The plaintiff recovered a judgment of $20,000 for injuries to his fingers received when he attempted to remove a wheel cover from a car manufactured by the defendant (Ford). The judge, partially denying Ford’s motion for a directed verdict, permitted four counts to go to the jury. On three of the counts, for negligent design, negligent manufacture, and negligent failure to warn, the jury found for Ford. The remaining count, on which the jury found for the plaintiff, was for negligent failure to inspect and test the wheel cover. The case is here on Ford’s appeal from the judgment on that count.
The injuries were caused in this manner: the plaintiff was attempting to put snow chains (the mud hook type) over a tire. He found that he could not pass the chains through slots in the wheel, as he had been able to do on his past cars, because the wheel cover extended out to the *739 tire. Although he knew that the proper way to remove the wheel cover was to pry it off at the edge with a tire iron or similar device, he first attempted to pull off the wheel cover with his bare hand. He put all four fingers into one of six decorative slots in the wheel cover. It was “a tight squeeze,” but he did not feel any jagged or rough edges. (The weather was below freezing.) He tugged hard, but the wheel cover did not give. He took his hand out and discovered that he was bleeding profusely from two deep lacerations in his middle and ring fingers. The lacerations had been caused by pressure against the edge of the decorative slot.
The wheel cover had been manufactured for Ford by an independent supplier which by its contract with Ford was required to inspect the wheel covers for jagged edges which “could cause injury during handling.” The slots were stamped out by dies which would become worn in regular use and require sharpening at regular intervals. A slot punched out by a worn die would have a burr on its edge. Several of the slots on the wheel cover involved in the present case, which is before us as an exhibit, have such burred edges.
For purposes of this decision we shall assume, without deciding, that, if the burred edges in question constituted a defect, liability for an injury caused by the defect would attach to Ford, whether the negligence were its own or that of its independent supplier. See Restatement (2d): Torts § 400, comment d (1965);
Hamson
v.
Standard Grocery Co.
*740
The manufacturer’s duty is one of reasonable care, not perfection. “[A] failure to take a special precaution against a danger that is only remotely possible is not negligence.”
Carter
v.
Yardley & Co. Ltd.
We recognize that there have been cases in which manufacturers were held liable for negligence even where the injury-causing use of the product was improper or abnormal, because the improper or abnormal use was one that the manufacturer reasonably ought to have foreseen as probable and in the exercise of reasonable care ought to have taken measures to warn of or prevent. See Frumer & Friedman, Products Liability § 15.01 (1976); Hursh & Bailey, American Law of Products Liability § 8.16 (2d ed. 1974). Such cases seem to have involved products which *741 were uncommon and apt to confuse the user or products which were inherently dangerous. With respect to such products the manufacturer’s broader duty arises from the fact that he is in the best position to dispel confusion in the use of his product or to appreciate and warn against the serious consequences which may flow from a failure to adhere strictly to instructions or limitations in the use of the product.
There is nothing uncommon or inherently dangerous about a slotted wheel cover, a familiar feature on many automobiles. Such a common or straightforward product, if safe for the normal uses reasonably to be anticipated at the time of manufacture, is not defective simply because it is foreseeable that it may cause injury to someone using it improperly.
Leahy
v.
United States Rubber Corp.
We have examined the wheel cover in question. See
Rogers
v.
Cambridge Taxi Co.
In our opinion, the burr-covered decorative slot must be classed with a great many other common fixtures, projections, surfaces, corners, and edges found in vehicles and elsewhere as a result of which significant injuries are possible but are not reasonably to be anticipated. To hold the defendant liable for having failed to discover and remove the burrs in question would be to establish an unreasonable standard of perfection in manufacture rather than to enforce the recognized standard of due care.
Rogers
v.
Cambridge Taxi Co.
We are therefore of the opinion that the defendant’s motion for a directed verdict should have been allowed and do not reach the defendant’s alternative contention that the jury should have been instructed on the defense of voluntary assumption of risk.
Judgment reversed.
Judgment for the defendant on count 8.
Notes
It is hard to conceive of a product which could not cause injury if employed in some improper or abnormal fashion. See, e.g.,
McCready
v.
United Iron & Steel Co.