued in the trial court, and the trial court so found that a patron who had pushed the consumer was an unforeseeable intervening cause that absolved the manufacturer of liability.
-The consumer argued that the person who pushed the consumer while the consumer was wearing the manufacturer's product was a superseding intervening cause was a question of fact for a jury to decide.
-The manufacturer argued that legal causation was normally a question of fact, but summary judgment was appropriate where there was no genuine issue of material fact as to the issue of foreseeability.

HOLDING:

-The court rejected the manufacturer's argument and noted that a trier of fact could have found that the manufacturer should have foreseen the possibility that the consumer might be pushed while wearing the manufacturer's product.

ANALYSIS:

-The court determined that the consumer should not have been penalized because his counsel had mistakenly conceded this issue.
-As to the strict liability claims of the consumer, the court found that the injuries could be considered as being within the foreseeable risks caused by the manufacturer's design of its product.

RULES:
-Proximate cause in a products liability case serves a somewhat different role than in a case sounding in negligence because that cause of action seeks to impute liability to the manufacturer not on the basis of his negligence but because the product is not reasonably safe as it was designed.
-The tie which proximate cause is to provide in order to impose legal liability must be between the design defect of the product and the injury that is, the plaintiff must show that the design defect in the product was a substantial factor in causing his injury.

CONCLUSION: The court reversed the summary judgment of the trial court.

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