Tort/Negligence – Design Defect Claims – Exclusion of Warning Expert

South Carolina law does not clearly resolve whether adequate warnings bar design defect claims, and the plaintiff’s warning expert was properly excluded because her opinions lacked a reliable, product-specific methodology under Rule 702 and Daubert.

The Fourth Circuit certified to the South Carolina Supreme Court the unresolved question whether adequate product warnings preclude a design defect claim under South Carolina law, while affirming the exclusion of plaintiff’s warning expert.

The case arose after Douglas Belger died from burn injuries allegedly sustained when his clothing ignited after he came too close to an Enerco “Mr. Heater” propane tank-top heater. Although the plaintiff pursued only a design defect claim, contending the heater should have included a more protective guard or safer alternative design, the manufacturer argued that the heater’s extensive warnings rendered the product non-defective as a matter of law.

The district court agreed with the manufacturer, relying on Fourth Circuit precedent interpreting South Carolina law to hold that adequate warnings bar design defect claims. It also excluded the testimony of the plaintiff’s human-factors expert, who opined that the heater’s warnings inadequately described the risk of clothing ignition. After determining that no admissible evidence challenged the adequacy of the warnings, the district court granted summary judgment without reaching whether the heater’s design itself was defective.

The panel concluded that the central legal issue, whether adequate warnings categorically defeat design defect claims under South Carolina law, remains unsettled despite prior federal and state intermediate appellate decisions. The court observed that South Carolina has codified Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, including Comment j, which suggests that products accompanied by adequate warnings are not defective. However, the panel also noted that the South Carolina Supreme Court’s later decision in Branham v. Ford Motor Co. adopted the risk-utility test as the exclusive framework for design defect claims and noted that state courts may consider modern developments in products liability law rather than treating the Restatement’s comments as permanently controlling. The panel further noted that more recent authorities, including the Restatement (Third) of Torts, treat design defect and warning defect claims as separate theories and reject the notion that warnings substitute for a reasonably safe design.

Applying South Carolina’s certification rule, the Fourth Circuit determined that the question could be dispositive of the appeal, that no controlling decision from the South Carolina Supreme Court directly resolves it, and that existing state law does not permit a confident Erie prediction. The court therefore certified the question to the state’s highest court rather than deciding it itself. Separately, the panel upheld the exclusion of the plaintiff’s expert under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert, finding that her opinions regarding the inadequacy of the heater’s warnings lacked a reliable methodological foundation because they were unsupported by testing, product-specific analysis, or objective data connecting her general human-factors principles to the heater at issue. Because the certified question may determine whether the adequacy of the warnings is legally dispositive, the court deferred consideration of the district court’s summary judgment ruling pending the South Carolina Supreme Court’s response.

Affirmed in part and question certified.

Near v. Enerco Group Inc. (Lawyers Weekly No. 001-253-26, 37 pp.) (DeAndrea Gist Benjamin, J.) Appealed from the U.S. District Court for the South Carolina, at Columbia (Sherri A. Lydon, J.) ARGUED: Christopher Moore, RICHARDSON THOMAS LLC, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellant. Edward Raymond Moore, III, MURPHY & GRANTLAND, PA, Columbia, South Carolina; Scott Risk Schillings, HINKLE LAW FIRM LLC, Wichita, Kansas, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Santino U. Ambrosini, MURPHY & GRANTLAND, PA, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit