## Facts

- Genie Industries manufactured the AWP‑40S aerial work platform, which raises a small platform to approximately 40 feet and requires stabilizing outriggers for safe operation.
- The machine and manual warned that moving the lift with the platform raised would cause the machine to tip and result in death or serious injury.
- A church allowed two electric-company workers, James Boggan and Walter Matak, to use the lift for ceiling work.
- After initially using it correctly, the workers released the outriggers and moved the lift while Matak was fully elevated, contrary to warnings.
- The lift tipped during a move, and Matak fell roughly 40 feet and died.
- Evidence showed more than 100,000 similar units sold worldwide and only three reported similar accidents over about a decade.
- Plaintiffs alleged a design defect and offered proposed safer alternative designs, including an automatic drop-down feature, a stability-enhancing “pothole protection” concept, a chain-and-padlock to prevent outrigger removal while elevated, and a block in the outrigger slot.

## Issues

1. Whether there was legally sufficient evidence of a safer alternative design and that the AWP‑40S was defectively designed under Texas law.
2. Whether there was legally sufficient evidence that the product was unreasonably dangerous because its risks outweighed its utility (risk–utility), or whether the risk–utility balance was so one-sided that it became a question of law.

## Decision

- The Texas Supreme Court reversed the judgment for plaintiffs and rendered judgment for Genie Industries.
- The Court held the record contained little evidence of a feasible, safer alternative design that maintained the product’s utility.
- The Court held there was no evidence the AWP‑40S was unreasonably dangerous under risk–utility balancing, given the product’s utility, warnings, obvious danger, and accident history.
- The Court concluded that, on this record, reasonable minds could not differ; legal sufficiency review required judgment for the manufacturer.

## Legal Principles

- A Texas design-defect claim requires proof that (1) a safer alternative design exists and (2) the alleged defect renders the product unreasonably dangerous because the risks outweigh the utility.
- The safer-alternative-design requirement demands evidence of technological and economic feasibility and that the alternative would reduce risk without materially impairing the product’s utility or creating equal or greater dangers.
- Risk–utility is typically for the jury, but becomes a legal question when the evidence permits only one reasonable conclusion.
- Clear warnings, the obviousness of the misuse-related danger, and a strong safety record may support a legal conclusion that a product is not unreasonably dangerous as designed.

## Conclusion

The court set aside a plaintiff’s design-defect verdict and rendered judgment for the manufacturer because the evidence did not legally support a feasible safer alternative design or a finding that the lift’s design was unreasonably dangerous under risk–utility balancing, particularly where the fatal accident followed warned-against misuse.


Genie Indus., Inc. v. Matak, 462 S.W.3d 1 (Tex. 2015)