“But Everyone Else Did It This Way:” Industry Custom Admitted in California Strict Liability Cases

The California Supreme Court has ruled that industry custom and practice may be admissible in a strict products liability action, “depend[ing] on the purpose for which the evidence is offered.” (Kim v. Toyota Motor Corp.) The decision is a win for product liability defendants. Many trial courts have ruled all industry custom and practice evidence irrelevant as to strict liability, while allowing it in negligence.

Disapproving several prior appellate decisions, the court ruled that such evidence is admissible for the purpose of “the jury’s evaluation of whether the product is as safely designed as it should be, considering the feasibility and cost of alternative designs.” In contrast, “[e]vidence that a manufacturer’s design conforms with industry custom and practice is not relevant, and therefore not admissible, to show that the manufacturer acted reasonably in adopting a challenged design and therefore cannot be held liable.” Thus, it is admissible, but never dispositive.

Mr. Kim was injured when his 2005 pickup rolled over and crashed on the Angeles Crest Highway. Plaintiffs alleged that if the pickup had been equipped with a safety feature that came as standard equipment on SUVs, it would not have rolled over. Toyota introduced evidence that no manufacturers included that feature as standard on pickup trucks. The trial court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court all approved.

The issue … is not whether the manufacturer complied with a standard of care, as measured by prevailing industry standards, but instead whether there is something ‘wrong’ with a product’s design … because, on balance, the design is not as safe as it should be.

[E]vidence of industry custom and practice sometimes does shed light not just on the reasonableness of the manufacturer’s conduct in designing a product, but on the adequacy of the design itself.

Another description: industry practice “illuminates the relative complexity of design decisions and the trade-offs that are frequently required in the adoption of alternative designs.” The court was persuaded in part by the fact that trade association standards are admissible, and there seemed no logical reason to distinguish those standards from industry custom.

The court was also persuaded in part by the fact that plaintiffs themselves introduced industry custom evidence, such as the evidence that many manufacturers included the safety feature on their SUVs. “[T]he rule is a two-way street.”

Is this the proverbial camel’s nose in the allegorical tent, thus the beginning of the end of the rule against introducing custom and practice in strict liability cases? If no manufacturer of a particular product ever included a warning about a supposed toxin, is that relevant? If all manufacturers of a set of products allowed a trace amount of say benzene because it was so hard to eliminate it 100%, is that admissible in a strict liability case? If all employers operating a certain kind of facility adopted one level of protections against chemical exposure, even though more could almost always at least theoretically be done? The Kim decision arguably allows such evidence, but other courts may limit the effect of the decision.

There are at least two significant limitations to the reach of this decision.

First, it applies only to the risk-benefit strict liability test. Not consumer expectations, which plaintiffs more frequently assert.

Second, it applies to “industry custom and practice,” but not “state of the art.” “By ‘industry custom and practice,’ we refer to the use of the challenged design within the relevant industry—‘what is done’—as opposed to so-called ‘state of the art’ evidence, which concerns ‘what can be done’ under present technological capacity.”

This second limit may benefit defendants. What “can be done” for safety likely includes more than what others in the industry actually do.

The Kim result may be less notable in other jurisdictions: the decision recites it is joining “the majority of states that have permitted the admission of [such] evidence.” It is, however, a major development in California.