Facts
- Thomas Price, an entertainer at Harrah’s Club in Reno, performed while wearing an oversized caricature mask depicting President George Bush.
- Blaine Kern Artista, Inc. (BKA), a Louisiana corporation, manufactured the mask; it covered the wearer’s entire head and was allegedly heavy and top-heavy.
- Price alleged the mask was defectively designed because it lacked internal support, including the absence of a safety harness to support the head and neck under the mask’s weight.
- During a performance, Price fell and suffered a neck injury.
- Price initially claimed an intoxicated patron pushed him from behind, and the mask’s weight strained his neck as he fell.
- In a later affidavit submitted with a post-judgment motion, Price stated he could not say definitively what caused the fall and that he may have stumbled or tripped.
- Price sued BKA under strict products liability and negligence theories, alleging the mask’s design contributed to his injury.
Issues
- Whether summary judgment was proper where causation and foreseeability depended on disputed facts (including whether Price was pushed or fell without a push).
- Whether a patron’s alleged intentional push constituted an unforeseeable superseding cause that relieved the manufacturer of liability as a matter of law.
- In strict products liability, whether the plaintiff must show the alleged design defect was a substantial factor in causing the injury, and how intervening acts affect proximate cause.
Decision
- The Nevada Supreme Court reversed the summary judgment and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held that material factual disputes existed regarding the cause of the fall, foreseeability of third-party conduct, and whether the alleged design defect substantially contributed to the injury.
- The court concluded that the alleged push was not established as an unforeseeable superseding cause as a matter of law; the superseding-cause inquiry was for the trier of fact on this record.
- The court determined the district court erred by refusing to consider Price’s supplemental affidavit on reconsideration, which further highlighted disputed issues of causation.
Legal Principles
- Summary judgment is improper when, viewing the evidence and reasonable inferences in the nonmovant’s favor, a reasonable jury could find for the nonmovant on material facts.
- Strict products liability requires proof of causation; in a design-defect case, proximate cause centers on whether the defect was a substantial factor in producing the injury.
- A manufacturer may be relieved of liability if an intervening act produces injuries identical to what would have occurred regardless of the alleged defect; conversely, liability may attach if the defect substantially contributed to the harm.
- Whether an intervening act is a superseding cause in strict products liability depends on whether the harm is of a kind and degree so far beyond risks reasonably foreseeable to the manufacturer that imposing liability would be unfair.
- Even an intentional third-party act does not automatically break the chain of causation; unforeseeability and proximate-cause effects are generally fact questions when reasonable jurors could differ.
Conclusion
The court held that disputed facts about how the fall occurred and whether the mask’s alleged design defect substantially contributed to Price’s neck injury required trial, and that a patron’s alleged push did not, on this record, constitute a superseding cause as a matter of law.