MAYNARD et al. v. SNAPCHAT, INC.
S21G0555
In the Supreme Court of Georgia
Decided: March 15, 2022
COLVIN, Justice.
On certiorari, we conclude that the Court of Appeals erred. For the reasons discussed below, a manufacturer has a duty under our decisional law to use reasonable care in selecting from alternative designs to reduce reasonably foreseeable risks of harm posed by its products. When a particular risk of harm from a product is not reasonably foreseeable, a manufacturer owes no design duty to reduce that risk. How a product was being used (e.g., intentionally, negligently, properly, improperly, or not at all) and who was using it (the plaintiff or a third party) when an injury occurred are relevant considerations in determining whether a manufacturer could reasonably foresee a particular risk of harm from its product. Nevertheless, our decisional law does not recognize a blanket exception to a manufacturer‘s design duty in all cases of intentional or tortious third-party use. Because the holding of the Court of
1.
In their second amended complaint, the Maynards alleged that, around 10:15 p.m. on September 10, 2015, McGee crashed her car into the back of Wentworth‘s vehicle while driving 107 miles per hour. According to the Maynards, McGee told her three passengers right before the crash that she was “just trying to get the car to 100 m.p.h. to post it on Snapchat” using Snapchat‘s Speed Filter.
The Maynards asserted a negligence claim and a derivative loss-of-consortium claim against McGee and Snap, seeking damages, punitive damages, and litigation expenses. In relevant part, the Maynards alleged that Snap had negligently designed the Speed Filter feature of the Snapchat application. Specifically, they alleged that Snap “owed a duty to use ordinary care in designing . . . its products, including but not limited to Snapchat‘s Speed Filter.”
Snap answered the complaint, attaching copies of its Terms of Use and a “pop-up warning” that, according to Snap, “a user first accessing the Snapchat ‘speed filter’ would see.” The Terms of Use stated that the user agreed not to use Snapchat “for any illegal or
The trial court granted Snap‘s motion, dismissing the Maynards’ claims without leave to amend for two reasons. First, the court concluded that Snap owed no legal duty to the Maynards because Snap did not owe a duty as a manufacturer to design its product to prevent McGee from driving dangerously or to control McGee‘s conduct. Second, the court concluded that the Maynards could not establish proximate causation because (a) a driver‘s inattention, not a mobile phone application, causes a driver to wreck a car, and (b) McGee‘s criminal and negligent driving, as reflected in her May 17, 2018 plea of no contest to serious injury by vehicle, constituted a superseding and intervening cause that broke the causal chain. The trial court also granted Snap‘s motion for judgment on the pleadings, concluding that McGee‘s violation of Snap‘s Terms of Use and disregard for Snap‘s pop-up warning broke
The Court of Appeals granted the Maynards’ application for an interlocutory appeal, and a divided panel affirmed the trial court‘s determination that Snap did not owe a legal duty to the Maynards. See Maynard, 357 Ga. App. at 498, 502.2 We granted certiorari to determine whether the Court of Appeals erred in affirming the dismissal of the Maynards’ second amended complaint.
2.
We review de novo a trial court‘s ruling on a motion to dismiss, “accepting as true all well-pled material allegations in the complaint and resolving any doubts in favor of the plaintiff.” Williams v. DeKalb County, 308 Ga. 265, 270 (2) (840 SE2d 423) (2020) (punctuation omitted). “The existence of a legal duty,” which can arise by statute or be imposed by decisional law, “is a question of law for the court.” Rasnick v. Krishna Hospitality, Inc., 289 Ga. 565, 566-567 (713 SE2d 835) (2011).
Because Georgia‘s product-liability law is a creature of both
The manufacturer of any personal property sold as new property directly or through a dealer or any other person shall be liable in tort, irrespective of privity, to any natural person who may use, consume, or reasonably be affected by the property and who suffers injury to his person or property because the property when sold by the manufacturer was not merchantable and reasonably suited to the use intended, and its condition when sold is the proximate cause of the injury sustained.
Similarly, under our decisional law, when designing a product, a manufacturer has a duty to exercise reasonable care in “selecting from among alternative product designs” to “reduce[] the [reasonably] foreseeable risks of harm presented by [a] product.” Jones v. NordicTrack, Inc., 274 Ga. 115, 118 (550 SE2d 101) (2001). Indeed, it has been a longstanding principle of our case law regarding allegedly defective product designs that a designer‘s duty extends only to reasonably foreseeable risks of harm. See Richmond & D.R. Co. v. Dickey, 90 Ga. 491, 492-493 (2) (16 SE 212) (1892) (holding that a railroad company was “not required by law” to
When a plaintiff alleges that a manufacturer defectively designed a product, the same test is used to assess breach of the manufacturer‘s design duty – that is, “whether a product was defective” for purposes of a strict-liability claim or “whether the
In addition to proving that a product was defectively designed, a plaintiff seeking to hold a manufacturer liable for a design defect must show that the defect proximately caused the plaintiff‘s injury. See Jones, 274 Ga. at 117 (“[A] manufacturer [can] be held liable in negligence or strict liability for injuries proximately caused by [a defectively designed] product.“);
A breach of a duty constitutes a proximate cause of an injury only if the injury is the “probable” result of the breach, “according to ordinary and usual experience,” as opposed to “merely [a] possible” result of a breach, “according to occasional experience.” Id. (citation and punctuation omitted). We have explained that
[i]t is important to recognize that “probable,” in the rule as to causation, does not mean “more likely than not” but rather “not unlikely“; or, more definitely, “such a chance of harm as would induce a prudent man not to run the risk; such a chance of harmful result that a prudent man would foresee an appreciable risk that some harm would happen.”
Id. (citation and punctuation omitted); see, e.g., Blakely v. Johnson, 220 Ga. 572, 576-577 (140 SE2d 857) (1965) (holding that making loud noises at a service station to attract the attention of potential customers was not a proximate cause of a motorist collision because “the probable consequence of [the employees‘] acts” was not “that a
Further, under “the well-established doctrine of intervening causes,” a defendant‘s breach of a duty does not constitute a “proximate cause” of a plaintiff‘s injury when
there has intervened between the act of the defendant and the injury to the plaintiff, an independent act or omission of someone other than the defendant, which was not foreseeable by [the] defendant, was not triggered by [the] defendant‘s act, and which was sufficient of itself to cause the injury.
City of Richmond Hill v. Maia, 301 Ga. 257, 259 (1) (800 SE2d 573) (2017) (emphasis in original; citation and punctuation omitted); see also Jordan v. Everson, 302 Ga. 364, 365-366 (806 SE2d 533) (2017) (holding that a third party‘s intervening and independent act need not be “wrongful or negligent” to break the causal chain); Goldstein, Garber & Salama, LLC v. J.B., 300 Ga. 840, 841 (1) (797 SE2d 87) (2017) (“[T]his [intervening-cause] rule does not insulate the defendant if the defendant had reasonable grounds for
As shown by the above discussion, considerations regarding foreseeability are intertwined with questions of duty, breach, and proximate causation in negligent-design cases. When determining whether a manufacturer owes a decisional-law design duty with respect to a particular risk of harm posed by a product, the question is whether that particular risk was reasonably foreseeable. See Jones, 274 Ga. at 118. Whether a manufacturer breached its design duty turns on whether it “failed to adopt a reasonable, safer design that would have reduced the foreseeable risks of harm presented by the product.” Banks, 264 Ga. at 736 n.4 (1) (citation and punctuation omitted). Finally, the proximate-cause inquiry asks whether “a prudent [manufacturer] would foresee an appreciable risk that,” as a result of an unreasonable design decision, “some harm would happen” “according to ordinary and usual experience.” Johnson, 311 Ga. at 592 (citation and punctuation omitted).
3.
As noted in Division 2 above, only reasonably foreseeable
Specifically, the Maynards alleged that Snap could reasonably foresee that its product design created this risk of harm based on, among other things, the fact that Snap knew that other drivers were using the Speed Filter while speeding at 100 miles per hour or more as part of “a game,” purposefully designed its products to encourage such behavior, knew of at least one other instance in which a driver who was using Snapchat while speeding caused a car crash, and warned users not to use the product while driving. The Maynards further alleged that, “[o]nce downloaded, Snapchat‘s software continues to download and install upgrades, updates, or other new
4.
The Court of Appeals majority opinion acknowledged the
(a) First, there is no blanket intentional-misuse exception to a manufacturer‘s design duty under Georgia decisional law. The Court of Appeals majority relied on our decision in Jones to conclude that, although an accidental misuse of a product could result in manufacturer liability, an intentional misuse of a product could not. See Maynard, 357 Ga. App. at 500 & n.11 (citing Jones, 274 Ga. at 118 for support by comparison). But Jones actually contradicts this proposition, as that decision clarified that a manufacturer may have a design duty to reduce foreseeable risks from a product regardless of how the product was being used or whether it was being used at
In Jones, a plaintiff who was injured “when she fell against [a] ski exerciser” that was not in use at the time filed design-defect claims against the manufacturer in federal court based on strict liability, negligence, and failure to warn. Jones, 274 Ga. at 116. The federal district court concluded that Georgia design-defect claims cannot “arise [absent] some use of the product” and granted the defendant‘s motion for judgment on the pleadings. Id. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit then certified a question to this Court, asking whether a product needed to be “in use at the time of injury for a [manufacturer] to be held liable for defective design.” Id. at 115. We answered the question in the negative, holding that “use” was not “a predicate to liability.” Id. at 117-118. Because “the focus [of a design-defect claim] remains on the foreseeability of the risk of harm or the danger involved,” we explained, it was “wholly unnecessary” to engage in the difficult task of “characteriz[ing]” or “defining” the “type of use” of a product as, for example, “in use,” “misuse, unintended use, or abnormal use.”
Under Jones, then, regardless of how a product was being used when an injury occurred – whether it was being used properly, improperly, intentionally, negligently, or not at all – a manufacturer may owe a design duty to an injured person. See id. at 117-118. As explained above in Division 2, a manufacturer has a statutory duty to ensure that products it sells are not defectively designed, see
(b) Second, the Court of Appeals majority erred to the extent that it concluded that a manufacturer cannot ever owe a design duty to an injured person if the person was injured by a third party‘s use of its product. See Maynard, 357 Ga. App. at 499-500 (highlighting that the Maynards’ claim was “predicated on McGee‘s conduct“). Under Georgia law, a manufacturer may owe a design duty to an injured person regardless of who – the injured person or a third party – was using the defectively designed product when the injury occurred. “The plain language of the [strict-product-liability]
The rationale offered by the Court of Appeals majority for concluding that a manufacturer could never be held liable for a third party‘s use of a defectively designed product is unpersuasive. The majority concluded that, even if Snap owed a duty to design a reasonably safe product, that duty did not extend to people injured by a third party‘s use of the product because Georgia does not recognize a general duty to the whole world or a general duty to control a third person‘s conduct. See Maynard, 357 Ga. App. at 499-500. The majority further concluded that the Maynards sought to “impos[e] a duty on Snap[] to control or avoid McGee‘s allegedly tortious conduct” because the Maynards alleged that Snapchat‘s design encouraged misuse. Id. This reasoning, however, relied upon general negligence principles inapplicable to the Maynards’ product-liability claim and misconstrued the Maynards’ allegations.
It is true that Georgia decisional law ordinarily does not
Nor did the Maynards’ allegations regarding “encouragement” purport to impose a new type of duty on Snap as a manufacturer to “control” users’ conduct. The Maynards alleged that Snap had “purposefully designed its product to encourage” dangerous use of the product rather than “address[ing] the danger created by [its]
In short, the Maynards asserted a conventional design-defect claim based on the ordinary design duty recognized under our decisional law, a breach of that duty, and an injury proximately caused by the breach. See Jones, 274 Ga. at 118 (addressing the duty element of a decisional-law design-defect claim); Banks, 264 Ga. at 734-735 (1) (discussing breach of a design duty under the risk-utility analysis); Ontario Sewing Mach. Co., Ltd. v. Smith, 275 Ga. 683, 687 (572 SE2d 533) (2002) (discussing the proximate-cause element of a design-defect claim); Maynard, 357 Ga. App. at 503 (McFadden, C.J., dissenting) (noting that the Maynards’ allegations “set out a substantively conventional design-defect claim“).
(c) Third, although it did not cite any supporting authority, the Court of Appeals majority appeared to conclude that a manufacturer can never have a duty to use reasonable care in designing its
(d) Contrary to the opinion of the Court of Appeals majority, our decisional law does not recognize a blanket exception to a manufacturer‘s design duty in all cases of intentional or tortious third-party product misuse. Nevertheless, we emphasize that
5. Snap and its amici curiae argue that, to the extent that our decisional law does not recognize an exception to a manufacturer‘s design duty in every case of intentional, tortious product misuse, Georgia law would be an outlier among American jurisdictions, imposing a significantly greater scope of liability on manufacturers for design defects. We acknowledge that some jurisdictions have held that manufacturers do not owe a design duty in specific cases of intentional, tortious product misuse. Nevertheless, the cases on
The primary case on which Snap and its amici curiae rely, Modisette v. Apple Inc., 30 Cal. App. 5th 136 (241 Cal. Rptr. 3d 209) (2018), illustrates this point well. There, the California Court of Appeals primarily relied on a proximate-cause analysis to conclude at the motion-to-dismiss stage that, for purposes of a California negligent-design claim, Apple did not have a duty as a cell-phone
Although Modisette characterized this reasoning as an aspect of its “duty” analysis when addressing the plaintiffs’ negligent-
Notably, in concluding that a manufacturer should owe no design duty in particular cases of product misuse, other cases on which Snap relies likewise focused on considerations that would be highly relevant to a Georgia proximate-cause analysis. See, e.g., Durkee v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., 765 FSupp.2d 742, 750 (W.D.N.C. 2011) (concluding, on a motion to dismiss, that the manufacturer of a texting system in a driver‘s truck did not owe any design duty to injured plaintiffs in another vehicle because “[t]he alleged accident in this case was caused by the driver‘s inattention [while using the texting system], not any element of the design or manufacture of the system that has been alleged“), aff‘d sub nom. Durkee v. Geologic Solutions, Inc., 502 Fed. Appx. 326 (4th Cir. 2013)8; Estate of Doyle v. Sprint/Nextel Corp., 248 P3d 947, 951 (Ok. Civ. App. 2010) (holding at the motion-to-dismiss stage that cell-phone manufacturers did not owe a duty to warn of the danger of using a cell phone while driving because “it is not necessarily foreseeable that [cell-phone use] will cause a collision or unreasonably endanger a particular class of persons,” and “[i]t is not reasonable to anticipate injury every time a person uses a cellular phone while driving“); Halbrook v. Honda Motor Co., Ltd., 569 NW2d 836, 839-840 (II) (B), 840 (II) (C) (Mich. App. 1997) (holding, based on the pleadings, that “an automobile manufacturer‘s duty of reasonable care does not extend to reducing the speed and
Similarly, Snap and its amici curiae rely upon cases that performed what might be characterized as a Georgia risk-utility “breach” analysis in reaching a conclusion on summary judgment that a manufacturer did not have a “duty” in certain cases of intentional misuse. In Elsroth v. Johnson & Johnson, 700 FSupp. 151 (S.D.N.Y. 1988), for example, the court held that the manufacturer of Tylenol gelatin capsules did not have a “duty” to use a more tamper-resistant design in part because it was impossible to make over-the-counter drugs tamper-proof, and the FDA had concluded that it was not unreasonable to sell gelatin capsules packaged in tamper-resistant packaging. See id at 164-165 (II) (B) (2) (b).10
Thus, we are unpersuaded that our decisional law regarding the design duty owed by manufacturers is out of step with other American jurisdictions. Categorizing certain considerations as relevant to breach or proximate causation, rather than duty, does not render our decisional law markedly different than that of the jurisdictions on which Snap and its amici curiae rely.12
First, Snap and its amici curiae argue that, absent a per se rule that manufacturers owe no duty not to negligently design a product in cases of intentional product misuse, “almost any product capable of foreseeable, intentional misuse” would subject manufacturers “to a jury trial under the risk-utility test,” leading to “devastating” litigation costs and “limitless” liability. We disagree. As described in Division 4 (d) above, intentional misuse may be a relevant factor in determining whether a manufacturer owed a decisional-law design duty with respect to a particular risk of harm, whether a manufacturer breached that duty, and whether the manufacturer‘s breach was the proximate cause of an injury. Thus, for a variety of reasons, pretrial adjudication — either at the motion-to-dismiss stage or on summary judgment — may be warranted with respect to certain negligent-design claims involving intentional product misuse. See, e.g., McCarthy v. Olin Corp., 119 F3d 148, 155 (II) (A) (2d Cir. 1997) (dismissing for lack of breach a claim that hollow-point bullets were defectively designed “because the expanding of the bullet was an intentional and functional element of the design of the product,” and “some products, for example knives, must by their very nature be dangerous in order to be functional” (punctuation omitted)); Briscoe v. Amazing Products, Inc., 23 SW3d 228, 229-230 (Ky. Ct. App. 2000) (affirming the dismissal of a design-defect claim where neither the dangerous nature of a drain-cleaning product nor allegedly defective warnings on the product proximately caused a plaintiff‘s injuries because a criminal attack using the product was an unforeseeable superseding cause); Port Auth. of New York & New Jersey, 189 F3d at 319 (II) (F) (holding that any design defect in a manufacturer‘s fertilizer product was not the proximate cause of a terrorist bombing because a “bombing was not a natural or probable consequence” of the alleged design defect, and the terrorists’ actions in incorporating the product into bombs were also “superseding and intervening events breaking the chain of
Further, even if certain negligent-design claims involving intentional misuse survive pretrial challenges and prevail before a jury, manufacturers will not be subjected to “limitless” liability. In cases where a jury finds that fault resides in the conduct of both a manufacturer and a product user, the doctrines of comparative negligence and apportionment operate to limit a manufacturer‘s liability to its degree of fault. See
In any event, the fact that some manufacturers may have to litigate negligent-design claims involving intentional misuse beyond the motion-to-dismiss stage and may ultimately be liable in proportion to their degree of fault does not offend Georgia public policy. As demonstrated by the Georgia product-liability statute and our decisional law described in Division 2 above, protecting the public from being harmed by defective products is an important
7. The trial court granted Snap‘s motions to dismiss and for judgment on the pleadings not only because it concluded that Snap owed no duty to Wentworth, but also because it concluded that any negligent design was not a proximate cause of Wentworth‘s injuries. The Court of Appeals, however, did not address the Maynards’ challenge to the trial court‘s proximate-cause analysis. On remand, the Court of Appeals is directed to address whether the trial court erred in dismissing the Maynards’ claims against Snap and in granting judgment on the pleadings to Snap for lack of proximate causation.
Judgment reversed and case remanded with direction. All the Justices concur, except Boggs, P. J., Warren and McMillian, JJ., who specially concur in part, and Bethel and LaGrua, JJ., who dissent. Peterson and Ellington, JJ., disqualified.
Because I believe the lead opinion15 has faithfully applied Georgia‘s lenient notice pleading standard for civil cases, as well as the relevant Georgia decisional law on products liability, I concur in the judgment in this case and concur fully in Divisions 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7. I write separately to explain my misgivings with Divisions 5 and 6 of the lead opinion.
Divisions 5 and 6 largely serve as a rebuttal of arguments made by Snap and amici curiae that Georgia products liability law would be an outlier among other jurisdictions and would “impos[e] a significantly greater scope of liability on manufacturers for design defects,” Maj. Op. at 31, given that some other courts have granted product manufacturers’ motions to dismiss in certain cases involving intentional, tortious misuse of a product. The lead opinion concludes that manufacturers do not “face significantly greater risk of liability
I generally agree with the lead opinion‘s conclusion that Georgia law does not “impos[e] a significantly greater scope of liability on manufacturers for design defects.” Id. at 31 (emphasis
At the same time, however, the notice pleading standard established by the General Assembly is a lenient one, and the lead
Finally, I have studied the dissent and acknowledge that it makes an intuitively appealing argument that manufacturers should never owe a design duty to users for the “ways [a] product might be used in the commission of a crime.” But that argument is completely devoid of legal authority and appears to be inconsistent with the Georgia authority on which the lead opinion relies, so I cannot join it.
For these reasons, I concur in the judgment and in Divisions 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7.
I agree with most of what is said in the majority opinion. By and large, I believe it accurately captures the current state of the law of Georgia. But, because I believe the majority expands and extends the design duty of manufacturers beyond what is reasonably foreseeable, I respectfully dissent.
Of critical importance to my perspective is that I understand the theory of the case before us to be dependent on the product being used in the course of criminal behavior in order for the alleged tort to have been completed. This is not mere intentional or tortious misuse. Nor is it a case where a crime happened to be committed at the same time as the alleged tort. Rather, the Maynards’ second amended complaint alleges that Snap‘s product was being used by McGee in the commission of several crimes under the laws of Georgia when the harm was inflicted. There was no allegation that the operation of the product itself could in any way cause the harm sustained independent of criminal behavior.
As the majority discusses at length, when a particular risk of
Leaving for another day any consideration of a product designed specifically and solely for criminal use, the universe of reasonable uses of an otherwise legal product that a manufacturer must anticipate extends only to those uses that are lawful. When designing a product and considering the risks it poses, a manufacturer is not responsible for contemplating and guarding against the myriad ways the product might be used in the commission of a crime or crimes.17 I know of no case in the decisional
law of this state, or in the common law adopted by this state, imposing a duty on manufacturers to design their products to preclude their use in a crime. And such a duty clearly does not arise from our products-liability statute. See
I am authorized to state that Justice LaGrua joins in this
Notes
Id. at 736 n.6 (1).the usefulness of the product; the gravity and severity of the danger posed by the design; the likelihood of that danger; the avoidability of the danger, i.e., the user‘s knowledge of the product, publicity surrounding the danger, or the efficacy of warnings, as well as common knowledge and the expectation of danger; the user‘s ability to avoid danger; the state of the art at the time the product is manufactured; the ability to eliminate danger without impairing the usefulness of the product or making it too expensive; . . . the feasibility of spreading the loss in the setting of the product‘s price or by purchasing insurance[;] . . . the feasibility of an alternative design; the availability of an effective substitute for the product which meets the same need but is safer; the financial cost of the improved design; . . . the adverse effects from the alternative[;] . . . the appearance and aesthetic attractiveness of the product; its utility for multiple uses; the convenience and extent of its use . . . ; and the collateral safety of a feature other than the one that harmed the plaintiff.
Id. Notably, however, our approach to design-defect claims would not necessarily imply that a manufacturer would be liable in such cases. As discussed in Divisions 2, 3, and 4 above, to establish that a manufacturer has a decisional-law design duty in a particular case, a plaintiff must show that the manufacturer could reasonably foresee that the product design posed the particular risk of harm at issue in the case. Further, a plaintiff must show breach and proximate causation.Automobile manufacturers are not liable to those burglarized when automobiles are used to effectuate burglaries; telephone companies are not liable to those defrauded when the telephone lines are used to perpetrate fraudulent schemes; and handgun manufacturers are not liable to those injured when handguns are used to inflict criminal harm.
We note that Snap also cites for support Schemel v. General Motors Corp., 384 F2d 802 (7th Cir. 1967), which relied on Evans v. General Motors Corp., 359 F2d 822, 824 (7th Cir. 1966), to hold that an automobile manufacturer sued for negligently designing an automobile capable of speeding was “not bound to anticipate and guard against grossly careless misuse of his product by reckless drivers.” Schemel, 384 F2d at 804-805. Schemel, however, was later overruled “[i]nsofar as the decision in Schemel rests on Evans,” Huff v. White Motor Corp., 565 F2d 104, 106 n.1 (II) (7th Cir. 1977), and it is unclear to what extent, if any, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit continues to consider Schemel good law.