C. Causation

• Library: The South Carolina Law of Torts (SCBar) (2023 Ed.)

C. Causation

The plaintiff in a products liability suit must show that the product defect proximately caused his injury. The mere fact that an accident has occurred or a product has malfunctioned does not prove causation.³²⁵

"The proof must be sufficient to show not only that the product was defective, but that the defect was the direct and efficient cause of plaintiff's injury."³²⁶ When an automobile crashworthiness defect is involved, it will be necessary to apportion to the seller of the automobile only the enhanced injuries caused by the lack of crashworthiness.³²⁷

As indicated in Section B of Chapter 2,³²⁸ causation involves two distinct concepts. First, the defect must be a cause-in-fact. Second, the defect must also be a "legal cause," which is sometimes referred to as "proximate cause."³²⁹ Causation in fact is proved by establishing injury would not have occurred "but for" the defendant's negligence, while legal cause is proved by establishing foreseeability.³³⁰

Given that a product goes through many stages, beginning with the manufacturing process and continuing to the plaintiff's injury, third persons are often implicated in the issue of proximate cause because their intervening conduct may justify not holding the defendant legally responsible for the condition of the product that injured the plaintiff.³³¹ Intervening conduct is also involved in the determination of defect because cases frequently turn on the point of whether the manufacturer should have foreseen certain uses or conduct and if so, whether the design adequately protects from the injury caused by such uses.³³² South Carolina cases illustrate both the way in which intervening conduct can raise questions of proximate cause as well as defect and the difficulty involved in reconciling the cases in this area.

For example, Young v. Tide Craft, Inc.,³³³ involved a fatal boating injury. The plaintiff alleged that the boat's steering mechanism was defective and unreasonably dangerous to the consumer in several respects. The court held that a boat repairman's act of deliberately negligent splicing of the steering cable, causing disengagement of the cable, was the "sole proximate cause" of the plaintiff's death because the repairman's conduct was so outrageous.

The South Carolina Supreme Court also addressed the problem of modification of a product by a third party³³⁴ in Kennedy v. Custom Ice Equipment Co.³³⁵ There, the plaintiff suffered a workplace injury when his arm was drawn into an overhead conveyor belt on machinery that the defendant designed and installed. The accident occurred while the plaintiff was standing on a wooden catwalk that his employer constructed. To distinguish the case from Tide Craft, the court held that "the jury could have determined that the construction of the catwalk by (the plaintiff's employer) was a foreseeable consequence that required incorporation of protective shields in the design of the conveyor."³³⁶ The importance of the plaintiff's presenting evidence on the issue of foreseeability is evident in the court's distinguishing of Tide Craft as bearing on defect rather than proximate cause:

In Young v. Tide Craft, Inc., we held the question of proximate cause was improperly submitted to the jury where the only reasonable inference to be drawn from the evidence was that the product was not defective as designed. Since the evidence here is susceptible of the inference that the product was defective as designed the trial judge did not err by submitting the question of proximate cause to the jury.³³⁷

Claytor v. General Motors Corp.,³³⁸ also involved intervening conduct relating to a product. The plaintiff was injured when failure of the wheel lug nuts in an...