Sheckells v. AGV Corporation

United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit · 1993 · Torts

TortsProducts LiabilityFailure to Warnfailure to warnopen and obvious dangermotorcycle helmetsummary judgmentproximate cause

Facts

John Sheckells was injured in a motorcycle accident while wearing a helmet manufactured by AGV. The helmet included an interior warning stating that some reasonably foreseeable impacts may exceed the helmet's capability to protect against severe injury or death, and packaged literature stated that no helmet can protect against all foreseeable impacts and that no warranty or representation was made as to protection from injury or death. Plaintiff's expert, Dr. Burton, testified that helmet impact tests are conducted at only 15 to 20 miles per hour, that no motorcycle helmet on the market provides assurance of protection from facial or brain injury at 30 to 45 miles per hour, and that the average purchaser would not know this. He also testified that marketing representations could give purchasers a false sense of security and that a warning should educate users that the helmet provides no significant protection above 30 to 45 miles per hour.

Issue

Whether summary judgment was proper on plaintiff's Georgia-law failure-to-warn claim on the theory that the helmet's inability to provide significant protection at 30 to 45 miles per hour was an open and obvious danger. Also, whether summary judgment could be affirmed on the alternative grounds that the warnings were adequate as a matter of law or that any failure to warn was not the proximate cause of the injuries.

Rule

Under Georgia law, a manufacturer may be liable for failure to warn if it knows or has reason to know the product is or is likely to be dangerous for its intended use, has no reason to believe users will realize the danger, and fails to exercise reasonable care to inform them of the danger or the facts making it dangerous. Georgia imposes no duty to warn of a danger that is open or obvious to the user, but whether a genuine factual dispute exists on that question is governed in federal court by Rule 56, requiring the evidence to be viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmovant.

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

In Atlanta, Nora Kim bought a climbing helmet made by Blue Summit Gear, a fictional outdoor-equipment company. The package said only that the helmet could not protect against all impacts, but Nora's expert testified that ordinary consumers do not know the helmet offers virtually no meaningful protection in falls above a certain force level and may assume it offers substantially more protection than it does.

Blue Summit moves for summary judgment on Nora's Georgia failure-to-warn claim, arguing the product's limitation is open and obvious because everyone knows climbing is dangerous. How should the court rule?

Explanation. Under the majority opinion, Georgia recognizes no duty to warn of open or obvious dangers, but the relevant question is whether the specific danger is patent to the ordinary user. General knowledge that an activity is dangerous does not establish that users know a protective product provides no significant protection under particular conditions. Expert testimony that average consumers would not know the limitation is enough to create a genuine issue of material fact, so summary judgment should be denied. (Derived from Sheckells v. AGV Corporation (n.d.).)