## Facts

- Edward Romito, a 63-year-old journeyman electrician with decades of experience, worked on the flat roof of a four-story building at the Santa Anita Race Track.
- The roof was not open to the public and was separated from an adjacent terrace by a low wall.
- The roof contained plastic skylights manufactured by Red Plastic Company, Inc. (Dur-Red Products), approximately 5 feet square with a small dome and set in metal frames.
- Romito, wearing heavy work boots and loaded tool belts and using no safety line, pulled television cables through a small opening; the cable snagged, then suddenly broke free.
- The sudden release caused Romito to lose balance and stumble backward onto a skylight; the skylight gave way, and he fell roughly 16–20 feet to a concrete floor, suffering fatal injuries.
- Romito’s wife and adult daughters sued for wrongful death on negligence and strict products liability theories, alleging the skylight should have been designed with greater impact strength and that safer designs were feasible.
- By the time of appeal, Red Plastic/Dur-Red was the only remaining defendant.
- The trial court granted Red Plastic summary judgment, reasoning the injury resulted from unforeseeable, accidental misuse and that the manufacturer owed no duty to design against that event.

## Issues

1. Whether a skylight manufacturer owes a duty in negligence or strict products liability to design the skylight to withstand the impact/weight of a falling person when the injury results from unforeseeable, accidental misuse.
2. Whether feasible safer alternative designs, without reasonable foreseeability of the accident scenario, can establish a design defect or duty sufficient to defeat summary judgment.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed summary judgment for Red Plastic.
- The court held, as a policy matter, that a manufacturer owes no duty to prevent injuries resulting from unforeseeable and accidental product misuse, even if technology could produce a safer product.
- Romito’s stumble and fall onto the skylight was treated as an unforeseeable, accidental misuse rather than an intended or reasonably expected use of the product.

## Legal Principles

- A manufacturer’s duty to design against injury is limited by reasonable foreseeability; unforeseeable, accidental misuse does not create a duty to redesign.
- The existence of technologically feasible safer designs does not, by itself, impose a duty to adopt those designs when the risk addressed arises from an unforeseeable accident scenario.
- Strict products liability for design defect is not absolute liability; policy limits and the product’s intended function constrain liability.
- Products are evaluated in context, including intended use and expected conditions; a skylight intended to admit light is not required to serve as fall protection absent reasonably foreseeable use or misuse.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed judgment for the skylight manufacturer, holding that tort law does not require redesign to prevent harm from an unforeseeable, accidental misuse—here, a worker’s backward fall onto a skylight—despite evidence that a stronger design was technologically feasible.


Romito v. Red Plastic Co., 38 Cal. App. 4th 59, 44 Cal. Rptr. 2d 834 (Ct. App. 1995)