Greiner v. Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft
429 F.Supp. 495, 1977 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16504 (1977)
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Rule of Law:
In a strict products liability claim based on a failure to warn, a plaintiff must prove that an adequate warning would have been heeded and would have prevented the harm. Causation is not established if the circumstances of the accident were such that the user could not have possibly followed the warning to avoid the injury.
Facts:
- The plaintiff's driver, Nickel, was operating a Volkswagen vehicle.
- To avoid an oncoming car, Nickel found herself on the wrong side of the road.
- She then swerved right, which put her on a path to collide with a concrete bridge railing approximately ten feet away.
- Nickel was traveling between 30 and 60 miles per hour.
- To avoid striking the railing, Nickel turned sharply to the left, causing the Volkswagen to overturn.
- The plaintiff alleged that the Volkswagen had a propensity to overturn during sharp steering maneuvers and that the manufacturer, Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft, failed to provide a warning of this danger.
Procedural Posture:
- Plaintiff Greiner sued Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft in federal district court under a theory of strict products liability.
- Following a trial, a judgment was entered.
- The case was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
- The Court of Appeals vacated the district court's judgment and remanded the case.
- The Court of Appeals directed the district court judge to determine as a matter of law whether there was sufficient evidence for a jury to find that the lack of a warning was unreasonably dangerous and the proximate cause of the accident.
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Issue:
In a strict products liability claim based on failure to warn, does the absence of a warning constitute the proximate cause of an injury when the circumstances of the accident were such that the driver could not have heeded the warning to avoid the harm?
Opinions:
Majority - Chief Judge Joseph S. Lord, III
No. In a strict liability claim for failure to warn, the absence of a warning is not the proximate cause of injury if the user could not have realistically heeded the warning to prevent the harm. The court reasoned that a plaintiff must demonstrate a causal link between the lack of warning and the injury. Here, the driver, Nickel, was in an emergency situation with only a fraction of a second to react between avoiding the railing and overturning. The court found it was 'not within the bounds of human reason' to believe that a warning about the car's propensity to overturn would have been recalled and acted upon in that split second. The presumption that a warning will be read and heeded only applies when it is possible for the user to do so. Since an accident was inevitable and a warning could not have been heeded, the lack of one could not be the proximate cause of the plaintiff's injuries. The court also rejected the argument that a warning might have deterred the driver from buying the car as 'pure conjecture' unsupported by any evidence.
Analysis:
This decision clarifies the proximate cause standard in failure-to-warn product liability cases, particularly in scenarios involving sudden emergencies. It establishes that a plaintiff cannot merely rely on the legal presumption that a warning would be followed; they must show that following the warning was a practical possibility under the circumstances. The ruling heightens the evidentiary burden for plaintiffs, requiring them to demonstrate not just that a warning was absent, but that its presence would have realistically altered the user's conduct to prevent the specific harm that occurred. This makes it more difficult to establish causation in cases where injuries result from split-second reactions or unavoidable accidents.
