Ferraro v. Best Buy Stores, L.P., No. 12-2616 (7th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CaseFerraro suffered serious burns after falling asleep next to the power adapter of her newly purchased laptop computer. She filed a product liability suit, alleging a design defect that allowed the power adapter to overheat, that HP failed to include adequate warnings about the power adapter’s propensity to overheat, and that HP breached an implied warranty of merchantability. The district court granted HP summary judgment, reasoning that Ferraro would be unable to show that the adapter was “unreasonably dangerous,” as required for her design defect claim. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Illinois law provides two alternative methods of establishing unreasonable danger: the “consumer-expectations test” and the “risk-utility test.” Ferraro appealed with respect to the consumer expectations test, but, under Illinois law, the risk-utility test “trumps” in design defect cases if the two methods of establishing unreasonable dangerousness have conflicting results. The district court’s finding that Ferraro could not succeed under the risk-utility test furnished an independent, unchallenged ground for its decision.
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