## Facts

- Dan Smith, a light-duty mechanic, was injured at Prudhoe Bay while starting the diesel engine of an older Ingersoll-Rand portable air compressor.
- Starting the engine required opening a side door; the door lacked a latch to hold it open and could be propped in multiple positions, including an unsafe wedged position.
- Smith did not remember how he propped the door; he recalled opening the door, starting the engine, and then finding the door on his head.
- Smith was not wearing a hard hat, though one was available.
- About eleven days after the incident, Smith began having seizures and was diagnosed with traumatic epilepsy, with ongoing related symptoms.
- Smith sued the manufacturer in federal court on a strict products liability theory; after multiple trials and a remand, the federal district court certified state-law questions to the Alaska Supreme Court about comparative fault in strict products liability after Alaska’s 1986 Tort Reform Act.

## Issues

1. Whether Alaska’s 1986 Tort Reform Act changed strict products liability law so that a plaintiff’s failure to exercise ordinary care can be submitted to the jury as comparative fault.
2. If ordinary negligence is not comparative fault in strict products liability, whether (a) failing to wear an available hard hat or (b) propping the compressor door open in a known unsafe manner can proportionally reduce damages as comparative fault.

## Decision

- The Alaska Supreme Court answered the first certified question yes: the 1986 Tort Reform Act modified comparative fault in strict liability to include ordinary negligence by the plaintiff.
- Because the first answer resolved the premise of the remaining questions, the court declined to answer the second and third certified questions as moot.
- The case returned to federal court for further proceedings consistent with the court’s interpretation.

## Legal Principles

- Under Alaska’s 1986 Tort Reform Act, “fault” in actions involving strict products liability includes “negligence in all its degrees,” permitting comparison of a plaintiff’s ordinary negligence with other fault for purposes of allocating responsibility.
- After the Act, plaintiff conduct amounting to a failure to exercise ordinary care is not categorically excluded from comparative fault analysis merely because the claim sounds in strict products liability.
- Whether specific plaintiff conduct constitutes ordinary negligence and how fault should be apportioned are fact questions for the trier of fact under the statutory comparative fault framework.

## Conclusion

The Alaska Supreme Court interpreted the 1986 Tort Reform Act to permit comparative allocation of fault in strict products liability cases based on the plaintiff’s ordinary negligence, rendering moot certified questions that depended on the opposite rule.


Smith v. Ingersoll-Rand Co., 14 P.3d 990 (Alaska 2000)