prod.liab.rep. (Cch) P 15,067 Ralph Kampen Katherine Kampen v. American Isuzu Motors, Inc.

119 F.3d 1193, 1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 20879, 1997 WL 441684
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedAugust 6, 1997
Docket96-30544
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 119 F.3d 1193 (prod.liab.rep. (Cch) P 15,067 Ralph Kampen Katherine Kampen v. American Isuzu Motors, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
prod.liab.rep. (Cch) P 15,067 Ralph Kampen Katherine Kampen v. American Isuzu Motors, Inc., 119 F.3d 1193, 1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 20879, 1997 WL 441684 (5th Cir. 1997).

Opinions

BENAVIDES, Circuit Judge:

Ralph and Katherine Kampen brought this diversity suit against American Isuzu Motors (“Isuzu”) under the Louisiana Products Liability Act of 1988, La.Rev.Stat. Ann. §§ 9:2800.51-59 (West 1991) (“LPLA” or “the Act”). The Kampens claim that Mr. Kampen was injured when an Isuzu factory-supplied tire jack collapsed, dropping the car it had been supporting on his shoulders.

Isuzu moved for summary judgment on two elements of the Kampens’ products liability claims. First, Isuzu asserted that there was no evidence that the jack was unreasonably dangerous. Second, Isuzu claimed that Kampen’s use of the product was not a “reasonably anticipated use.” The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Isuzu on the ground that Kampen’s use of the tire jack was not a “reasonably anticipated use” within the meaning of the LPLA. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

I.

The basic facts are straightforward. Kampen’s daughter noticed a noise coming from underneath her 1989 Isuzu Impulse. Kampen agreed to investigate. He used the ear’s factory-provided jack to raise the car’s front end on the driver’s side. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Kampen, he jacked up the car in a manner consistent with the instructions given in the owner’s manual. He placed the automatic transmission in park, blocked the opposite tire, and placed the jack in a special notch between the door opening and the wheel. Suspecting that something was caught behind the front wheel on the driver’s side, he placed his head and shoulders beneath the front of the ear to examine the back of the wheel. The jack collapsed, and the car fell across his shoulders, breaking both of his collarbones.

The Kampens’ expert identified the jack’s “failure mode” as a “shearing of the [metal] teeth which are at the base of the bottom set of legs for the scissors jack” in combination with “the dimensions of the contacting surfaces.” The expert testified that the steel was “soft on this jack, real soft ... about as soft as you can get.”

The owner’s manual and the spare-tire compartment warned jack users not to place themselves beneath a car supported solely by the jack. Kampen’s deposition testimony indicated he did not read the owner’s manual before jacking up the car.

II.

We review the district court’s grant of a summary judgment de novo, applying the same standard as the district court. Hanks v. Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp., 953 F.2d 996, 997 (5th Cir.1992). We review the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmovant. Exxon Corp. v. Burglin, 4 F.3d 1294, 1297 (5th Cir.1993).

[1197]*1197The Kampens brought this suit against Isuzu under the Louisiana Products Liability Act. Under the Act, a claimant can prove that a product was unreasonably dangerous in four different ways: (1) design; (2) construction or composition; (3) inadequate warning; or (4) nonconformity to express warranty. La.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 9:2800.55-.58. These are the “exclusive theories of liability for manufacturers for damage caused by their products” under Louisiana law. Id. § 9:2800.52. The Kampens’ complaint alleges that the jack was unreasonably dangerous in design, in construction or composition, and because of an inadequate warning.

Section 2800.54 of the LPLA contains the basic elements of a products liability cause of action against a manufacturer in Louisiana:

The 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 by the claimant or another person or entity-

La.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 9:2800.54(A)(emphasis added). Thus, under the statutory scheme, the plaintiff must prove both (1) that the use to which the plaintiff put the product was “reasonably anticipated” and (2) that his damages were proximately caused by an unreasonably dangerous characteristic of the product. See id.

III.

Reasonably Anticipated Use

A.

The district court concluded that Mr. Kampen’s use of the jack was not reasonably anticipated. The LPLA defines “reasonably anticipated use” as “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.” La.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 9:2800.53(7). Whether a particular use of a product is “reasonably anticipated” is an objective inquiry, undertaken from the manufacturer’s point of view at the time of manufacture. See Lockart v. Kobe Steel Ltd. Constr. Mach. Div., 989 F.2d 864, 867 (5th Cir.1993). The factfinder must determine how the manufacturer should have reasonably expected ordinary people would use its product. See La.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 2800.53(7); see also John Kennedy, A Primer on the Louisiana Products Liability Act, La. L. Rev. 565, 586 (1986), quoted in Myers v. American Seating Co., 637 So.2d 771, 774 (La.App.1994).

Before the LPLA became effective in September 1988, a products liability claimant had to show that “his damage resulted from a condition of the product that made it unreasonably dangerous to normal use.” Bloxom v. Bloxom, 512 So.2d 839, 843 (La.1987) (emphasis added) (citations omitted). “Normal use” included “all intended uses, as well as all foreseeable uses and misuses of the product.” Id. (citations omitted). The Louisiana legislature replaced the “normal use” test with the LPLA’s “reasonably anticipated use” requirement. The legislature apparently intended the new “reasonably anticipated use” standard to be narrower in scope than the “normal use” standard it replaced. See Dunne v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 679 So.2d 1034, 1037 (La.App.1996); Myers, 637 So.2d at 775 (citations omitted); Daigle v. Audi, 598 So.2d 1304, 1307 (La.App.1992); Walker v. Babcock Indus., Inc., 582 So.2d 258, 259 (La.App.1991). The parameters of the reasonably anticipated use test nevertheless remain imprecise.

The Louisiana courts have frequently defined “reasonably anticipated use” in terms of what it is not, contrasting a reasonably anticipated use with one that is merely “conceivable.” See Myers, 637 So.2d at 779 (“Although this use may be a conceivable use, it is not a reasonably anticipated use.”); Delphen v. Department of Transp. & Dev., 657 So.2d 328, 333 (La.App.1995) (“The more restrictive scope of liability [under the reasonably anticipated use standard] was meant to avoid prior confusion because virtually any conceivable use is foreseeable.”) (citation omitted). As one of the LPLA’s drafters explained: “ ‘Reasonably anticipated use’ ... eonvey[s] the important message that the manufacturer is not responsible for accounting for every conceivable foreseeable use.” Kennedy, supra at 586.

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119 F.3d 1193, 1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 20879, 1997 WL 441684, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/prodliabrep-cch-p-15067-ralph-kampen-katherine-kampen-v-american-ca5-1997.