Neimann v. Westinghouse Electric Corp.
Neimann v. Westinghouse Electric Corp.
Opinion of the Court
The plaintiffs appeal from a judgment resulting from a jury verdict in favor of the defendant, Westinghouse Electric Corporation (Westinghouse). They allege two errors by the trial judge: (1) his refusal to instruct the jury that electricity is a highly dangerous force and that those who deal with it are held to a high degree of care, and (2) his refusal to instruct the jury that, had Westinghouse given a warning of the hazards of using its product, the warning would have been followed. There was no error.
At the time of the accident which brought about the filing of this action, the plaintiffs were long-time employees of Boston Edison. They were conducting a test on electrical lines at an Edison substation that had been isolated from the main transmission line because of problems with its primary line. The plaintiffs’ testing was to ensure that all was repaired before the substation was returned to service. They were injured when the dispatcher who had sent them to the substation negligently ordered another employee to close a switch. As a result, a short circuit developed at the substation, and there was an electrical explosion, injuring the plaintiffs. The explosion occurred in a test device designed, manufactured, and sold by Westinghouse. Neither plaintiff had on protective gear at the time of the explosion.
2. Warning being followed. Although this court has decided that “[a]n adequate warning is by definition one that would in the ordinary course have come to the user’s attention” and prevented the accident, Wolfe v. Ford Motor Co., 6 Mass. App. Ct. 346, 352 (1978) (where it was likely a warning would have prevented the accident), we think reliance solely on that principle is misplaced here. The plaintiffs claim that the trial judge improperly instructed the jury about warnings being heeded. They argue that the instruction as given left the jury to speculate about the impact of a warning, rather than permitting an inference that a warning would have been followed.
Judgment affirmed.
The trial judge instructed as follows: “[Manufacturers are not bound to warn or instruct about the obvious. . . . They need not caution or warn about things that they reasonably believe the buyer and those to be affected by the product already will know. They must warn or caution or instruct about latent defects or more subtle problems that may crop up. They can or you can infer, if you are inclined, that warnings would have been heeded by the buyer and those working with the equipment.”
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.