## Facts

- James Sowell, a civilian welder at a U.S. naval air station, was instructed by a Navy co-worker to weld on a large steel tank used in station operations.
- The tank was designed by J.B. Converse Co., Inc. and contained sulfuric acid supplied by American Cyanamid Company.
- While Sowell was welding, the tank exploded, allegedly due to hydrogen gas accumulation interacting with sulfuric acid, causing serious permanent injuries.
- The tank lacked conspicuous on-product warning labels about explosion risks associated with hydrogen gas and welding.
- Converse had provided the Navy with a written safety manual; Sowell presented expert testimony that a purchaser-directed manual did not adequately warn workers like him and that visible warnings on the tank were required.

## Issues

1. Whether a supplier and designer owed a duty to warn a welder injured during foreseeable maintenance, even though the institutional purchaser was the Navy.
2. Whether the evidence permitted a reasonable jury to find inadequate warnings and proximate causation between the failure to warn and the explosion.
3. Whether the district court properly granted judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) for American Cyanamid and Converse after a plaintiff’s jury verdict.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court’s JNOV for American Cyanamid and Converse.
- The court reinstated the jury’s verdict and $1.2 million damages award for Sowell.
- The court held that the evidence, viewed favorably to Sowell, was sufficient for a reasonable jury to find duty, breach, and causation on failure-to-warn theories.

## Legal Principles

- JNOV is improper if, viewing the evidence in the nonmovant’s favor, reasonable jurors could reach the verdict returned.
- In products-liability and negligence failure-to-warn claims, the duty to warn may extend beyond the immediate purchaser to foreseeable users and persons foreseeably endangered by the product’s probable use, including maintenance workers.
- The adequacy of warnings, including whether warnings must be placed on the product rather than only in purchaser-directed materials, is typically a question for the jury when the evidence supports competing inferences.
- Proximate causation in warning cases may be shown by evidence that adequate warnings would likely have altered conduct (e.g., avoiding the task or taking precautions), and is ordinarily for the jury when supported by record evidence.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit reinstated the jury verdict, holding that a welder injured during foreseeable maintenance could fall within the class protected by a supplier’s and designer’s duty to warn, and that the adequacy and causal effect of warnings presented jury questions on this record.


Sowell v. Am. Cyanamid Co., 888 F.2d 802 (11th Cir. 1989)