## Facts

- Susan Passwaters, a minor, was a passenger on a motorcycle that collided with a 1964 Buick Skylark manufactured by General Motors (GM).
- During the collision, Susan’s right leg contacted the Buick’s decorative wheel cover, which had protruding ornamental metal “blade flippers,” causing severe lacerations and permanent injury.
- Plaintiffs alleged the wheel-cover design was defectively dangerous because the protrusions created a foreseeable risk of serious injury to persons contacting the wheel in a collision.
- Plaintiffs presented expert testimony that the protrusions were unnecessarily hazardous and that safer alternative designs (e.g., smooth wheel covers) were feasible.
- GM presented expert testimony that the protrusions were recessed within the wheel well, were not unreasonably dangerous, and were consistent with industry practice.
- The case turned on whether the design created a foreseeable, unreasonable risk to a non-user third party (a bystander).

## Issues

1. Whether an automobile manufacturer’s duty in negligent design and strict products liability extends to foreseeable bystanders who are neither purchasers nor users of the product.
2. Whether the evidentiary record (including conflicting expert testimony) was sufficient to require submission of negligent design and design-defect claims to a jury rather than dismissal as a matter of law.

## Decision

- The Eighth Circuit reversed the dismissal and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held that, in both negligence and strict products liability, a manufacturer’s duty is not limited to purchasers or users and may extend to foreseeable bystanders within the zone of risk created by an allegedly defective design.
- The court held that plaintiffs’ evidence was sufficient to create a jury question on whether the wheel-cover design was negligently designed and/or unreasonably dangerous.

## Legal Principles

- A manufacturer may be liable for defective design under negligence and strict products liability when the design creates an unreasonable danger and the resulting injury is foreseeable.
- Foreseeability, not user status or privity, governs whether a bystander is within the class of persons to whom a duty is owed in product-related injury cases.
- When material facts and expert opinions conflict on whether a design is unreasonably dangerous and whether reasonable care was exercised, the dispute is generally for the jury, not resolution as a matter of law.

## Conclusion

The court rejected a purchaser/user-only limitation on product-design duty, holding that foreseeable bystanders may recover under negligence and strict liability, and that conflicting expert evidence about the wheel-cover protrusions required jury determination rather than dismissal.


Passwaters v. Gen. Motors Corp., 454 F.2d 1270 (8th Cir. 1972)