Price v. Blaine Kern Artista, Inc.
893 P.2d 367 · Nevada Supreme Court · 1995
Facts
Thomas Price sued Blaine Kern Artista, Inc. (BKA) for strict products liability and negligence after sustaining neck injuries while wearing a heavy, oversized caricature mask manufactured by BKA. Price alleged the mask was defective due to the lack of a safety harness, and he was injured when he fell or was pushed by a patron. The district court granted summary judgment for BKA, ruling that the patron's push was an unforeseeable superseding cause.
Issue
Did the district court err in granting summary judgment by finding that a third-party's push was an unforeseeable superseding cause, thereby absolving the manufacturer of liability in a strict products liability and negligence action, despite potential material factual issues regarding legal causation?
Holding
The court reversed the district court's summary judgment, concluding that genuine issues of material fact remained regarding legal and proximate causation. It found that a jury could reasonably determine the third-party act was foreseeable for negligence and that the product defect was a substantial factor in the injury for strict products liability.
Rule
Summary judgment is inappropriate when genuine issues of material fact exist, and an intervening intentional act by a third party does not necessarily sever the chain of proximate causation if it is reasonably foreseeable. In strict products liability, a product defect is a legal cause if it was a substantial factor in producing the injury, even with an intervening cause, if the harm is within the foreseeable risk of the defect.
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