This past July, the Western District of Pennsylvania issued an opinion that, if broadly adopted by Pennsylvania courts, could severely limit the extent of the recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision in Tincher v. Omega Flex. Tincher, as previously discussed by this blog, offered an overhaul of Pennsylvania product liability law, overturning Azzarello v. Black Brothers Co., and purported to allow the introduction of “negligence concepts” into product liability law.

In Rapchak v Haldex Brake Products Corporation, the Western District of Pennsylvania severely curtailed the defense’s ability to introduce evidence of plaintiff’s own contributory negligence, an important negligence concept of which evidence would have been precluded of pre-Tincher.  In that case, plaintiff’s decedent died of asphyxiation when he was crushed by his own motorhome while performing maintenance underneath it.  The motorhome descended about 2.5-3 inches on its air suspension system while plaintiff performed the work underneath, absent any safety precautions.

In its opinion, the court held that “Tincher cannot be read as doing away with traditional limitations placed upon the admissibility of evidence of a product user’s alleged negligence.” As justification for its decision, the Court cited to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s opinion in McCown v. International Harvester Co., issued three years prior to Azzarello.  As a result, the court excluded evidence of available safety features and precautions that plaintiff’s decedent could have utilized to prevent the accident.  Read broadly, this position could represent a near-reversion to pre-Tincher evidentiary rules in products cases.

This opinion presents a unique challenge insofar as it runs contrary to the main concerns highlighted by the court in Tincher.  In particular, Tincher’s “Risk-Utility” calculus involved a examination of a “user’s ability to avoid the danger by the exercise of care in the use of the product.”  Nevertheless, this opinion is distinguishable moving forward.  The particular evidence excluded in this case was the decedent’ failure to use a leveling system available on the motorhome, as well as decedent’s failure to put the motorhome on blocks or a jack while performing maintenance.  The court found that, because decedent was not performing any work that the manual instructed to utilize these types of devices, nor was the leveling system designed to support the full weight of the motor home, these precautions did not apply to the risk-utility calculus or the causation analysis.

Moving forward, this opinion demonstrates the importance of closely and deliberately tying available safety measures to the causation analysis and the risk-utility analysis, particularly through warnings, instructions, or other mechanisms. Until further appellate guidance is handed down, it is likely that introducing evidence of contributory negligence will remain a battle.

Thanks to Konrad Krebs for his contribution to this post.