## Facts

- Samuel Bailey was operating a 16-foot bass boat sold by Boatland of Houston, Inc. when it struck a partially submerged tree stump, ejecting him into the water.
- With the engine still running, the boat turned sharply, circled back, and Bailey was fatally injured by the propeller; it was unclear whether the contact occurred immediately or after the boat returned.
- Bailey’s widow and adult children sued under the Texas wrongful-death statute on a strict products liability design-defect theory.
- Plaintiffs alleged defective design based on (1) inadequate seating/control-area arrangement, (2) unsafe stick steering and throttle design, and (3) lack of an automatic engine shutoff device (a “kill switch”) that would stop the motor if the operator was thrown from the boat.
- Plaintiffs offered evidence that kill switches existed and were used on racing boats at the relevant time and that similar devices were being installed on bass boats by the time of trial, including by the defendant.
- Boatland offered evidence that kill switches were not used on bass boats at the time of manufacture and that the boat reflected the then-existing state of design technology for that market.

## Issues

1. In a strict-liability design-defect case, whether the evidence supported the jury’s failure to find that the boat was defectively designed under Texas’s risk-utility standard.
2. Whether “state of the art” evidence at the time of manufacture is admissible in strict-liability design-defect litigation, and for what purpose.
3. Whether alleged errors in admitting evidence or submitting defensive issues required a new trial despite the jury’s failure to find a design defect.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Texas reversed the court of civil appeals and affirmed the trial court’s take-nothing judgment for Boatland.
- The Court held that the jury’s failure to find a design defect was supported by the evidence under the risk-utility framework.
- The Court held that “state of the art” evidence is admissible in strict-liability design-defect cases as part of the risk-utility inquiry, not as a defense based on the manufacturer’s reasonable conduct.
- The Court held that any error in submitting defensive issues was harmless because the dispositive finding was the jury’s failure to find defectiveness.

## Legal Principles

- A Texas design-defect claim in strict liability is determined by a risk-utility balancing: the jury weighs the product’s utility against the likelihood and severity of injury from its use.
- Strict liability focuses on the condition of the product rather than the manufacturer’s conduct.
- Evidence concerning industry practice, technological feasibility, and design technology at the time of manufacture (“state of the art”) is relevant to whether a safer alternative design was feasible and whether the design rendered the product unreasonably dangerous.
- When the jury finds no defect, alleged errors tied only to defensive issues generally do not warrant reversal if they could not have affected the verdict.

## Conclusion

The Texas Supreme Court upheld a defense verdict in a wrongful-death design-defect case involving a bass boat, ruling that state-of-the-art evidence is admissible to inform the strict-liability risk-utility analysis and that any asserted charge errors were harmless because the jury did not find the boat defective.


Boatland of Hous., Inc. v. Bailey, 609 S.W.2d 743 (Tex. 1980)