## Facts

- A minor child, Judith Rae Pontifex, suffered an eye injury when struck by a rope used to start the gasoline engine of a lawn mower.
- The lawn mower was manufactured and sold by Sears, Roebuck & Co.
- The mower used a loose pull-rope starting method rather than a rope permanently attached to a spring-recoil mechanism used on later models.
- Plaintiffs alleged Sears was negligent in design for not using the spring-recoil mechanism and negligent for failing to warn of the danger associated with the rope.
- The federal district court directed a verdict for Sears, concluding plaintiffs’ evidence did not support submitting negligence to the jury.
- Plaintiffs appealed from the judgment entered on the directed verdict.

## Issues

1. Whether a manufacturer is negligent for selling an older model product that lacks a safety device incorporated into later models, without evidence the older design was unreasonably unsafe at the time of sale.
2. Whether the manufacturer had a duty to warn of dangers associated with the pull-rope starter and breached that duty.
3. Whether plaintiffs produced sufficient evidence of negligence to permit the case to go to the jury rather than ending in a directed verdict.

## Decision

- The Fourth Circuit affirmed the directed verdict for Sears.
- The court held it was not negligence, standing alone, to sell an older-model mower not equipped with a safety device found on later models.
- The court found no evidence of negligent design or construction, no evidence establishing a need for a warning, and no other evidence of negligence on which a plaintiffs’ verdict could rest.

## Legal Principles

- Negligence in product design is assessed by the standard of reasonable care at the time of manufacture or sale; later technological improvements do not, by themselves, establish that an earlier design was negligent.
- A plaintiff must present affirmative evidence that a product’s design or construction fell below the applicable standard of care; the occurrence of an accident and the existence of a newer, safer design are insufficient alone.
- A duty to warn requires evidence that a warning was needed for a non-obvious or otherwise actionable danger; absent such evidence, failure to warn will not support negligence liability.
- A directed verdict is proper when the evidence, viewed most favorably to the plaintiff, still provides no legally sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to find negligence.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed judgment for the manufacturer because plaintiffs failed to offer evidence that the mower’s older pull-rope design was negligently unsafe or that a warning was required, and therefore the case could not properly be submitted to a jury.


Pontifex v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 226 F.2d 909 (4th Cir. 1955)