## 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

1. Whether summary judgment was proper where causation and foreseeability depended on disputed facts (including whether Price was pushed or fell without a push).
2. Whether a patron’s alleged intentional push constituted an unforeseeable superseding cause that relieved the manufacturer of liability as a matter of law.
3. 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.


Price v. Blaine Kern Artista, Inc., 111 Nev. 515, 893 P.2d 367 (Nev. 1995)