Questions of Fact Raised About Whether Insufficient Warnings On Flammable Floor Refinishing Materials Constituted the Proximate Cause of the Injuries

In a full-fledged opinion by Justice Gische, the First Department determined a lawsuit based upon failure to warn survived summary judgment. While plaintiff’s decedent [Carino] was using highly flammable floor refinishing materials, the materials caught fire and plaintiff’s decedent was burned. There were warnings about fire on the containers and plaintiff’s decedent had worked with the materials before. But questions of fact were raised about exactly what dangers plaintiff’s decedent was aware of and, therefore, whether defendants were relieved (by the level of his knowledge) of the duty to warn of the dangers not addressed on the labels:

A product may be defective due to inadequate warnings of the risks and dangers involved in its foreseeable use … . The duty also extends to forseeable product misuse … . To be actionable, however, the absence of warnings must be a proximate cause of the claimed injuries … . Even if a duty to warn otherwise exists, recovery may be denied to a knowledgeable user, i.e. one who was fully aware of the specific hazard without receiving the warning … . While in a proper case the court can decide as a matter of law that there is no duty to warn …, in most cases whether a party is a knowledgeable user is a factual question … . Even if a user has some degree of knowledge of the potential hazards in the use of a product, summary judgment will not lie where reasonable minds might disagree as to the extent of the knowledge ….While there is evidence that Carino had some knowledge about general hazards associated with using floor refinishing products, it cannot be said, as a matter of law, that his knowledge base was sufficient to relieve defendants of any duty they may have had to provide adequate warnings. There is evidence that Carino had used floor refinishing products before and that he had been told by his employer that they were flammable and required certain safety precautions, such as shutting off the gas and electricity. There is no evidence, however, that he knew about the particular properties of each product he was using, including their flashpoints, the fact that one product was much more volatile than the other and the specifications for proper ventilation when using these products, or that he knew one product was prohibited for indoor use in the City of New York. Thus, it is for a jury to determine whether Carino had sufficient knowledge of the specific hazards attendant to the use of the floor finishing products to relieve defendants of any duty to warn of those hazards. Public Adm’r of Bronx County v 485 E 188th St Realty Corp, 2014 NY Slip Op 01142, 1st Dept 2-18-14