plaintiff victim could recover when he grabbed a gun as it dropped out of his hand while he was unloading it, and the gun discharged, where plaintiff alleged that “the hammer had been on the loading notch and that the gun fired after he accidentally pulled the hammer off that notch.”
How later courts described this case
- plaintiff victim could recover when he grabbed a gun as it dropped out of his hand while he was unloading it, and the gun discharged, where plaintiff alleged that “the hammer had been on the loading notch and that the gun fired after he accidentally pulled the hammer off that notch.”
- court rejected defendant’s claim that punitive damage award violated due process because of lack of standards to determine defendant’s culpability, in the “fault-free” contract of strict products liability and in the amount to be awarded which resulted in an arbitrary application
- holding risk of danger to recreational user inherent in design of handgun outweighed benefits of the design
- "[I]f punitive damages could not be awarded in the products liability context, a reckless manufacturer might gain an unfair advantage over its more socially responsible competitors"
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Overruled on other grounds by Dura Corp. v. Harned, 1985 Alas. LEXIS 279 (1985)
[12] 594 P.2d 38, 48 (Alaska 1979), overruled on other grounds by Dura Corp. v. Harned, 703 P.2d 396, 405 n. 5 (Alaska 1985).
The opinion
DIMOND, Senior Justice,
dissenting in part.
The court holds that whether, in unloading a revolver, one who lets it drop out of his hand is negligent is a typical question of fact for determination by a jury, and cannot be resolved as a matter of law.
The evidence in the case was to the effect that Day was holding the revolver with both hands between his legs, with the gun pointing toward the floor of the pickup in which he was sitting. While he was unloading the gun, the hammer was r esting on the loading notch, which was designed so that the hammer could not be released from that position by normally pulling the trigger. The gun started to slip, Day grabbed it and it fired.
These facts establish nothing more than that the gun slipped and Day grabbed it, obviously to prevent the gun from hitting the floor of the pickup, and that the gun then fired. From these facts, there is no inference that Day was negligent — that he had failed to exercise reasonable prudence for his own safety. Accidents may happen in the absence of negligence. Cummins v. King & Sons, 453 P.2d 465, 467 (Alaska 1969). An object, such as a fairly heavy revolver, may slip from one’s hands without there being any failure on one’s part to have exercised reasonable prudence to avoid having that happen. In order to create an inference of lack of reasonable prudent care in such a situation, there must be facts from which such inference may logically be deduced. There were no such facts presented in this case.
One might suggest that the reason the gun fired was because Day’s finger engaged the trigger when he grabbed the gun to prevent it from falling to the floor. If the hammer had been on the full cock notch, then this would indicate carelessness on Day’s part because the gun was designed to fire in this situation. But this was not the case. The hammer was resting on the loading notch position which, like the safety notch, was designed so that the hammer could not be released by normally pulling the trigger. Day was engaged in unloading the pistol at the time, and the hammer was in precisely the position it was supposed to be for loading or unloading. There is here no inference of negligence on the part of Day.
The facts presented at the trial and the resulting inferences are such that reasonable persons could not justifiably have different views on whether Day was negligent in his handling of the gun, but could only reach the conclusion that Day was not negligent. Cummins v. King & Sons, 453 P.2d 465, 466-67 (Alaska 1969). In my opinion, *50 the trial judge was correct in not submitting this issue to the jury. 1
. I would reach the same result even if, under the facts presented at the trial, one could reasonably infer that Day had failed to exercise ordinary care for his own safety. In Caterpillar Tractor Co. v. Beck, 593 P.2d 871 (Alaska, 1979), 1 took the position, contrary to that of the majority of the court, that
in a product liability action where there is a defect in the manufactured product and the danger of using the product in such condition is apparent to the plaintiff, a degree of fault may be attributed to the plaintiff to reduce the damages to which he or she would be entitled only where his or her use of the product is highly unreasonable, or where there has been a substantial departure from the ordinary care expected of the reasonably prudent person in like circumstances, [footnote omitted]
Certainly, it cannot be said here that Day’s handling of the pistol while unloading it constituted such an aggravated form of fault on his part so as to open the door to the application of the principles of comparative negligence.