## Facts

- David S. Vautour was injured while using a leg-press machine manufactured by Body Masters Sports Industries, Inc.
- The machine used a metal sled moving along carriage tracks and included a manually engaged safety-stop system with upper and lower stops.
- A warning label cautioned users that handles must be locked (upper stops engaged) when performing calf exercises.
- Vautour performed calf raises without engaging the upper stops, lost control of the sled, and the sled descended and injured him.
- Vautour and his wife sued alleging strict products liability (design defect), negligence, and related theories.
- Plaintiffs offered expert testimony that the safety-stop design was defective because it allowed operation without engaging the stops and that a mechanically feasible safer design existed.
- The trial court directed a verdict for the manufacturer on strict liability and negligence, reasoning the expert did not adequately show the proposed alternative design would have prevented Vautour’s specific injury.

## Issues

1. Whether a plaintiff bringing a strict products-liability design-defect claim must prove a reasonable or feasible alternative design as an element of the prima facie case.
2. Whether the plaintiffs presented sufficient evidence to submit the design-defect claim to the jury, making a directed verdict improper.

## Decision

- The New Hampshire Supreme Court reversed the directed verdict and remanded.
- The court held that proof of a reasonable alternative design is not a mandatory element of a New Hampshire strict liability design-defect claim.
- The court concluded the plaintiffs’ evidence, including expert testimony that the product as designed was unreasonably dangerous, was sufficient to create a jury question.
- The court held the trial judge improperly weighed the expert’s testimony rather than applying the directed-verdict standard favoring the nonmoving party.

## Legal Principles

- New Hampshire applies a risk–utility test for design defect; a product is defectively designed if it is unreasonably dangerous to consumers when manufactured as intended.
- A design-defect plaintiff must present evidence that the design was defective and dangerous, existed when purchased, involved foreseeable use, and caused the injury.
- Risk–utility balancing considers usefulness, likelihood and severity of harm, feasibility of reducing danger without impairing utility or dramatically increasing cost, and adequacy of warnings and instructions.
- Evidence of a safer feasible alternative design is relevant and often probative in risk–utility analysis, but it is not a separate required element in every case.
- A directed verdict is proper only when, viewing the evidence most favorably to the nonmoving party, no reasonable jury could find for that party; courts may not resolve credibility or weight of expert evidence at that stage.

## Conclusion

The court reaffirmed New Hampshire’s risk–utility approach to design defects, rejected a categorical requirement that plaintiffs prove a reasonable alternative design, and held that the plaintiffs’ expert evidence was sufficient to allow a jury to decide whether the leg-press machine was unreasonably dangerous, requiring reversal of the directed verdict and remand.


Vautour v. Body Masters Sports Indus., Inc., 784 A.2d 1178 (N.H. 2001)