## Facts

- Whit Mason, a Mississippi employee, was injured in Mississippi while operating a bench grinder fitted with an emery wheel allegedly manufactured by American Emery Wheel Works, a Rhode Island corporation.
- The emery wheel was intended for use on a bench grinder operating at approximately 3,600 rpm.
- Mason alleged the wheel was negligently manufactured, inspected, and tested, making it unfit and dangerous for its intended use.
- While Mason was lawfully using the grinder at work, the wheel disintegrated and shattered, causing serious bodily injury.
- The wheel reached Mason’s employer through multiple commercial intermediaries; Mason had no contractual relationship with the manufacturer.

## Issues

1. Under Mississippi law, is contractual privity between an injured user and a manufacturer required to recover for negligent manufacture of a dangerously defective product?
2. If privity is not required, did the plaintiff present sufficient evidence to require submission of negligence and causation to the jury rather than a directed verdict?

## Decision

- The First Circuit reversed the directed verdict for the manufacturer and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held that Mississippi law no longer treated privity of contract as an absolute bar to a negligence action by a remote user injured by a dangerously defective product.
- The court concluded the plaintiff’s evidence was sufficient to permit a jury to decide whether the defendant manufactured the wheel, negligently made or inspected it, and proximately caused the injury.

## Legal Principles

- In a diversity action, the federal court applies the forum’s choice-of-law rules and then applies the governing state’s substantive tort law.
- A manufacturer’s duty of reasonable care in manufacturing and inspection can extend to foreseeable users beyond the immediate purchaser when the product, if negligently made, is likely to cause personal injury.
- Prior state precedent requiring privity may be treated as displaced where later state decisions indicate acceptance of the modern rule allowing recovery by non-privity users for negligent manufacture of dangerous products.
- A directed verdict is improper when the plaintiff’s evidence, viewed favorably to the plaintiff, could support findings on manufacture, negligence, and proximate causation.

## Conclusion

The First Circuit held that Mississippi would permit an injured, foreseeable user to sue a manufacturer for negligent manufacture of a dangerously defective product without proving contractual privity, and it therefore reversed the directed verdict and remanded for jury consideration of the negligence claim.


Mason v. Am. Emery Wheel Works, 241 F.2d 906 (1st Cir. 1957)