Summary
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed a jury verdict against CRC Industries in a Minnesota products-liability case involving a duster containing difluoroethane gas. The court held that the plaintiff failed to present evidence of a safer alternative design or show that the product was so dangerous it should be removed from the market, as required to establish an unreasonably dangerous defective design under Minnesota law. The court vacated the judgment and remanded for entry of judgment as a matter of law in CRC’s favor.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the evidence provided a legally sufficient basis for the jury to find that CRC's duster was unreasonably dangerous under Minnesota's defective-design product-liability law.
- Whether a plaintiff asserting a Minnesota defective-design claim must present evidence of a feasible safer alternative design or, in a rare case, evidence that the product should be removed from the market.
Holdings
- To establish that a product is unreasonably dangerous under Minnesota law, a plaintiff ordinarily must present evidence of a safer alternative design; in the rare case where no feasible alternative design exists, the plaintiff must assert and support that the product should be removed from the market altogether.
- CRC was entitled to judgment as a matter of law because McDougall presented neither evidence of a safer alternative design nor evidence that the duster was so dangerous that it should be removed from the market.
Key quotations
“Kallio clarified that in those “rare cases” where there is no feasible alternative design, the jury can weigh the product’s potential harm against the burden of removing the product from the market.” (at 2)
“So there was no evidentiary basis for the jury to balance the dangerousness of the duster against either the burden of an alternative design or its removal from the market.” (at 3)
Factual background
David McDougall's wife was killed in a car accident caused by a driver who was high on difluoroethane gas huffed from a can of duster manufactured by CRC Industries, Inc. McDougall sued CRC under Minnesota law for failure to warn and defective design. The jury found CRC's warning adequate but found the duster defectively designed.
Procedural history
McDougall sued CRC Industries in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, alleging failure to warn and defective design. The jury found that CRC's warning was adequate but that its duster was defectively designed. The district court denied CRC's motion for judgment as a matter of law, and the Eighth Circuit reversed, vacated the judgment, and remanded for entry of judgment as a matter of law in CRC's favor.
Remand instructions
Vacate the judgment and remand for entry of judgment as a matter of law in CRC Industries, Inc.'s favor.