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Product Defect Case Series

Lewis v. Sea Ray Boats, Inc., 119 Nev. 100, 65 P.3d 245 (2003).

Product: Sea Ray pleasure boat

Injury: Injury and death

Mechanism of Injury: Carbon monoxide

Nature of Defect: The engine allowed carbon monoxide poisoning

Jury Verdict: Defense

Issue on appeal: Whether a stock jury instruction on warnings is sufficient.

Product Defect Law Categories:

Result: Remand. A stock jury instruction on warning is not sufficient, given the case

Full Case Text: Lewis v. Sea Ray Boats, Inc., 119 Nev. 100, 107, 65 P.3d 245, 249 (2003)

Case Quotes: 

Respondent contends that warnings instructions in cases such as this one should be generally worded and that the adequacy of warnings should be left to the common sense of the finder of facts. Appellants contend that the district court erred by not instructing the jury with their more specific definition of “adequate warning.” We agree with appellants.

In American Casualty Co. v. Propane Sales & Service, we held that a party is entitled to have the jury instructed on all of his theories of the case that are supported by the evidence,8 and that general, abstract or stock instructions on the law are insufficient if a proper request for a specific instruction on an important point has been duly proffered to the court.9 We reversed in American Casualty Co. because the jury was left to guess “from general ‘stock’ instructions” discrete elements of proof “in the rather unusual context of a gas explosion case.”10 However, in American Casualty Co., we also observed that “[i]n some instances a requested instruction, although proper, will not be essential to the jury's understanding of the case.”11

Lewis v. Sea Ray Boats, Inc., 119 Nev. 100, 106, 65 P.3d 245, 249 (2003)

 


Under Nevada law,12 “strict liability may be imposed even though the product is faultlessly made if it was unreasonably dangerous to place the product in the hands of the user without suitable and adequate warning concerning safe and proper use.”13

Lewis v. Sea Ray Boats, Inc., 119 Nev. 100, 107, 65 P.3d 245, 249 (2003)

 


Inherent in this doctrine is that “a product must include a warning that adequately communicates the dangers that may result from its use or foreseeable misuse.”14

Lewis v. Sea Ray Boats, Inc., 119 Nev. 100, 107, 65 P.3d 245, 249 (2003)

 


More particularly, in Fyssakis v. Knight Equipment Corp., we held that adequacy of warnings was an issue of fact for the jury where an industrial strength soap manufacturer's warnings did not alert the user that the soap could cause blindness.15 In Allison v. Merck and Company,16 a district court entered summary judgment in favor of a manufacturer of a children's vaccine. We reversed in light of our conclusion that the drug manufacturer was required to adequately warn parents of possible side effects of immunization, including blindness, deafness or mental retardation. Accordingly, we held that a general warning that an inoculated child could encounter rashes and possible brain inflammation was arguably inadequate and issues of fact remained as to the sufficiency of the warnings given.17 In remanding the Allison case for trial on the adequacy of the warnings, we rejected the notion that a drug manufacturer could, via a general warning, avoid liability as a matter of law, even where the product was either reasonably or unavoidably unsafe.18

Lewis v. Sea Ray Boats, Inc., 119 Nev. 100, 107, 65 P.3d 245, 249 (2003)

 


First, in Fyssakis and Allison, we refused to exonerate products manufacturers as a matter of law from strict tort liability based upon general warnings language.

Lewis v. Sea Ray Boats, Inc., 119 Nev. 100, 108, 65 P.3d 245, 250 (2003)

 


Second, these instructions left lay jurors, persons in much the same position as the users of the product at issue, to search their imaginations to test the adequacy of the warnings.

Lewis v. Sea Ray Boats, Inc., 119 Nev. 100, 108, 65 P.3d 245, 250 (2003)

 


Third, given that experts testified in this case to the nature and quality of the warnings that were given and their supposed behavioral impact, the jurors were entitled to more specific guidance as to the law governing the duty to warn in connection with consumer products.

Lewis v. Sea Ray Boats, Inc., 119 Nev. 100, 108, 65 P.3d 245, 250 (2003)

 


We therefore embrace the rule of law stated in the Pavlides instructions offered by appellants below, and hold that Nevada trial courts should advise juries that warnings in the context of products liability claims must be (1) designed to reasonably catch the consumer's attention, (2) that the language be comprehensible and give a fair indication of the specific risks attendant to use of the product, and (3) that warnings be of sufficient intensity justified by the magnitude of the risk.

Lewis v. Sea Ray Boats, Inc., 119 Nev. 100, 108, 65 P.3d 245, 250 (2003)

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