MacPherson v.Buick Motor Co.
Court of Appeals of New York,1916
217 N.Y.382,111 N.E.1050
Action,by Donald C.MacPherson against the Buick Motor Company.From a judgment of the Appellate Division,affirming a judgment of the Supreme Court for plaintiff,defendant appeals.
CARDOZO,J.The defendant is a manufacturer of automobiles.It sold an automobile to a retail dealer.The retail dealer resold to the plaintiff.While the plaintiff was in the car it suddenly collapsed.He was thrown out and injured.One of the wheels was made of defective wood,and its spokes crumbled into fragments.The wheel was not made by the defendant;it was bought from another manufacturer.There is evidence,however,that its defects could have been discovered by reasonable inspection,and that inspection was omitted.There is no claim that the defendant knew of the defect and willfully concealed it….The charge is one,not of fraud,but of negligence.The question to be determined is whether the defendant owed a duty of care and vigilance to any one but the immediate purchaser.
The foundations of this branch of the law,at least in this state,were laid in Thomas v.Winchester[1].A poison was falsely labeled.The sale was made to a druggist,who in turn sold to a customer.The customer recovered damages from the seller who affixed the label.“The defendant’s negligence,” it was said,“put human life in imminent danger.” A poison falsely labeled is likely to injure any one who gets it.Because the danger is to be foreseen,there is a duty to avoid the injury.Cases were cited by way of illustration in which manufacturers were not subject to any duty irrespective of contract.The distinction was said to be that their conduct,though negligent,was not likely to result in injury to any one except the purchaser.We are not required to say whether the chance of injury was always as remote as the distinction assumes.Some of the illustrations might be rejected today.The principle of the distinction is for present purposes the important thing.
Thomas v.Winchester became quickly a landmark of the law.In the application of its principle there may at times have been uncertainty or even error.There has never in this state been doubt or disavowal of the principle itself.The chief cases are well known,yet to recall some of them will be helpful.Loop v.Litchfield is the earliest.It was the case of a defect in a small balance wheel used on a circular saw.The manufacturer pointed out the defect to the buyer,who wished a cheap article and was ready to assume the risk.The risk can hardly have been an imminent one for the wheel lasted five years before it broke.In the meanwhile the buyer had made a lease of the machinery.It was held that the manufacturer was not answerable to the lessee.Loop v.Litchfield was followed in Losee v.Clute,the case of the explosion of a steam boiler.That decision has been criticized;but it must be confined to its special facts.It was put upon the ground that the risk of injury was too remote.The buyer in that case had not only accepted the boiler,but had tested it.The manufacturer knew that his own test was not the final one.The finality of the test has a bearing on the measure of diligence owing to persons other than the purchaser.
These early cases suggest a narrow construction of the rule.Later cases,however,evince a more liberal spirit.First in importance is Devlin v.Smith (89 N.Y.470).The defendant,a contractor,built a scaffold for a painter.The painter’s servants were injured.The contractor was held liable.He knew that the scaffold,if improperly constructed,was a most dangerous trap.He knew that it was to be used by the workmen.He was building it for that very purpose.Building it for their use,he owed them a duty,irrespective of his contract with their master,to build it with care.
From Devlin v.Smith we pass over intermediate cases and turn to the latest case in this court in which Thomas v.Winchester was followed.That case is Statler v.Ray Mfg.Co. (195 N.Y.478).The defendant manufactured a large coffee urn.It was installed in a restaurant.When heated,the urn exploded and injured the plaintiff.We held that the manufacturer was liable.We said that the urn “was of such a character inherently that,when applied to the purposes for which it was designed,it was liable to become a source of great danger to many people if not carefully and properly constructed.”
It may be that Devlin v.Smith and Statler v.Ray Mfg.Co. have extended the rule of Thomas v.Winchester.If so,this court is committed to the extension.The defendant argues that things imminently dangerous to life are poison,explosives,deadly weapons – things whose normal function it is to injury or destroy.But whatever the rule in Thomas v.Winchester may once have been,it has no longer that restricted meaning.A scaffold (Devlin v.Smith) is not inherently a destructive instrument.It becomes destructive only if imperfectly constructed.A large coffee urn (Statler v.Ray Mfg.Co.) may have within itself,if negligently made,the potency of danger,yet no one thinks of it as an implement whose normal function is destruction.What is true of the coffee urn is equally true of bottles of aerated water (Torgeson v.Schultz,192 N.Y.156)….
Devlin v.Smith was decided in 1882.A year later a very similar case came before the Court of Appeal in England (Heaven v.Pender,L.R.[11 Q.B.D.] 503).We find in the opinion of Brett,M.R.,afterwards Lord Esher (p.510),the same conception of a duty,irrespective of contract….What was said by Lord Esher in that case did not command the full assent of his associates.His opinion has been criticized “as requiring every man to take affirmative precautions to protect his neighbors as well as to refrain from injuring them” (Bohlen,Affirmative Obligations in the Law of Torts,44 Am.Law Reg.[N.S.] 341).It may not be an accurate exposition of the law of England.Perhaps it may need some qualification even in our own state.Like most attempts at comprehensive definition,it may involve errors of inclusion and of exclusion.But its tests and standards,at least in their underlying principles,with whatever qualification may be called for as they are applied to varying conditions,are the tests and standards of our law.(https://www.daowen.com)
We hold,then,that the principle of Thomas v.Winchester is not limited to poisons,explosives,and things of like nature,to things which in their normal operation are implements of destruction.If the nature of a thing is such that it is reasonably certain to place life and limb in peril when negligently made,it is then a thing of danger.Its nature gives warning of the consequences to be expected.If to the element of danger there is added knowledge that the thing will be used by persons other than the purchaser,and used without new tests,then,irrespective of contract,the manufacturer of this thing of danger is under a duty to make it carefully.That is as far as we are required to go for the decision of this case.There must be knowledge of a danger,not merely possible,but probable.It is possible to use almost anything in a way that will make it dangerous if defective.That is not enough to charge the manufacturer with a duty independent of his contract.Whether a given thing is dangerous may be sometimes a question for the court and sometimes a question for the jury.There must also be knowledge that in the usual course of events the danger will be shared by others than the buyer.Such knowledge may often be inferred from the nature of the transaction.But it is possible that even knowledge of the danger and of the use will not always be enough.The proximity or remoteness of the relation is a factor to be considered.We are dealing now with the liability of the manufacturer of the finished product,who puts it on the market to be used without inspection by his customers.If he is negligent,where danger is to be foreseen,a liability will follow….We have put aside the notion that the duty to safeguard life and limb,when the consequences of negligence may be foreseen,grows out of contract and nothing else.We have put the source of the obligation where it ought to be.We have put its source in the law.
From this survey of the decisions,there thus emerges a definition of the duty of a manufacturer which enables us to measure this defendant’s liability.Beyond all question,the nature of an automobile gives warning of probable danger if its construction is defective.This automobile was designed to go fifty miles an hour.Unless its wheels were sound and strong,injury was almost certain.It was as much a thing of danger as a defective engine for a railroad.The defendant knew the danger.It knew also that the car would be used by persons other than the buyer.This was apparent from its size;there were seats for three persons.It was apparent also from the fact that the buyer was a dealer in cars.Who bought to resell.The maker of this car supplied it for the use of purchasers from the dealer just as plainly as the contractor in Devlin v.Smith supplied the scaffold for use by the servants of the owner.The dealer was indeed the one person of whom it might be said with some approach to certainty that by him the car would not be used.Yet the defendant would have us say that he was the one person whom it was under a legal duty to protect.The law does not lead us to so inconsequent a conclusion.Precedents drawn from the days of travel by stage coach do not fit the conditions of travel to-day.The principle that the danger must be imminent does not change,but the things subject to the principle do change.They are whatever the needs of life in a developing civilization require them to be.
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There is nothing anomalous in a rule which imposes upon A,who has contracted with B,a duty to C,and D and others according as he knows or does not know that the subject-matter of the contract is intended for their use.We may find an analogy in the law which measures the liability of landlords.If A leases to B a tumbledown house,he is not liable,in the absence of fraud,to B’s guests who enter it and are injured.This is because B is then under the duty to repair it,the lessor has the right to suppose that he will fulfill that duty,and,if he omits to do so,his guests must look to him.Bohlen,Affirmative Obligations in the Law of Torts,44 AM.LAW REG.,N.S.,341.But if A leases a building to be used by the lessee at once as a place of public entertainment,the rule is different.There injury to persons other than the lessee is to be foreseen,and foresight of the consequences involves the creation of a duty.
In this view of the defendant’s liability there is nothing inconsistent with the theory of liability on which the case was tried.It is true that the court told the jury that “an automobile is not an inherently dangerous vehicle.” The meaning,however,is that danger is not to be expected when the vehicle is well constructed.The court left it to the jury to say whether the defendant ought to have foreseen that the car,if negligently constructed,would become “imminently dangerous.”Subtle distinctions are drawn by the defendants between things inherently dangerous and things imminently dangerous,but the case does not turn upon these verbal niceties.If danger was to be expected as reasonably certain,there was a duty of vigilance,and this whether you call the danger inherent or imminent.In varying forms that thought was put before the jury.We do not say that the court would not have been justified in ruling as a matter of law that the car was a dangerous thing.If there was any error,it was none of which the defendant can complain.
We think the defendant was not absolved from a duty of inspection because it bought the wheels from a reputable manufacturer.It was not merely a dealer in automobiles.It was responsible for the finished product.It was not at liberty to put the finished product on the market without subjecting the component parts to ordinary and simple tests.Under the charge of the trial judge nothing more was required of it.The obligation to inspect must vary with the nature of the thing to be inspected.The more probable the danger the greater the need of caution….
The judgment should be affirmed with costs.
WILLARD BARTLETT,CH.J.dissenting.[Dissenting opinion omitted,in which it was stressed that the earlier cases could all be explained by the “inherently dangerous” analysis and that the court should not go beyond that formulation.]