## Facts

- Sterling Jackson, a journeyman painter employed by a Utah contractor, was sent to Billings, Montana to paint the interior of railroad tank cars used to ship honey.
- The interior coating was an epoxy paint (“Copon EA9”) manufactured by Reliance Universal Inc. and supplied through Coast Paint & Lacquer Co.; the paint was highly flammable.
- While Jackson was spray-painting inside a tank car, accumulated paint fumes ignited and he was severely burned.
- The ignition source was disputed: defendants pointed to a broken light bulb; Jackson pointed to static electricity.
- Reliance knew the paint presented two major hazards if not properly used: toxic vapors and fire.
- The product label warned, among other things, to keep the paint away from heat/sparks/open flame, use adequate ventilation, and avoid breathing spray mist.
- Jackson understood the ventilation warning as directed to inhalation safety; he used a supplied-air mask but did not understand vapors could accumulate in a confined tank to explosive levels.
- Some employees of Jackson’s employer understood that solvent vapors could become extremely flammable in enclosed spaces.
- Jackson sued Coast and Reliance on a strict products liability failure-to-warn theory, alleging inadequate warning of the confined-space vapor explosion/flash-fire risk.

## Issues

1. In a strict products liability failure-to-warn case, may a seller be relieved of any warning obligation if it had reason to believe the user or the user’s employer already knew or would discover the relevant danger?
2. In a strict liability failure-to-warn case, may the jury be instructed that ordinary contributory negligence bars recovery, as distinct from assumption of risk or misuse?

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit reversed the judgment entered on the jury’s general verdict for defendants and remanded for a new trial.
- The court held the jury instructions misstated (1) the strict-liability duty to warn and (2) the role of contributory negligence, and that the errors were prejudicial.

## Legal Principles

- In strict products liability, the focus is on whether the product as marketed (including warnings) is defective and unreasonably dangerous, not on the manufacturer’s due-care or “reason to believe” analysis associated with negligence.
- A manufacturer’s duty to warn is not automatically eliminated by the fact that some personnel of the user’s employer may have general knowledge of a product’s hazards; such knowledge is not necessarily imputed to the injured employee as a complete answer to liability.
- In a failure-to-warn case, the adequacy of a warning may turn on whether it communicates the specific danger at issue (here, confined-space accumulation of flammable vapors and resulting fire/explosion risk), not merely general cautions about flames or ventilation.
- Ordinary contributory negligence (e.g., inadvertence or failure to discover/guard against the product danger) does not operate as a complete defense to strict products liability; defenses more consistent with strict liability include assumption of risk or misuse (unreasonable use despite known danger).

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit ordered a new trial because the jury was improperly told that defendants had no warning duty if they believed Jackson or his employer knew or would learn the danger, and because the jury was broadly instructed that ordinary contributory negligence could bar recovery in a strict-liability failure-to-warn case.


Jackson v. Coast Paint & Lacquer Co., 499 F.2d 809 (9th Cir. 1974)