## Facts

- Sharon Savage, a golf-course employee, operated a ride-on mowing tractor manufactured by Jacobsen Manufacturing Company and owned by her employer.
- The tractor had a metal platform beneath the driver’s seat used as a step for mounting and dismounting.
- When the tractor was sold and delivered, the platform had a nonskid painted surface.
- About three years after purchase, Savage slipped while dismounting the tractor, alleging the platform had become slippery because the nonskid paint had worn off through normal use.
- Savage’s husband, responsible for maintaining the employer’s equipment, had noticed the step became slick (including from morning dew and hydraulic fluid leaks) and requested nonskid paint weeks before the accident, but it was not provided.
- Savage sued Jacobsen in strict products liability, alleging the tractor was defective and unreasonably dangerous because the platform lacked a nonskid surface at the time of her fall.

## Issues

1. Whether a product is “defective” for strict-liability purposes when a nonskid surface present at sale later wears off through normal use and the purchaser is aware of the condition.
2. Whether the manufacturer can be held strictly liable for injuries caused by ordinary deterioration of a wear component rather than a design or manufacturing defect.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed summary judgment for Jacobsen.
- The court held the tractor was not defective in the manner required for strict products liability.
- The worn-off nonskid coating was treated as normal deterioration and a maintenance matter, not a design or manufacturing defect attributable to the manufacturer.

## Legal Principles

- Strict products liability requires a defect that renders the product unreasonably dangerous and is attributable to the product’s design or manufacture, rather than a hazardous condition created solely by ordinary wear after sale.
- A manufacturer is not required to supply parts or coatings that never wear out; normal deterioration of a safety surface over time does not, by itself, establish a defect.
- Where deterioration is known to the purchaser and correctable through routine upkeep, the resulting risk is generally assigned to maintenance responsibility, not to the manufacturer.
- Strict liability does not make manufacturers insurers against injuries occurring long after purchase due to aging, wear, or lack of upkeep.

## Conclusion

The court held that the tractor’s nonskid platform was not defective for strict-liability purposes where the nonskid paint was present when sold and later wore off through ordinary use; the hazard stemmed from deterioration and unperformed maintenance, so the manufacturer was not strictly liable.


Savage v. Jacobsen Mfg. Co., 396 So. 2d 731 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2d Dist. 1981)