Price v. Blaine Kern Artista, Inc.

Supreme Court of Nevada · Torts

TortsStrict products liabilityNegligenceCausationSuperseding causeSummary judgmentproximate causelegal causation

Facts

BKA manufactured oversized caricature masks that covered the wearer's entire head. Price alleged that the George Bush mask he wore while working as an entertainer at Harrah's Club in Reno was defective because it lacked a safety harness to support his head and neck under the mask's heavy weight. He alleged that he was pushed from behind by a patron, causing him to fall and the mask's weight to strain and injure his neck, although he later stated he could not say categorically what caused the fall and may have stumbled or tripped. Shortly before the fall, an irate patron had confronted Price about Bush's abortion-rights policy.

Issue

Whether summary judgment was proper on the ground that a third party's push was an unforeseeable superseding cause of Price's injuries. More specifically, the question was whether genuine issues of material fact remained as to legal and proximate causation on Price's negligence and strict products liability claims.

Rule

Summary judgment is improper if, viewing the record in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, a reasonable jury could find legal causation. In negligence, a third party's criminal or tortious act typically breaks proximate causation, but not if the intervening intentional act is reasonably foreseeable. In strict products liability, the plaintiff must show the alleged design defect was a substantial factor in causing the injury, and an intentional intervening act insulates the manufacturer only if it is both unforeseeable and the proximate cause of the injury; the inquiry focuses on whether the injury is of a kind and degree so far beyond the risk foreseeable to the manufacturer that it would be unfair to impose liability.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

Great Basin Character Works, a Nevada costume manufacturer, sells a bulky mascot helmet designed to cover the user's entire head but without any internal neck-support strap. In Phoenix, Elena Ruiz wears the helmet while promoting a controversial ballot campaign outside a crowded fairground, where several agitated attendees have been shouting at performers all afternoon. One attendee shoves Elena, and she falls, suffering a neck injury allegedly caused by the helmet's shifting weight.

On Great Basin's motion for summary judgment on Elena's negligence claim, what is the best argument against treating the shove as a superseding cause as a matter of law?

Explanation. In negligence, an intervening criminal or tortious act usually breaks proximate cause, but not if the intentional intervening act is reasonably foreseeable. Under the majority's reasoning, summary judgment is improper when a jury could infer that hostility toward the performance or setting made some pushing or violence foreseeable. The rule is not that intentional acts can never supersede, nor that product involvement alone establishes causation.