## Facts

- Automotive Proving Grounds, Inc. operated a tire-testing facility near Pecos, Texas.
- Armstrong Rubber Company contracted with Automotive for part-time use of the facility for ten years.
- Under the contract, Armstrong provided and maintained the trucks and vehicles used in testing; Automotive provided the track, buildings, drivers, mechanics, and safety rules.
- Clemente Urquidez, an Automotive employee, was driving an Armstrong-owned tractor–trailer in the course of a standard test at about 60 mph on an oval track.
- The left front tire blew out; Urquidez steered into the infield, the vehicle encountered soft sand, overturned, and he was killed.
- The failed tire was an Armstrong-manufactured “Allstate Express Cargo Nylon 12‑ply” “non-interest spare,” meaning it was mounted on the vehicle but not itself under test.
- The tire had never been sold; it was new when received at the facility, though Armstrong regularly sold tires of the same design and manufacture in ordinary commerce.
- The arrangement for Armstrong’s vehicles and tires at the facility was treated as a bailment for mutual benefit.

## Issues

1. Whether strict products liability under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A applies when the allegedly defective product has not been sold or otherwise placed into the stream of commerce, but is furnished under a mutual-benefit bailment for industrial testing.

## Decision

- The Texas Supreme Court reversed the court of civil appeals and the trial court and rendered a take-nothing judgment for Armstrong.
- The court held that § 402A strict liability did not apply because the tire had not entered the stream of commerce through a sale or comparable commercial distribution, but was furnished for limited industrial testing under a bailment for mutual benefit.
- The court treated the inapplicability of § 402A as a legal bar to strict liability, regardless of the jury’s defect and causation findings.

## Legal Principles

- Strict products liability under § 402A is directed at defective products placed into the general marketplace through sale or comparable commercial distribution.
- A manufacturer’s provision of a product under a mutual-benefit bailment for industrial testing, without sale and without placement into the stream of commerce, does not trigger § 402A strict liability.
- The applicability of § 402A turns on how the particular product reached the user (commercial distribution versus limited testing use), not merely on whether the manufacturer sells similar products in ordinary commerce.

## Conclusion

The Texas Supreme Court held that strict products liability under § 402A requires that the allegedly defective product be placed into the stream of commerce through sale or similar commercial distribution; a tire supplied without sale under a mutual-benefit testing bailment fell outside the doctrine, requiring judgment for the manufacturer.


Armstrong Rubber Co. v. Urquidez, 570 S.W.2d 374 (Tex. 1978)