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11. In this action, will the employee prevail?
The employee brought an action against the glasses manufacturer for the injury to his eye. The jurisdiction adheres to the traditional common law rule pertaining to contributory negligence.
In his employment, an employee operates a grinding wheel. To protect his eyes, he wears glasses, sold under the trade name «Safety Glasses,» made by a glasses manufacturer. The glasses were sold with a warning label stating that they would protect only against small, flying objects. One day, the grinding wheel that the employee was using disintegrated and fragments of the stone wheel were thrown off with great force. One large fragment hit the employee, knocking his safety glasses up onto his forehead. Another fragment then hit and injured his eye.
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A commercial supplier can be held liable for the production or sale of a product which is in a defective condition, or one unreasonably dangerous to the user based on a design or manufacturing defect. A type of design defect is an inadequate warning which does not provide users with clear and complete warnings of dangers which may not be apparent
Another type of products liability claim, typically based on strict liability, is for misrepresentations by manufacturers/suppliers. For a plaintiff to recover damages, the misrepresentation must have been a misrepresentation of a material fact concerning the quality or character of the product, and the plaintiff must have been injured after relying on this misrepresentation.
C is correct. The employee would not prevail because the glasses were not designed or sold for protection against the kind of hazard the employee encountered. Specifically, the glasses were only intended to protect the user against small projectiles and the employee was hit with a large projectile. Further, the manufacturer specifically warned users of the glasses' limitations. Thus, because there was not a misrepresentation or failure to warn by the manufacturer, and the employee was injured by a hazard that the glasses were not designed to protect against, the employee would not be able to recover damages.
A is incorrect. Although the safety glasses failed to protect the employee from the disintegrating wheel, the glasses were not defective, and therefore the employee would not recover. The glasses were designed to protect against small, flying objects and the employee was hit by large fragments, the first of which dislodged the safety glasses. Thus, because the glasses did not fail in their intended purpose, they were not defective, and the employee would not prevail.
B is incorrect. The sale of the glasses under the label «Safety Glasses» would not be a basis for the employee to prevail, because the manufacturer made no express warranties of fitness beyond the statement on the warning label. Under the facts as presented, the glasses did not fail in their stated purpose of protecting against small fragments, and the employee's injury was from a large fragment, something which the glasses were not designed to protect against and the manufacturer did not represent otherwise.
D is incorrect. Although the employee would not be able to recover against the manufacturer, his ability to receive workers' compensation would be irrelevant. Generally, receiving workers' compensation is no bar to bringing and recovering under a products liability tort claim.