909 So. 2d 901

STA-RITE INDUSTRIES, INC., a Wisconsin corporation, Appellant, v. Lewis J. LEVEY, as Personal Representative of the estate of Lorenzo Peterson, a minor, Appellees.

No. 3D03-2980.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

Dec. 22, 2004.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied Aug. 23, 2005.

*902Marlow Connell Valerius Abrams Adler & Newman, Coral Gables; Hicks & Kneale and Mark Hicks and Dinah Stein, Miami, for appellant.

Haggard, Parks, Haggard & Bologna and Andrew Haggard and Robert Parks and Michael Haggard, Coral Gables; Wetherington, Klein & Hubbart and Gerald T. Wetherington and Phillip A. Hub-bart, for appellees.

*903Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and COPE and FLETCHER, JJ.

SCHWARTZ, Chief Judge.

While visiting his mother at the Village Apartments, fourteen year old Lorenzo Peterson decided, along with a teenage friend, to swim in the complex’s pool. During that innocent excursion he suffered severe brain injuries which occurred when, after removing an unsecured protective grate, he was caught in the powerful suction of the exposed drain. The efforts of numerous rescuers could not pull him out and, by the time the suction was released after it had become necessary to break down the locked door of a shack which housed the on and off switch, almost twelve minutes had passed. The boy had become catastrophically brain damaged and, at the time of the trial, was in a permanent vegetative state.1

His representatives brought claims against Roberta Segal, the owner of the Village Apartments, and All Florida Distributors, Inc., the company she hired to maintain and operate the pool. These potential defendants settled the cases against them for four million and three million dollars respectively. In this case, Sta-Rite Industries, Inc., the manufacturer of the pump, appeals from a judgment entered on a $104,409,053.20 jury verdict for the plaintiff, based on product liability theories of (a) defective design; and (b) failure properly to warn the owner and users of the pool of the dangers posed by permitting the drain to become exposed.

While we do not agree with Sta-Rite’s primary contention on appeal that the evidence was insufficient to create a jury question as to its liability on either theory, we find reversible error in the trial court’s treatment of the owner and maintenance company as Fabre 2 defendants. We also conclude that the damage verdict cannot stand and that any new trial must involve the issues, not only of the respective responsibilities of Sta-Rite, the owner, and maintenance company, but of damages as well.

I.

We first conclude that the evidence supports the jury verdict as to Sta-Rite’s liability on both the defective product and reasonable warning issues:

1. Defective design.

The plaintiffs most prominent theory was that Sta-Rite’s pump was “defectively designed,” see West v. Caterpillar Tractor Co., 336 So.2d 80 (Fla.1976)(adopt-ing Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402 A), because it did not contain a device which would automatically turn off the pump and its powerful suction effect within a few, harmless seconds after the drain had become clogged by a “foreign object” such as Lorenzo’s body. In the light of the reasonable forseeability, raised by many similar incidents, that the drain cover would become improperly secured and thereafter removed with the horrendous consequences which might follow, we conclude that this theory is well sustained by the evidence. See Perry v. Red Wing Shoe Co., 597 So.2d 821 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992); Jones v. Heil Co., 566 So.2d 565 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990); Cox v. R.O. Corp., 470 So.2d 790 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985).

*904Sta-Rite’s primary contention to the contrary was that such a device was not reasonably available to a pump manufacturer when this one was sold to the apartment owner. See Cavanaugh v. Skil Corp., 164 N.J. 1, 751 A.2d 518 (2000); Smith v. Aqua-Flo, Inc., 23 S.W.3d 473 (Tex.Ct.App.2000); Allen v. Minnstar, Inc., 8 F.3d 1470 (10th Cir.1993). This is simply not correct. The plaintiff introduced extensive evidence, both expert and lay, which showed that such a device was indeed feasible at that time.3 See § 768.1257, Fla. Stat. (2003) (“In an action based upon defective design, brought against the manufacturer of a product, the finder of fact shall consider the state of the art of scientific and technical knowledge and other circumstances that existed at the time of manufacture, not at the time of loss or injury.”)4; Torre v. Hams-Seybold Co., 9 Mass.App.Ct. 660, 404 N.E.2d 96 (1980).

Sta-Rite surrebuts this evidence with a contention that the available technology did not include a perfected re-start mechanism which would automatically turn the pump back on — with the result that the system would be stopped for a period of time whenever, for example, a towel or leaves became caught in the drain. In our view, however, this makes no real difference. Applying the familiar risk-utility analysis,5 it was for the jury to say whether the mere inconvenience caused by a temporary shut-down while the obstruction was cleared6 was outweighed by the dangers of failing to have a switch-off at all.7 See, e.g., Moyer v. Martin Marietta Corp., 481 F.2d 585 (5th Cir.1973). See also Auburn, 366 So.2d at 1167; Cintron v. Osmose Wood Preserving, Inc., 681 So.2d 859 (Fla. 5th DCA 1996); Light v. Weldarc Co., 569 So.2d 1302 (Fla. 5th DCA 1990); Jones, 566 So.2d at 565; Pike v. Frank G. *905 Hough Co., 2 Cal.3d 465, 85 Cal.Rptr. 629, 467 P.2d 229 (1970). Of the cases which support this conclusion, we think that Martin Marietta is among the closest. There, the court upheld a products liability case based on the negligent failure properly to design an ejection system so as to preclude its operation while the plane was still on the ground and the consequent death of a test pilot, even though the danger would not have come into fruition without the intervening and quite unlikely disposal of a specific safety device during maintenance.

2. Failure to Warn.

There is little argument that a jury question was also presented as to the liability of Sta-Rite in failing reasonably to warn the purchaser and users of the pool about the extreme danger presented by a failure properly to maintain the grate, particularly in the light of similar severe accidents which occurred both before and after the sale of the pump in question.8 See High v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 610 So.2d 1259 (Fla.1992); Johns-Manville Sales Corp. v. Janssens, 463 So.2d 242 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984), pet. for review denied, 467 So.2d 999 (Fla.1985); Hiner v. Deere & Co., 340 F.3d 1190 (10th Cir.2003); Lewis v. Ariens Co., 434 Mass. 643, 751 N.E.2d 862 (Mass.2001); Ragans v. Miriam Collins-Palm Beach Laboratories Co., 681 So.2d 1173 (Fla. 2d DCA 1996); Hayes v. Spartan Chemical Co., 622 So.2d 1352 (Fla. 2d DCA 1993); Adams v. G.D. Searle & Co., 576 So.2d 728 (Fla. 2d DCA 1991), review denied, 589 So.2d 290 (Fla.1991); Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability § 10 (1998).

Sta-Rite’s riposte to this evidence, however, is that inadequate warnings could not have been a legal cause of this accident because (a) Segal had in the past done no more than simply relay to All Florida any information about the pool, including the arguably insufficient warnings Sta-Rite had previously9 given her and, (b) All Florida already knew of the risks involved anyway. We do not agree with this line of argument.

As we have previously held in Munoz v. South Miami Hospital, Inc., 764 So.2d 854 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), review denied, 789 So.2d 348 (Fla.2001), one who does not warn with the urgency and intensity deemed required under the circumstances cannot say that failure would have made no difference. Accord Goolsby v. Qazi, 847 So.2d 1001 (Fla. 5th DCA 2003), review denied, 859 So.2d 515 (Fla.2003). This is the case even when, as in Munoz *906the person to be warned — there, a physician who should have been informed by hospital employees of his newborn patient’s dangerous condition — specifically claims that such a warning would not have affected his conduct. It is all the more true because, in this case, Segal explicitly testified that if she had been given the stringent warnings the jury could have found were required she would have taken appropriate action, including informing All Florida.10

While it is true that, as its employees acknowledged, All Florida was previously aware of a generalized requirement that the grate should be kept attached to the pool, the fact is that, despite that knowledge, the maintenance company did not in fact fix the grate in time to avoid the accident. Again, it must be assumed that a sufficiently emphatic warning would have made the difference. Indeed this is the very basis of the rule that warnings must be given with the urgency the circumstances, especially the potential dangers involved, require. See Tampa Drug Co. v. Wait, 103 So.2d 603 (Fla.1958).

II.

We are nonetheless required to reverse the judgment on appeal because of fundamental error concerning the apportionment of liability between and among Sta-Rite, the pool owner and the maintenance company respectively.

The basis of this error was the trial court’s acceptance of the plaintiffs contention that the case was appropriate for application of the “two accident” rule established in crashworthiness cases by D’Amario v. Ford Motor Co., 806 So.2d 424 (Fla.2001). The theory was that Lorenzo’s injuries resulted from two separate “accidents” — the first occurring when his arm was initially caught in the suction of the exposed drain, and the second when (after a second or two passed without significant harm) — the suction was not released as it would have if such a device had been installed, so that Lorenzo remained caught for the extended period which resulted in his injuries. The upshot of the rulings accepting this contention was that, as the jury was specifically instructed, the significant negligence of the pool owner and the maintenance company in maintaining the grate and access to the switch off mechanism could be considered as a Fabre defense only with respect to the failure to warn claim. Because it related only to the “second accident” with which, on this theory, the maintenance of the pool itself had nothing to do, the jury was told that there was no Fabre defense as to Sta-Rite’s defective design claim — which was the primary subject of the trial.11 In accordance *907with these instructions the jury apportioned liability for Lorenzo’s damages at eighty percent to Sta-Rite, only twenty percent to the Village Apartments and, despite the extensive evidence of its negligent maintenance of the pool, nothing at all to the pool maintenance company.12

That determination, based on the “two-accident” ruling and its consequences, cannot stand. This is for the simple reason that, despite the plaintiffs successful attempts below to divide the indivisible, Lorenzo’s fate may be viewed only as stemming from a single uninterrupted series of *908events, to which all of the claimed negligent acts of all of the alleged negligent players contributed.

While the extent of the separate accidents' — separate defenses holding of D ’Amarlo has been roundly debated, see Edward M. Ricci, Theodore J. Leopold, and Benjamin Salzillo, The Minority Gets It Right: The Florida Supreme Court Reinvigorates The Crashworthiness Doctrine in D’Amario v. Ford, 78 Fla. B.J. 14 (June 2004); Larry M. Roth, The Florida Supreme Court Needs a Second Look at Second Collision Motor Vehicle Cases, 78 Fla. B.J. 20 (April 2004), there is no case or other authority which even suggests its applicability to a situation like this one, in which neither logic nor common sense would permit an artificial division of the causation of the plaintiffs damages into separate indistinguishable seconds-long intervals during all of which he remained in the same dangerous position. Bearint v. Dorell Juvenile Group, Inc., 389 F.3d 1339 (11th Cir. 2004). In other words, no rational person could find, as the jury was told it must, that the failure of Segal and All Florida to secure the grate or to provide ready access to an available means to turn off the pump had nothing to do with Lorenzo’s ultimate condition.13 The point is made in Jackson v. York Hannover Nursing Centers, 876 So.2d 8 (Fla. 5th DCA 2004). There, even though, unlike this case, two arguably separate incidents were involved, the court held that DAmario did not apply when, like this case, the same indivisible injuries were claimed to have resulted from both of them. A fortiori, that case compels reversal on this point. See also, Bearint, 389 F.3d at 1347 .

Those responsible for these acts of negligence must therefore be treated purely as joint tortfeasors with the manufacturer in this case. At any retrial of this case, therefore, the owner and maintenance company shall be treated as unqualified Fabre parties in the court’s instructions and on the verdict form.14,15 Because the issues are interwoven, there must be a new trial on failure to warn as well as negligent design.

III.

Although it may be unnecessary to do so,16 we also hold, for two reasons at the *909very least, that the damage verdict must be set aside and that any retrial must include that issue as well.

1. On the facts and circumstances of this case, we conclude that the issues of liability and damages are so intertwined that the reversal and re-trial we have already required as to liability requires one on damages as well. Brooks v. Holsombach, 525 So.2d 910 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988); Benoit, Inc., v. District. Bd. Of Trs. of St. Johns River Cmty. Coll. of Fla., 463 So.2d 1260 (Fla. 5th DCA 1984); Medina v. Variety Children’s Hosp., 438 So.2d 138 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983); Swan v. Wisdom, 386 So.2d 574 (Fla. 5th DCA 1980).

2. In the light of the equivocal and uncertain testimony that Lorenzo would enjoy a normal life expectancy of more than forty years, and the almost entirely speculative testimony that, despite his vegetative state, he actually suffered excruciating, “conscious” pain and suffering for all that period, the amount of the verdict is shockingly excessive, see Brown v. Stuckey, 749 So.2d 490 (Fla.1999); MBL Life Assurance Corp. v. Suarez, 768 So.2d 1129 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000); Jeep Corp. v. Walker, 528 So.2d 1203 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988); Slade v. Whitco Corp., 811 F.Supp. 71 (N.D.N.Y.1993), aff'd, 999 F.2d 537 (2nd Cir.1993), and as such, and as we find, contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence. Miller v. First American Bank and Trust, 607 So.2d 483 (Fla. 4th DCA 1992); Florida Nat’l Bank v. Sherouse, 80 Fla. 405, 86 So. 279 (1920); Ziontz v. Ocean Trail Unit Owners Ass’n, Inc., 663 So.2d 1334 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993); In re: Estate of Simon, 402 So.2d 26 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981).17

IV.

In accordance with these views and holdings, the judgment under review is reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion and the appropriate law.

Reversed and remanded with directions.

Sta-Rite Industries, Inc. v. Levey
909 So. 2d 901

Case Details

Name
Sta-Rite Industries, Inc. v. Levey
Decision Date
Dec 22, 2004
Citations

909 So. 2d 901

Jurisdiction
Florida

References

Referencing

Nothing yet... Still searching!

Referenced By

Nothing yet... Still searching!