## Facts

- A power lawnmower manufactured by Roper Corporation and sold by Sears, Roebuck & Company included warnings to keep children away while the mower was operating.
- On May 20, 1974, the owner, Carol Favia, operated the mower at her home while five-year-old neighbor Steve Dugan sat nearby on her front porch steps.
- The mower picked up a small piece of plastic and expelled it through the discharge chute, striking Steve in the eye and causing blindness in that eye.
- Steve Dugan, through his father, sued Sears and Roper in strict products liability, alleging the mower was unreasonably dangerous because it lacked a safety device (e.g., deflector/catcher) to protect bystanders from ejected objects.
- Defendants argued that Favia’s failure to follow the warnings by allowing the child to remain nearby was a superseding cause and the sole proximate cause of the injury.

## Issues

1. In a strict products-liability action, may a supervising adult’s failure to heed clear product warnings be treated as a superseding cause that relieves the manufacturer and retailer of liability?
2. May the jury consider foreseeability of third-party misuse or disregard of warnings when deciding superseding cause and proximate cause in strict liability?
3. Did the trial court err by admitting evidence and instructing the jury on foreseeability and superseding cause in light of controlling Illinois precedent?

## Decision

- The Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed the judgment entered on a jury verdict for Sears and Roper.
- The court held it was proper to submit to the jury whether Favia’s conduct was a superseding cause.
- The court upheld the trial court’s admission of evidence and jury instructions addressing foreseeability and third-party conduct as consistent with Illinois strict-liability proximate cause doctrine.
- The court found sufficient evidentiary support for the defense verdict, including findings that the product was not unreasonably dangerous to bystanders when used as warned and/or that Favia’s conduct was the sole proximate cause.

## Legal Principles

- Strict products liability requires proof that the product condition proximately caused the injury; proximate cause concepts, including intervening and superseding cause, apply.
- An intervening act cuts off liability as a superseding cause only if the intervening act is not reasonably foreseeable.
- A user’s misuse or failure to follow warnings may bar strict-liability recovery when the misuse is found to be not reasonably foreseeable and to be the sole proximate cause of the injury.
- Foreseeability and superseding cause are ordinarily jury questions when the evidence permits differing inferences.
- Evidence of warnings and third-party conduct may be admissible in strict-liability cases when relevant to proximate cause and superseding cause, while the primary focus remains the product’s condition.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed a defense verdict in a bystander-injury lawnmower strict-liability case, holding that proximate cause and superseding cause remain available defenses and that the jury could reasonably find the supervising adult’s disregard of explicit warnings to keep children away was an unforeseeable superseding cause that broke the causal chain.


Dugan v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 448 N.E.2d 64 (Ill. App. Ct. 1983)