Federal court allows failure to provide adequate warning claim to proceed against motorcycle maker

OFF THE WIRE
Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP
Gary Long, Greg Fowler and Simon Castley

USA
July 22 2010
A federal court in Georgia has determined that the plaintiff’s failure to read the warnings provided by the companies that made a motorcycle and tires involved in a fatal crash is not a bar to claims that the defendants “failed to provide an adequate warning regarding the dangers of overloading the motorcycle.” Morris v. Harley Davidson Motor Co., No. 3:09-cv-74 (U.S. Dist. Ct., M.D. Ga., Athens Div., decided July 7, 2010). The owner’s manual and information on the motorcycle itself provided warnings about not exceeding the gross vehicle weight rating, which would have allowed “an additional 420 pounds of weight capacity for the rider, any passenger, cargo, and accessories.” The weight of the motorcycle’s owner and his deceased wife alone exceeded this limit. The owner’s manual also warned against using the motorcycle to pull a trailer; when the rear tire blew out, the owner, with his wife as a passenger, was pulling a trailer with the motorcycle.
The defendants sought to dismiss the strict-liability inadequate-warning claim, saying it failed as a matter of law because the plaintiff failed to read the warnings in the owner’s manual or provided on information plates attached to the motorcycle. According to the court, the defendant misconstrued the nature of the failure to warn claim by framing it as an alleged inadequacy of the language used. Here, the allegation challenged “the adequacy of the efforts of the manufacturer or seller to communicate the dangers of the product to the buyer or user.” Questions about a warning’s placement, color, print size, or symbolism are for the jury in Georgia, and the court determined that genuine issues of material fact exist “as to the adequacy and reasonableness of Harley-Davidson’s means and method of conveying the warnings.”