## Facts

- Irene S. Henderson drove a 1968 Lincoln Continental purchased new about seven months earlier and driven roughly 9,000 miles.
- While accelerating into Houston traffic, she found the vehicle’s speed was not responsive to her attempts to slow down.
- She pumped the brake and pushed with both feet; the car continued at speed, and she verified the accelerator pedal was not depressed.
- To avoid colliding with others at a busy intersection, she drove onto the center esplanade and intentionally struck a large signal-light pole, suffering injuries.
- Six days after the collision, an engineer inspected the wreckage and found the accelerator linkage jammed, attributing the jam to collision damage rather than a pre-accident condition.
- About two years later, a mechanic found a piece of rubber lodged between the carburetor throttle blades and bore; evidence suggested it may have come from an air-filter housing gasket and could have held the throttle open.
- Henderson sued the manufacturer (Ford) and the selling dealer (Snelling) alleging strict products liability based on defective design of the air-filter housing and related components.

## Issues

1. Whether legally sufficient evidence supported the jury’s finding that the air-filter housing/gasket design was defective and unreasonably dangerous, making Ford and Snelling strictly liable.
2. Whether, in strict products liability, the plaintiff’s conduct could constitute assumption of risk or contributory negligence defenses (raised but not outcome-determinative).

## Decision

- The Texas Supreme Court concluded there was no evidence that the challenged design was unreasonably dangerous when it left the manufacturer.
- The Court held that proof a design could have been improved, or that later models used a different design, did not by itself establish a defective, unreasonably dangerous design.
- Because the evidence failed on design defect, the Court did not decide the asserted strict-liability defense questions.
- The Court affirmed setting aside the plaintiff’s verdict but rendered judgment that Henderson take nothing against Ford and Snelling.

## Legal Principles

- In a strict-liability design-defect claim, the plaintiff must present evidence that the product’s design, as marketed, was unreasonably dangerous.
- Evidence that a product could be made better, without proof that the existing design created an unreasonable risk of harm, is legally insufficient to impose strict liability.
- Subsequent design changes or later “better” designs are not conclusive proof that an earlier design was defective at the time of manufacture and sale.
- Speculation about improvement cannot substitute for probative evidence that a prudent manufacturer, aware of the risks, would not have placed the product in commerce as designed.

## Conclusion

The court rejected strict products liability because the proof showed, at most, that the vehicle’s air-filter-related design might have been improved, not that it was unreasonably dangerous when sold; it therefore rendered a take-nothing judgment for the manufacturer and dealer.


Henderson v. Ford Motor Co., 519 S.W.2d 87 (Tex. 1974)