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(AP Photo/The Boston Globe, Frank O'Brien) [/caption]
In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the Massachusetts Appeals Court affirmed summary judgment against the estate of former Detroit Tigers’ pitcher, Mark Fidrych, in Pantazis v. Mack Trucks, Inc., Mass. App. Ct., No. 16-P-1497 (Nov. 27, 2017). On appeal, the Court rejected the Estate’s argument that a component part manufacturer had a duty to warn end-users of foreseeable hazards and risks associated with a non-defective component part installed into a completed end product.
In April of 2009, approximately 30 years after throwing his last pitch in Major League Baseball, Fidrych’s lifeless body was found under a dump truck at his farm in Massachusetts. A witness had observed Fidrych working under the truck, and a medical examiner later determined the cause of death to be accidental asphyxiation.
Mack Trucks, Inc. (“Mack”) had manufactured an incomplete vehicle, consisting only of a chassis, cab, and engine. Fidrych purchased that incomplete vehicle and later converted it into a dump truck by installing a piece of equipment manufactured by a co-defendant. That second piece drew power from the vehicle’s power system to raise and lower the truck bed.
Ann Pantazis, executrix of Firdych’s estate, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the two entities, among others, alleging that both entities failed to adequately warn end-users about foreseeable risks posed by certain components. She argued that both defendants knew of the dangers posed by unguarded drive shifts, but failed to provide adequate warnings to end users.
Both defendants conceded that the truck’s power system could have been designed and installed differently to avoid certain potential dangers. Nevertheless, the Court held that the “potential dangers…arose from the assembly of the component parts into the finished auxiliary power system. As the manufacturers of mere components that were not themselves defective, the defendants had no duty to warn assemblers or end users of the risks presented by such systems.” In citing the seminal case of Mitchell v. Sky Climber, Inc., 396 Mass. 629 (1986) (adopting the component parts doctrine), the Court expressly rejected the plaintiff’s foreseeability argument and held that the validity of the component part doctrine does not turn “on the factual unforeseeability of such harms.”
In summary, the Court declined to read a foreseeability exception into the component parts doctrine and affirmed the vitality of the doctrines efficacy as a defense for manufacturers of non-defective component parts. As stated by the Pantazis Court, there is “no underlying duty to warn of risks posed by the assembled product that arose out of the addition of other components and the decisions made, and actions taken, by downstream actors.” While Pantazis breathes fresh air into the component parts doctrine, the Court left future challenges open by noting, in dicta, “[n]one of this is to say that appellate courts should never recognize exceptions to the component parts doctrine.”