Clarkson-11e: Case Problem with Sample Answer
Chapter 23: Warranties and Product Liability
23–6. Case Problem with Sample Answer
Mary Jane Boerner began smoking in 1945 at the age of fifteen. For a short time, she smoked Lucky Strike–brand cigarettes before switching to the Pall Mall brand, which she smoked until she quit altogether in 1981. Pall Malls had higher levels of carcinogenic tar than other cigarettes and lacked effective filters, which would have reduced the amount of tar inhaled into the lungs. In 1996, Mary Jane developed lung cancer. She and her husband, Henry Boerner, filed a suit in a federal district court against Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co., the maker of Pall Malls. The Boerners claimed, among other things, that Pall Malls contained a design defect. Mary Jane died in 1999. According to Dr. Peter Marvin, her treating physician, she died from the effects of cigarette smoke. Henry continued the suit, offering evidence that Pall Malls featured a filter that actually increased the amount of tar taken into the body. When is a product defective in design? Does this product meet the requirements? Why or why not? [Boerner v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co., 394 F.3d 594 (8th Cir. 2005)]
Sample Answer:
A product is defective in design when it is in a defective condition that renders it unreasonably dangerous. A product is unreasonably dangerous when it is dangerous to an extent beyond that which the ordinary and reasonable buyer, consumer, or user would contemplate. Liability can be assessed on this basis if the defect causes an injury to one of these individuals. As stated in the facts, cigarettes contain tar and other carcinogens. These are the causal link between smoking and cancer. Pall Mall cigarettes could be found to be in a defective condition due to their design, based on the excessively high levels of carcinogens introduced into the lungs of smokers, including Mary Jane (the initial plaintiff). This defective condition could further be found to make Pall Mall cigarettes unreasonably dangerous, and this condition could be construed to have proximately caused the plaintiff’s injury and ultimately her death. On this reasoning, damages could be awarded to Henry, Mary Jane’s husband, who pursued the case in her name after her death.