Donald Spears, Sr. v. Cintas Sales Corp., e

414 F. App'x 667
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit·Decided February 28, 2011·No. 09-30750·Unpublished·Cited by 3 cases

Opinions

PER CURIAM: *

Donald and Constance Spears appeal from the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Cintas Sales Corporation, Cintas Corporation No. 2, and Cintas Corporation No. 81 (collectively, Cintas). Donald Spears was severely burned while wearing a Cintas uniform. He alleges that the uniform was unreasonably dangerous and is seeking damages under the Louisiana Products Liability Act (LPLA). On appeal, Spears argues that the district court erred in finding that Spears’s use of the uniform was not a reasonably anticipated use. We affirm.

I

At the time of his accident, Spears was employed as the shop foreman for Apeck Construction, Inc., a construction firm that specialized in dirt work. Spears was the head mechanic in charge of servicing and repairing equipment used by Apeck in its business. While performing his duties, Spears wore a Cintas uniform that Apeck had purchased for him. The uniform was sixty-five percent polyester and thirty-five percent cotton.

Cintas provided uniforms to Apeck’s employees according to the terms of a rental agreement. Prior to the parties entering the agreement, a Cintas sales representative made a sales pitch to the Apeck employees in the Apeck mechanic shop. Subsequently, Apeck’s president signed the rental agreement, which included the following provision:

Unless specified otherwise, the garments supplied under this agreement are not flame retardant or acid resistant and contain no special flame retardant or acid resistant features. Customer agrees to notify its employees that their garments are not designed for use in areas of flammability risk or where contact with hazardous materials is possible. Customer warrants that none of the employees for whom garments are supplied under this agreement require flame retardant or acid resistant clothing.

Spears was injured while attempting to start a dump truck powered by a diesel engine. The evidence reflects that to start a diesel engine, a mechanic could use either ether or a gasoline-soaked rag. Spears used a gasoline-soaked rag, a procedure he had used “thousands of times” to attempt to start an engine. On the day of his injury, Spears soaked a rag in gasoline, squeezed out the gasoline, and placed the rag in front of the air intake valve on the dump truck. The dump truck backfired, and Spears’s uniform caught on fire. As the uniform burned, it melted and fused to his body, and he was unable to remove the shirt to escape the flames. Spears sustained third-degree burns over fifty percent of his body.

[669] Spears filed suit in state court under the LPLA, alleging that the Cintas uniform was an unreasonably dangerous product.1 In his petition, Spears also alleged that Apeck was liable for its failure to supply flame retardant uniforms; however, Apeck was dismissed from the case because Spears’s exclusive remedy against Apeck was limited to worker’s compensation benefits. The case was timely removed to federal district court.

Cintas moved for summary judgment, arguing that Spears could not present sufficient evidence to prove two elements of his claim: (1) that his damages were proximately caused by a characteristic of the Cintas uniform that rendered it unreasonably dangerous; and (2) that the damage arose from a reasonably anticipated use of the uniform. The district court found that Spears’s use of the uniform was not a reasonably anticipated use and granted summary judgment in favor of Cintas. This appeal followed.

II

We review de novo the district court’s grant of summary judgment and apply the same legal standards as the district court.2 Summary judgment is appropriate if “the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law” 3 by “citing to particular parts of materials in the record.”4

III

Spears argues that whether his damage arose from a reasonably anticipated use is a fact question that precludes summary judgment in this case. Under the LPLA, “[t]he manufacturer of a product shall be liable to a claimant for damage proximately caused by a characteristic of the product that renders the product unreasonably dangerous when such damage arose from a reasonably anticipated use of the product.” 5 “If a plaintiffs damages did not arise from a reasonably anticipated use of the product, then the ‘unreasonably dangerous’ question need not be reached.”6 “ ‘Reasonably anticipated use’ means a use or handling of a product that the product’s manufacturer should reasonably expect of an ordinary person in the same or similar circumstances.”7 “This objective inquiry requires us to ascertain what uses of its product the manufacturer should have reasonably expected at the time of manufacture.” 8

A plaintiffs use of a product is not reasonably anticipated in a “situation where a manufacturer provides an express warning cautioning against a use of the product for which the product was neither designed nor intended, and where the plaintiff acts in direct contravention of that warning.”9 “Even if the warning did not reach the users,” if the danger from a particular use of a product is obvious, then it is not a “reasonably anticipated use” under the LPLA.10 However, even if the plaintiff [670] acts in contravention of an express warning, the plaintiffs use may be reasonably anticipated if the plaintiff presents “ ‘evidence that despite the warnings, [the manufacturer] should have been aware that operators were using the [product] in contravention of certain warnings.’ ”11

A

Spears contends that, because the warning in the rental agreement did not reach him, Cintas cannot rely on the warning to show that Spears’s use was not reasonably anticipated. Cintas does not dispute that the warning did not reach Spears. Instead, Cintas argues that Spears’s use was not a reasonably anticipated use because the danger of exposing the uniform to flammability risks was obvious to Spears.

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Donald Spears, Sr. v. Cintas Sales Corp., e, 414 F. App'x 667 (5th Cir. 2011).

414 F. App'x 667 (Donald Spears, Sr. v. Cintas Sales Corp., e) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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