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GAJEWSKI v. PAVELO12/22/1994
scheme, and in contradiction to the earlier portion of the instructions where the trial court read the plaintiffs' request to charge. The plaintiffs basically claim that the court was forcing the jury to decide which law to apply, the common law negligence standard or the statutory strict liability standard, rather than instructing it as to which of the two governed.
The plaintiffs are correct in their assertion that Connecticut's present statutory scheme, General Statutes § 52-572m et seq., was intended to merge the various common law theories of products liability into one cause of action. See Lynn v. Haybuster Mfg., Inc., 226 Conn. 282, 292, 627 A.2d 1288 (1993) (summarizing the legislative history of General Statutes § 52-572m et seq.). We agree that if the jury had been instructed unequivocally to use a common law negligence standard to determine whether warnings were required and, if they were required, to determine, by using a common law standard, whether they were adequate, there would be a reversible error. An examination of the instructions as a whole, however, shows no inconsistency between that portion of the charge requested by the plaintiffs and that portion that used the word reasonable. The trial court's use of the word reasonable does not amount to a charge based on negligence standards.
See Norrie v. Heil Co., supra, 203 Conn. 600. In using the word reasonable, the court clarified for the jury how to determine if warnings were required under § 52-572q, and, if required, what types of warnings would be technologically feasible. Moreover, in practical terms, there is no difference between the statutory strict liability of § 52-572q and negligence with respect to the law of warnings. Sharp v. Wyatt, 31 Conn. App. 824, 848, 627 A.2d 1347 (1993), aff'd, 230 Conn. 12, 644 A.2d 871 (1994); see also W. Prosser & W. Keeton, Torts (5th Ed. 1984) § 99, p. 697. The portion of the instructions that used the word reasonable is therefore complementary, not contradictory, to the earlier portion.
We next examine the plaintiffs' claims of inconsistency in the instructions as to whether Pavelo or Utica had the duty to warn and as to the role of the knowledgeable or sophisticated user doctrine. The plaintiffs correctly note in their brief that both parties took exceptions to certain portions of these instructions. The plaintiffs are incorrect, however, in asserting that by charging the jury to examine the product liability claims from different "perspectives," the court was forcing the jury to decide who had a duty to warn. These portions of the charge demonstrate not that the trial court improperly instructed the jury, but rather that the court correctly interpreted § 52-572q. Section 52-572q leaves many issues to the trier of fact. These issues include whether there is a duty to warn, whether the manufacturer or the seller is in a better position
to directly warn the ultimate user, whether the warnings were adequate, and the consideration to be given to the sophisticated user doctrine. Both this court and our Supreme Court, in Sharp v. Wyatt, supra, 230 Conn. 12, and Sharp v. Wyatt, supra, 31 Conn. App. 824, have interpreted § 52-572q as leaving those issues to the trier of fact.
At oral argument in this court, the plaintiffs insisted that under § 52-572q, the expected product user to whom the duty to warn is owed is always and only the consumer. The plaintiffs, therefore, conclude that the portion of the jury charge instructing that the duty to warn is owed to the consumer is inconsistent with the court's later charge that any duty to warn was "to be directed to Mr. Pavelo," the installer of the product. The plaintiffs appear to argue in their
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