In Dummit v. Crane Co., the N.Y. Court of Appeals held on June 28, 2016 that a manufacturer has a duty to warn against dangers resulting from foreseeable uses of its product of which it knew or should have known. The manufacturer must also warn of dangers arising from the product’s either intended or reasonably foreseeable unintended use, and of hazards learned that arise after the sale of the product.
The plaintiff’s decedent was Ronald Dummit, a Navy boiler technician who worked on Crane valves that contained third-party asbestos-based gaskets, packing, and insulation. Suttner v. A.W. Chesterton, the companion case to Dummit v. Crane Co., involved a Gerald Suttner, decedent pipe fitter at a GM engine plant, who similarly worked on Crane valves over the span of many years. The manner in which the gaskets, packing, and insulation were replaced, routinely exposed the two men to carcinogenic asbestos dust. Both men eventually fell victim to pleural mesothelioma, an asbestos-linked cancer that forms on the thin protective tissue that covers the lungs and abdomen.
The appeal comes after a stipulation to a reduced damage award of $7.7 million from whence the Jury found Crane 99% liable and awarded the plaintiff $32 million in damages.
In the appeals, Crane relied on Rastelli v. Goodyear Tire Co. to assert that it had no control over the production of other companies’ asbestos-based products for its valves and that it did not place those products in the stream of commerce, concluding that it had no duty to warn anyone of consequences related to combining its valves with third-party asbestos-based products. While Crane did not control the production of the third party gaskets and packing, Crane still derived a “benefit” from the sale of the third-party’s products since the products were necessary for the valves to work properly. The Court noted that “… where a manufacturer creates a product that cannot be used without another product… the manufacturer has a substantial, albeit indirect, role in placing the third-party product in the stream of commerce.”
The Court goes further in recognizing the durable longevity of a product and the positioning of manufacturer’s responsibility to warn of dangers as a result of the condition of the product. In other words, since Crane’s valve is designed for continuous, long-term use, someone who operates the valve may be more likely to observe warnings on that product than an item more short-term , and thus, the manufacturer is in the “better” position to know and warn of foreseeable dangers.
