## Facts

- A 15-year-old high-school pitcher was struck in the face by a line drive hit with a Hillerich & Bradsby (Louisville Slugger) Exogrid non-wood bat, causing severe injuries.
- The injured player and his parents sued under Oklahoma products-liability law for defective design and failure to warn, alleging the bat was unreasonably dangerous because it generated bat-exit speeds beyond what ordinary consumers would expect.
- At trial, coaches and players testified generally that non-wood bats can hit balls farther and faster than wood bats, and described the ball that struck the pitcher as the hardest hit they had seen.
- A lay witness estimated the batted ball’s exit speed at roughly 100–105 mph.
- Plaintiffs did not present expert testing or analysis that quantified the bat’s exit-speed capability, compared it to other bats, or separated the bat’s contribution from other variables (e.g., pitch speed and batter skill).
- The bat complied with the Bat Exit Speed Ratio (BESR) performance standard used by collegiate and high-school governing bodies.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence permitted a reasonable jury to find the bat defectively designed and “unreasonably dangerous” beyond ordinary consumer expectations under Oklahoma strict products liability.
2. Whether the evidence supported a failure-to-warn claim, including a non-obvious danger requiring a warning and causation tied to the lack of warning.
3. Whether plaintiffs presented legally sufficient evidence of cause in fact linking any alleged defect or warning deficiency to the injury.

## Decision

- The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of judgment as a matter of law for the manufacturer, setting aside the jury’s plaintiffs’ verdict.
- The court held the evidence was insufficient to prove a design defect or that the bat was unreasonably dangerous under the consumer-expectation standard.
- The court held the evidence was insufficient to establish a duty to warn of any non-obvious, bat-specific danger or that the absence of a warning caused the injury.
- The court concluded that, without objective measurements and analysis, the jury would have been forced to speculate on defect and causation.

## Legal Principles

- Under Oklahoma strict products liability, plaintiffs must prove the product was defective and unreasonably dangerous when it left the manufacturer’s control, and that the defect was a cause in fact of the injury.
- “Unreasonably dangerous” generally means dangerous to an extent beyond that contemplated by the ordinary consumer with ordinary community knowledge of the product’s characteristics.
- In design-defect claims turning on complex performance characteristics, subjective lay impressions of enhanced performance do not substitute for evidence that quantifies the challenged characteristic and permits a non-speculative comparison to expected or acceptable performance.
- Compliance with widely used performance standards is not dispositive, but it may weigh against finding a product unreasonably dangerous beyond ordinary consumer expectations absent contrary proof.
- Failure-to-warn liability requires proof of a non-obvious dangerous characteristic that the manufacturer knew or should have known, and proof that the lack of warning rendered the product unreasonably dangerous and caused the injury.
- Manufacturers generally have no duty to warn of open and obvious risks inherent in a sport absent evidence of an additional, non-obvious hazard attributable to the product.

## Conclusion

The Tenth Circuit affirmed judgment as a matter of law for the bat manufacturer because plaintiffs relied primarily on lay testimony and did not provide objective, expert-supported evidence that the bat exceeded ordinary consumer expectations or that any bat-specific, non-obvious risk and causal link supported design-defect or failure-to-warn liability under Oklahoma law.


Yeaman v. Hillerich & Bradsby Co., 570 F. App’x 728 (10th Cir. 2014)