ONTARIO SEWING MACHINE COMPANY, LTD. v. Smith

572 S.E.2d 533

275 Ga. 683

ONTARIO SEWING MACHINE COMPANY, LTD. et al. v. SMITH.

No. S01G1233.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

November 12, 2002.

Weinberger, Wheeler, Hudgins, Gunn & Dial, Earl W. Gunn, Ashley P. Nichols, Claire C. Dorchak, Nancy G. Cook, Atlanta, for appellants.

Daniel MacDougald III, Atlanta, for appellee.

King & Spalding, Chilton D. Varner, Carmen R. Toledo, Robert B. Friedman, Brown & Shamp, Robert H. Brown III, Atlanta, amicus curiae.

SEARS, Presiding Justice.

We granted certiorari in this case to consider whether the opinion of the Court of Appeals constitutes an erroneous expansion of the law of this state regarding the existence and scope of the duties of manufacturers with respect to dangerous product defects.¹ For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the Court of Appeals decided issues concerning the duties of manufacturers that were unnecessary to a resolution of the issue of proximate cause, which was the sole issue on which the trial court granted summary judgment to the manufacturers and thus was the decisive issue on appeal. As for proximate cause, the trial court granted summary judgment to the manufacturers on the ground that the actions of the plaintiff's employer were the sole proximate cause of the plaintiff's injuries. The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of the trial court, ruling as a matter of law that the manufacturers' actions were a proximate cause of the plaintiff's injuries. We conclude that the issue of proximate cause is for the jury in this case, and that the Court of Appeals erred by ruling on it as a matter of law. However, because our ruling on proximate cause requires the reversal of the grant of summary judgment by the trial court and because the Court of Appeals's judgment reversed the trial court, although for what we conclude was an incorrect rationale, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals with the direction that the case be remanded to the trial court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

1. The plaintiff, Regina Smith, worked for Wilen Mop Manufacturing (Wilen), and operated a yarn cutter that was manufactured by the appellants, Ontario Sewing Machine Company and Texmatic Machinery (hereinafter collectively referred to as "Ontario").² On July 22, 1998, the blade of a first generation machine severely injured Smith's hand when it activated without warning. Before Smith was injured, Ontario sent Wilen a recall notice, stating that because two prior injuries had occurred from the use of the yarn cutter in question,³ Ontario was recalling the machines. The notice stated that Wilen should stop using the machines; that Ontario would reimburse Wilen for the cost of the recalled machinery; that the offer to reimburse was good for a period of 90 days; and that Wilen could purchase a new and improved yarn cutter from Ontario, which was also a more expensive piece of equipment than the recalled machinery. Smith subsequently filed this product liability action against Ontario, and the trial court granted summary judgment to Ontario solely on the ground that Wilen's failure to stop using the defective machine after the voluntary recall by Ontario was the sole proximate cause of Smith's injury. The Court of Appeals reversed, and concluded, with regard to the duties of manufacturers, that Ontario had a duty to warn the actual users of the yarn cutter, including Smith, of the danger of the yarn cutter;⁴ that Ontario had a duty to warn Wilen and Smith of the machine's specific defect and danger;⁵ and that Ontario had the duty to recall and repair its defective machines.⁶ As for proximate cause, which was the sole issue on which the trial court granted summary judgment, the majority opinion, in reversing the trial court, removed this issue from the jury and ruled, as a matter of law, both that Wilen's failure to comply with Ontario's voluntary recall was not the supervening proximate cause of Smith's injuries and that Wilen's and Ontario's actions were concurrent proximate causes of Smith's injuries.⁷ In a special concurrence, Presiding Judge Andrews did not address the various manufacturers' duties discussed by the majority opinion, but instead simply stated that although the negligent failure of a business to cooperate with a reasonable recall may be the sole proximate cause of an injury, it was a jury question in the present case as to whether Wilen's refusal to stop using the machines and cooperate in the recall was the sole proximate cause of Smith's injury.

Ontario raises several issues on certiorari. One is that the majority opinion of the Court of Appeals unreasonably expanded Georgia law by placing a duty on it to warn Wilen's employees of the danger of the yarn cutter. Ontario contends, among other things, that this duty would be difficult or impossible to satisfy, in that it would be unlikely that Wilen would provide Ontario access to Wilen's employees for the purpose of warning them of the danger when Wilen would not do so itself. Ontario also contends that the Court of Appeals unreasonably expanded Georgia law by requiring Ontario to have warned Wilen of the exact nature of the defect of the yarn cutter. In this regard, Ontario contends that to require exact specificity in the warning will force manufacturers not to warn of a dangerous condition until they have run extensive tests to determine the exact cause of the danger. In addition, Ontario contends that the Court of Appeals improperly expanded Georgia law by stating that a manufacturer that learns that its products have been sold with a dangerous defect has a duty to recall and repair the defective product.

We conclude that it is unnecessary to resolve the issues that Ontario raises concerning the Court of Appeals's holdings regarding manufacturers' duties, as a resolution of those issues is unnecessary to a determination of the only issue on which the trial court granted summary judgment—whether Wilen's failure to cooperate with Ontario's voluntary recall of the machines was the supervening and sole proximate cause of Smith's injuries. Moreover, because the Court of Appeals did not need to address these manufacturers' duties to resolve the issue of proximate cause, we disapprove of the Court of Appeals's resolution of them.

2. As for the proximate cause issue, we conclude that Judge Andrews, in his special concurrence, properly determined that the issue was one of fact for a jury. In reaching this conclusion, the special concurrence correctly noted two principles. The first is that the failure of a manufacturer's customer to comply with a reasonable recall program instituted by the manufacturer may constitute an intervening act sufficient to break any connection between a wrongful act by the manufacturer and the injured party and thus may be sufficient to...