States v. R.D. Werner Co.

Construction worker Dean Lloyd States fell from a ladder when attempting to hang a sign on a building. As a crane dangled the sign, States used a power wrench to try to affix the sign to the side of the building. To reach the sign, States climbed a step ladder he had placed on an uneven surface. The ladder’s climbable side stood on a sidewalk approximately six to nine inches higher than its back legs, which sat on unfinished parking-garage pavement. The ladder’s product warning, prominently placed on the ladder, clearly warned against placing it on an uneven surface. As States reached the dangling sign and put pressure on it to try to secure it to the building, the ladder fell away from him. States, his wife, and his insurer (collectively, States) (plaintiff) sued R. D. Werner Co. (the ladder manufacturer) (defendant) under claims of strict products liability, breach of warranty, and negligence. States claimed his injuries were the result of defective aluminum rivets connecting the front and back legs of the ladder. The ladder manufacturer asserted misuse as an affirmative defense, alleging States’s conduct in placing the ladder on an uneven surface caused his accident, not the ladder’s allegedly defective rivets. The lower court instructed the jury on the misuse defense. The jury found in favor of the ladder manufacturer. States appealed to the state appellate court, alleging a misuse jury instruction was improper and that the court should have instructed the jury on comparative fault, which would have merely reduced States’s damages instead of eliminating his claim.