Bernier v. Boston Edison Co.
403 N.E.2d 391 (1980)
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Rule of Law:
A company that designs, installs, and maintains a product in a public space, such as a light pole, has a duty to anticipate the foreseeable risks of its environment, including low-speed vehicle collisions, and must design the product to be reasonably safe to protect pedestrians from injury.
Facts:
- Arthur Bernier, Jr. and Patricia J. Kasputys were walking on a sidewalk in a busy commercial area in Lexington Center.
- Alice Ramsdell started her car, which was parked on the street adjacent to the sidewalk.
- As Ramsdell attempted to pull out and turn, her car had a minor, low-speed collision with another car driven by John Boireau.
- Following the collision, Ramsdell became dazed, and her foot slipped from the brake to the gas pedal, causing her car to accelerate.
- The vehicle jumped the curb, traveled approximately 55 feet down the sidewalk, and struck a parking meter and another parked car.
- Ramsdell's car then struck a concrete electric light pole owned and maintained by Boston Edison Company (Edison).
- The car also struck Bernier and Kasputys.
- The impact caused the Edison pole to break and fall, with the pole landing on Bernier's legs and fragments from its shattered luminaire striking Kasputys in the head, causing severe injuries to both.
Procedural Posture:
- Arthur Bernier, Jr. and Patricia J. Kasputys (plaintiffs) initiated separate actions in a Massachusetts trial court against Alice Ramsdell and John Boireau.
- The plaintiffs later amended their complaints to add Boston Edison Company (Edison) as a defendant, alleging negligent design and maintenance of its light pole.
- The cases were consolidated for a jury trial.
- The jury returned verdicts finding Ramsdell and Edison liable, but exonerated Boireau.
- Edison moved for a directed verdict and later for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, both of which the trial court denied.
- Only Edison (appellant) appealed the judgment, and the case was transferred to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, the state's highest court.
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Issue:
Does a company that designs, installs, and maintains a light pole on a public sidewalk have a duty to design it to withstand foreseeable impacts from vehicles traveling at low speeds in order to protect pedestrians from injury?
Opinions:
Majority - Kaplan, J.
Yes. A company that designs and maintains a product like a light pole must anticipate the foreseeable risks of the environment in which the product is used and design against those risks to prevent harm. Edison had a duty to design its poles to withstand foreseeable low-speed vehicular impacts to protect pedestrians. The court reasoned that vehicle collisions with light poles were a well-known and foreseeable risk, as evidenced by Edison's own data showing 100-120 poles were knocked down per year in the area. Given the pole's location in a busy shopping district, the risk to pedestrians was significant. The plaintiffs' expert testified that the pole's design was dangerously weak, capable of being toppled by a car moving as slowly as 6 mph, and that inexpensive design modifications, such as adding steel hoops, could have substantially increased its impact resistance. The court held that Ramsdell's negligence was a foreseeable intervening act that did not sever the chain of causation, and the jury could reasonably conclude from expert testimony that her car's speed at impact was only 8-9 mph, a speed that a reasonably designed pole should have withstood.
Analysis:
This case extends the principles of negligent design and 'crashworthiness' beyond vehicles to stationary objects in the public way, such as utility poles. It establishes that a manufacturer's or utility's duty to design for a foreseeable environment includes anticipating the common negligence of others, like a driver losing control of a car. The decision places a significant burden on entities that install infrastructure to consider pedestrian safety in the context of low-speed vehicle collisions, requiring them to balance design feasibility, cost, and the gravity of potential harm. This precedent influences product liability and negligence standards for utilities and municipalities regarding roadside fixtures.
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