JUSTICE BOWMAN

delivered the opinion of the court:

Plaintiff, Gerald Miller, appeals from the orders of the circuit court of Stephenson County which dismissed the strict liability counts of his complaint against defendants, Civil Constructors, Inc., d/b/a Civil Constructors (Constructors) (count I), and the City of Freeport (City) (count V). Counts I and V of the complaint filed October 22, 1992, alleged essentially that defendants were strictly liable for injuries to plaintiff arising from purportedly "ultrahazardous” activity for which defendants were legally responsible either because of their control of the premises or their discharge of firearms. In each instance, plaintiff stated that the defendant, through its officers, agents or employees, knew (alternatively in count I, "or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known”) that "discharging firearms is an ultrahazardous, highly dangerous activity” which was the proximate cause of plaintiff’s injuries. The complaint averred that plaintiff was injured when a stray bullet ricocheted during the course of firearm target practice in a nearby gravel pit and caused him to fall from a truck. There is no legal cause of action available to plaintiff under a theory of strict liability. We affirm the orders of the circuit court.

The record shows that the court struck from the complaint references to the defendant Freeport police department and granted summary judgment, without opposition, to Sam Volkert and the Stephenson County sheriff’s department; none of these defendants are parties to the appeal. Count IV, alleging negligence by the City, remained pending. We have appellate jurisdiction under Supreme Court Rule 304(a). Official Reports Advance Sheet No. 26 (December 22, 1993), R. 304(a), eff. February 1, 1994; see Freeman v. White Way Sign & Maintenance Co. (1980), 82 Ill. App. 3d 884, 891.

*265The issue before us is whether, consonant with Illinois law, the trial court properly dismissed the counts where plaintiff attempted to state a cause of action premised on a theory of strict liability by asserting that the discharge of firearms in a quarry shooting range is an ultrahazardous activity. Under the circumstances presented, we hold as a matter of law that the discharge of firearms is not an ultra-hazardous activity which would support plaintiff’s strict liability claims.

A section 2 — 615 motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action (735 ILCS 5/2 — 615 (West 1992)) attacks the legal sufficiency of the complaint, and the relevant inquiry is whether sufficient facts are contained in the pleadings which, if proved, could entitle the plaintiff to relief. (On Tap Premium Quality Waters, Inc. v. Bank of Northern Illinois (1994), 262 Ill. App. 3d 254, 258.) Plaintiff’s complaint is legally insufficient to state a cause of action on the basis of strict liability.

The precise issue raised appears to be one of first impression for this court. Unfortunately, plaintiff’s counsel has failed to provide much in the way of legal authority or even persuasive legal analysis to show that the discharge or use of firearms must be classified as an ultrahazardous activity (sometimes called abnormally dangerous activity) which demands the imposition of strict liability on a defendant. Plaintiff’s counsel relies either on obiter dictum or he quotes matters out of context from the cases cited. In view of the dearth of authority on the subject, the importance of the issue, and the adequacy of defendants’ briefs, we will fully address the question presented.

The doctrine of strict liability, sometimes called absolute liability, has its genesis in the English rule of Rylands v. Fletcher (1868), 3 H.L. 330, wherein strict liability was imposed on the defendant owners of land for harm resulting from the abnormal or nonnatural use of the defendants’ land which arose when water from defendants’ reservoir flooded the adjoining mine of the plaintiff. Subsequent decisions interpreted the rule to be confined to things or activities which were "extraordinary” or "exceptional” or "abnormal” so that there was some special use bringing with it increased danger to others. (W. Keeton, Prosser & Keeton on Torts § 78, at 545-46 (5th ed. 1984) (hereinafter Prosser).) From the decisions of the English courts, the "rule” of Rylands which has emerged is that "the defendant will be liable when he damages another by a thing or activity unduly dangerous and inappropriate to the place where it is maintained, in the light of the character of that place and its surroundings.” Prosser, § 78, at 547-48.

*266Most jurisdictions in this country have adopted the rule of Ry-lands to impose strict liability on owners and users of land for harm resulting from abnormally dangerous conditions and activities. (Ruggeri v. Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co. (1978), 63 Ill. App. 3d 525, 528.) The best-known applications of the Rylands rule imposing strict liability on a defendant involve the storing and use of explosives and flammable materials. See Continental Building Corp. v. Union Oil Co. (1987), 152 Ill. App. 3d 513, 515-16 (cases cited); Opal v. Material Service Corp. (1956), 9 Ill. App. 2d 433 (use of explosive such as dynamite in residential area was intrinsically dangerous and gave rise to strict liability for the blaster regardless of degree of care or skill exercised in using the explosive).

Illinois has recognized strict liability principally in two instances: (1) when, under certain circumstances, a defendant introduces a product into the community which is unreasonably dangerous to the user, consumer, or to his property (product liability cases) (Martin v. Harrington & Richardson, Inc. (7th Cir. 1984), 743 F.2d 1200, 1202); and (2) when a defendant engages in ultrahazardous or abnormally dangerous activity as determined by the courts, giving particular consideration, inter alia, to the appropriateness of the activity to the place where it is maintained, in light of the character of the place and its surroundings (Continental, 152 Ill. App. 3d at 516-17). See Riordan v. International Armament Corp. (1985), 132 Ill. App. 3d 642 (distinguishing product liability from ultrahazardous activity liability); see also Indiana Harbor Belt R.R. Co. v. American Cyanamid Co. (N.D. Ill. 1981), 517 F. Supp. 314 (concluding that transporting acrylonitrile, a dangerous and toxic substance, was inherently dangerous or ultrahazardous activity so that complaint stated cause of action in strict liability under Illinois law).

We are concerned here only with determining as a matter of law whether the use of firearms is an ultrahazardous activity giving rise to strict liability. (Fallon v. Indian Trail School, Addison Township School District No. 4 (1986), 148 Ill. App. 3d 931 (holding as a matter of law that use of trampoline is not abnormally dangerous instrumentality); Clark v. City of Chicago (1980), 88 Ill. App. 3d 760, 763-64 (demolition held ultrahazardous as a matter of law).) Plaintiff concedes that ordinarily the manufacture or the sale of nondefective handguns has been held not to be an ultrahazardous activity. (Riordan, 132 Ill. App. 3d at 649-50, citing with approval Martin v. Harrington & Richardson, Inc. (7th Cir. 1984), 743 F.2d 1200.) Nevertheless, in a misleading argument, plaintiff quotes out of context a fragment of a sentence from Riordan (italicized in. the quotation below) in urging this court to find the use of firearms is ultrahazardous. The complete quotation of the sentence is this:

*267"As it is not the manufacture and sale of handguns that is ultrahazardous, but their use or misuse that is alleged in plaintiffs’ claim here, the plaintiffs have no grounds for recovery under the doctrine of strict liability for engaging in ultrahazardous activities. To accept plaintiffs’ contention, we would be considerably extending the ultrahazardous activity theory far beyond its accepted meaning.” (Emphasis added.) (Riordan, 132 Ill. App. 3d at 649.)

The statement from Riordan clearly contradicts plaintiff’s position.

Admittedly, there is dictum in Martin which suggests that the use of handguns might be considered an ultrahazardous activity. However, that court actually decided that, under Illinois law, the sale of a nondefective handgun was not an ultrahazardous activity and to decide otherwise would be unprecedented. (Martin, 743 F.2d at 1203 (where court stated in dictum, "If plaintiffs were claiming that the use of a handgun was an ultrahazardous activity the argument would clearly fit within the parameters of Illinois law”) (emphasis in original).) Yet, there is no basis for the dictum in Martin, and of course this court is not bound by that decision. Equally unavailing to plaintiff is his improvident citation to matters out of context from an old negligence case, Harrison v. Allen (1913), 179 Ill. App. 520. In commenting on the instructions used at that time in the case of the negligent firing of a hunting weapon, the Harrison court noted in passing that it had been stated that firearms were "extraordinarily” dangerous and required "extraordinary” care to prevent injury. The court actually held that it was reversible error to instruct that the burden of proof throughout the case was the plaintiff’s and to refuse instructions correctly stating the law as to the burden on defendant to prove that the gun was not negligently discharged by him. (Harrison, 179 Ill. App. at 523-24.) Harrison clearly does not support plaintiff’s position.

Before we answer the question presented, we first summarize briefly what we believe is the current state of the law in this area. Plaintiff has not cited, nor have we found, any Illinois case holding that the use of a firearm which results in injury to a plaintiff is an ultrahazardous activity requiring the imposition of strict liability. Although the guns or firearms have been labeled dangerous instrumentalities (see Teter v. Clemens (1985), 131 Ill. App. 3d 434, 438; Mikula v. Duliba (1983), 94 A.D.2d 503, 507-08, 464 N.Y.S.2d 910, 913), it does not automatically follow that courts must then charge a defendant with strict liability for the use of firearms which results in harm to a plaintiff. Indeed, the prevailing rule which we have discovered in our own research is that the use of firearms ordinarily *268does not present a question of strict liability premised on ultrahazardous activity; rather, it ordinarily presents a question of negligence or possibly of wilful and wanton conduct. See Junker v. Ziegler (1986), 113 Ill. 2d 332; Washington v. Williams (1991), 215 Ill. App. 3d 607 (wilful and wanton conduct); Harrison v. Allen (1913), 179 Ill. App. 520 (negligence); Jacoves v. United Merchandising Corp. (1992), 9 Cal. App. 4th 88, 11 Cal. Rptr. 2d 468 (no ultrahazardous activity warranting imposition of absolute liability, but highest standard of due care applied); Reida v. Lund (1971), 18 Cal. App. 3d 698, 96 Cal. Rptr. 102 (leaving rifle accessible was issue of negligence; use of firearms not ultrahazardous activity resulting in imposition of absolute liability); Mikula v. Duliba (1983), 94 A.D.2d 503, 507-08, 464 N.Y.S.2d 910, 913 (although firearms are dangerous instrumentalities, their use while hunting is not abnormally dangerous activity requiring imposition of strict liability); see also Moore v. R.G. Industries, Inc. (9th Cir. 1986), 789 F.2d 1326, 1328 (under California law, use of handguns is not ultrahazardous activity for which strict liability may be imposed).

The frequently stated standard of care applied in many jurisdictions concerning the use of firearms is the duty to exercise ordinary care commensurate with the peculiar circumstances of the case. (An-not., 26 A.L.R.3d 561, 567 (1969).) This is a negligence standard which is incompatible with the theory of strict liability. One instructive commentary states:

"In determining the degree or measure of care required to avoid injuring another by the use or possession of a particular dangerous instrumentality, much depends upon the nature of the instrumentality, the circumstances which surround its maintenance and use, and the time and place of its use. *** Ordinary care as applied to use of a dangerous instrumentality, however, generally imports the rule that the care exercised must be proportionate to the danger, and hence ordinary care in regard to a dangerous instrumentality necessarily implies the requirement of a great or high degree, if not the greatest or highest degree, of care.” 57A Am. Jur. 2d Negligence § 313 (1989).

A similar standard is applied to the use and handling of a firearm. The degree of care to be exercised is often stated as "a high degree of care” and is more often defined as "such care as is commensurate with the dangerous nature of the firearm in the circumstances of the particular case” so that "one who has in his possession or under his control an instrumentality exceptionally dangerous in character is bound to take exceptional precautions to prevent an injury thereby.” 79 Am. Jur. 2d Weapons & Firearms § 36 (1975); see, *269 e.g., Seabolt v. Cheesborough (1972), 127 Ga. App. 254, 193 S.E.2d 238 (in hunting rifle accident, ordinary care is care and diligence which every prudent man would exercise under similar circumstances and like surroundings); Riste v. Helton (1984), 139 Mich. App. 404, 362 N.W.2d 300 (owner of dangerous instrumentality such as gun must exercise high degree of care when using gun or authorizing use); Hatfield v. Gracen (1977), 279 Or. 303, 567 P.2d 546 (standard of due care in firing gun at suspected robber); Everette v. City of New Kens-ington (1978), 262 Pa. Super. 28, 396 A.2d 467 (extraordinary care is reasonable care when person is in possession of loaded firearm).

In Illinois, the standard of ordinary care in a negligence case is the care which a reasonably careful person would use under the circumstances presented; it is ordinarily a question for the trier of fact. (Fugate v. Sears, Roebuck & Co. (1973), 12 111. App. 3d 656, 670.) This standard or degree of care is evidently a flexible one which varies according to the particular circumstances. Imposing a duty of ordinary care, even where it may become a high degree of care under the particular circumstances, is quite different from imposing strict or absolute liability by classifying the activity ultrahazardous. Our review of the authorities thus discloses that the discharge of firearms resulting in injury ordinarily presents a question of negligence and that the standard of care is ordinary care — one which may be equated to a high degree of care because of the particular circumstances presented.

We return to the threshold question whether the use of firearms ought to be classified as an ultrahazardous activity. This type of inquiry is a question of law that we believe will be subjected to more rigorous, disciplined, and consistent analysis if we adopt the use of the Restatement principles and factors discussed, or at least implicitly considered, in prior decisions. (See Continental Building Corp. v. Union Oil Co. (1987), 152 Ill. App. 3d 513, 516; Fallon, 148 Ill. App. 3d at 934; Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 519, 520 (1977); see also Martin v. Harrington & Richardson, 743 F.2d at 1203.) We expressly adopt the use of the Restatement principles and factors as an aid in deciding this type of question.

Section 519 of the Restatement states the general principle that ”[o]ne who carries on an abnormally dangerous activity is subject to liability for harm to the person, land or chattels of another resulting from the activity, although he has exercised the utmost care to prevent the harm.” (Restatement (Second) of Torts § 519 (1977).) Section 520 of the Restatement sets forth several factors which we will consider in determining whether an activity is abnormally dangerous (ultrahazardous):

*270"(a) existence of a high degree of risk of some harm to the person, land or chattels of others;

(b) likelihood that the harm that results from it will be great;

(c) inability to eliminate the risk by the exercise of reasonable care;

(d) extent to which the activity is not a matter of common usage;

(e) inappropriateness of the activity to the place where it is carried on; and

(f) extent to which its value to the community is outweighed by its dangerous attributes.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 520 (1977).

While all of these factors are important and should be considered, ordinarily the presence of more than one factor, but not all of them, will be necessary to declare the activity ultrahazardous as a matter of law so as to hold the actor strictly liable. The essential question is whether the risk created is so unusual, either because of its magnitude or because of the circumstances surrounding it, as to justify the imposition of strict liability even though the activity is carried on with all reasonable care. (Restatement (Second) of Torts § 520, Comment f, at 37-38 (1977).) Considerations of public policy also enter prominently into the decisions by our courts to impose strict liability (at least in product liability cases). (See Indiana Harbor Belt R.R. Co. v. American Cyanamid Co. (N.D. Ill. 1981), 517 F. Supp. 314, 318, citing Suvada v. White Motor Co. (1965), 32 Ill. 2d 612, 619.) Particular consideration is also given to the appropriateness of the activity to the place where it is maintained, in light of the character of the place and its surroundings under the Rylands rule. Continental Building, 152 Ill. App. 3d at 517.

The use of guns or firearms, even though frequently classified as dangerous or even highly dangerous, is not the type of activity that must be deemed ultrahazardous when the above-stated criteria are taken into consideration. First, the risk of harm to persons or property, even though great, can be virtually eliminated by the exercise of reasonable or even "utmost” care under the circumstances (see Mikula v. Duliba, 94 A.D.2d at 406-08, 464 N.Y.S.2d at 912-13). The doctrine of strict or absolute liability is ordinarily reserved for abnormally dangerous activities for which no degree of care can truly provide safety. There is a clear distinction between requiring a defendant to exercise a high degree of care when involved in a potentially dangerous activity and requiring a defendant to insure absolutely the safety of others when engaging in ultrahazardous activity. Nelson v. Commonwealth Edison Co. (1984), 124 Ill. App. 3d 655. 667.

*271Second, the use of firearms is a matter of common usage and the harm posed comes from their misuse rather than from their inherent nature alone (see Moore, 789 F.2d at 1328). Third, the activity in this case was carried on at a firing range in a quarry located somewhere near the City of Freeport. We assume that the location was appropriate for such activity in the absence of further factual allegations in the complaint particularly describing the area as inappropriate for the target practice. Finally, the target practice is of some social utility to the community; this weighs against declaring it ultrahazardous where the activity was alleged to have been performed by law enforcement officers apparently to improve their skills in the handling of weapons.

In light of the above considerations, we conclude that plaintiffs allegations are legally insufficient to show that the activity should be declared ultrahazardous so as to subject defendants to claims premised on a theory of strict liability. See Continental, 152 Ill. App. 3d at 517-18; Fallon, 148 Ill. App. 3d at 934-35.

The judgment of the circuit court of Stephenson County is affirmed.

Affirmed.

RATHJE and HUTCHINSON, JJ., concur.

Hamley, J.

— Blasting operations conducted by Preston Mill Company frightened mother mink owned by B. W. Foster, and caused the mink to kill their kittens. Foster brought this action against the company to recover damages. His second amended complaint, upon which the case was tried, sets forth a cause of action on the theory of absolute liability, and, in the alternative, a cause of action on the theory of nuisance.

*441After a trial to the court without a jury, judgment was rendered for plaintiff in the sum of $1,953.68. The theory adopted by the court was that, after defendant received notice of the effect which its blasting operations were having upon the mink, it was absolutely liable for all damages of that nature thereafter sustained. The trial court concluded that defendant’s blasting did not constitute a public nuisance, but did not expressly rule on the question of private nuisance. Plaintiff concedes, however, that, in effect, the trial court decided in defendant’s favor on the question of nuisance. Defendant appeals.

Respondent’s mink ranch is located in a rural area one and one-half miles east of North Bend, in King county, Washington. The ranch occupies seven and one-half acres on which are located seven sheds for growing mink. The cages are of welded wire, but have wood roofs covered with composition roofing. The ranch is located about two blocks from U. S. highway No. 10, which is a main east-west thoroughfare across the state. Northern Pacific Railway Company tracks are located between the ranch and the highway, and Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company tracks are located on the other side of the highway about fifteen hundred feet from the ranch.

The period of each year during which mink kittens are born, known as the whelping season, begins about May 1st. The kittens are born during a period of about two and one-half weeks, and are left with their mothers until they are six weeks old. During this period, the mothers are very excitable. If disturbed by noises, smoke, or dogs and cats, they run back and forth in their cages and frequently destroy their young. However, mink become accustomed to disturbances of this kind, if continued over a period of time. This explains why the mink in question were apparently not bothered, even during the whelping season, by the heavy traffic on U. S. highway No. 10, and by the noise and vibration caused by passing trains. There was testimony to the effect that mink would even becomé accustomed to the vibration and noise of blasting, if it were carried on in a regular and continuous manner.

*442Appellant and several: other companies have been engaged in logging in the adjacent area for more than fifty years. Early in May, 1951, appellant began the construction of a road to gain access to certain timber which it. desired to cut. The road was located about two: and one-quarter miles southwest of. the mink ranch, and about twenty-five hundred feet above the ranch, along the side. of what is known as Rattlesnake Ledge.

It was necessary to use explosives to build the road. The customary types of explosives were used, and the customary methods of blasting were followed. The most' powder used in one shooting was one hundred pounds, and usually the charge was limited to fifty pounds. The procedure used was to set off blasts twice a day — at noon and at the end of the work day.

Roy A. Peterson, the manager of the ranch in 1951, testified that the blasting resulted in “a tremendous vibration, is all. Boxes would rattle on the cages.” The mother mink would then run back and forth in their cages, and many of them would kill their kittens. Peterson also testified that on two occasions the blasts had broken windows.

Appellant’s expert, Professor Drury Augustus Pfeiffer, of the University of Washington, testified as to tests made with a pin seismometer, using blasts as large as those used by appellant. He reported that no effect on the delicate apparatus was shown at distances comparable to those involved in this case. He said that it would be impossible to break a window at two and one-fourth miles with a hundred-pound shot, but that it could cause vibration of a lightly-supported cage. It would also be audible. Charles E. Erickson, who had charge of the road construction for appellant in 1951, testified that there was no glass breakage in the portable storage and filing shed which the company kept within a thousand feet of where the blasting was done. There were windows on the roof as well as on the sides of this shed.

Before the 1951 whelping season had. far progressed, the mink mothers, according to Peterson’s estimate, had killed thirty-five or forty of their kittens. He then told the man*443ager of appellant company what had happened. He did not request that the blasting be stopped. After some discussion, however, appellant’s manager indicated that the shots would be made as light as possible. The amount of explosives used in a normal shot was then reduced from nineteen or twenty sticks to fourteen sticks.

Officials of appellant company testified that it would have been impractical to entirely cease road-building during the several weeks required for the mink to whelp and wean their young. Such a delay would have made it necessary to run the logging operation another season, with attendant expense. It would also have disrupted the company’s log production schedule and consequently the operation of its lumber, mill.

In this action, respondent sought and recovered judgment only for such damages as were claimed' to have been sustained as a result of blasting operations conducted after appellant received notice that its activity was causing loss of mink kittens. .

The primary question presented by appellant’s assignments of error is whether, on these facts, the judgment against appellant is sustainable on the theory of absolute liability.-

The modem doctrine of strict liability for dangerous substances and activities stems from Justice Blackburn’s decision in Rylands v. Fletcher, 1 Exch. 265, decided in 1866 and affirmed two years later in Fletcher v. Rylands, L.R. 3 H.L. 330. Prosser on Torts, 449, § 59. As applied to blasting operations, the doctrine has quite uniformly been held to establish liability, irrespective of negligence, for property damage sustained as a result of casting rocks or other debris on adjoining or neighboring premises. Patrick v. Smith, 75 Wash. 407, 134 Pac. 1076; Schade Brewing Co. v. Chicago, M. & P. S. R. Co., 79 Wash. 651, 140 Pac. 897; Bedell v. Goulter, 199 Ore. 344, 261 P. (2d) 842; Exner v. Sherman Power Constr. Co., 54 F. (2d) 510. But, see Klepsch v. Donald, 4 Wash. 436, 30 Pac. 991.

There is a division of judicial opinion as to whether the doctrine of absolute liability should apply where the dam*444age from blasting is caused, not by the casting of rocks and debris, but by concussion, vibration, or jarring. 92 A. L. R. 741, annotation. This court has adopted the view that the doctrine applies in such cases. Patrick v. Smith, supra. In the Patrick case, it was held that contractors who set off an exceedingly large blast of powder, causing the earth for a considerable distance to shake violently, were liable to an adjoining owner whose well was damaged and water supply lost, without regard to their negligence in setting off the blast, although there was no physical invasion of the property. For excellent expositions of this view, see Exner v. Sherman Power Constr. Co., supra; and Bedell v. Goulter, supra.

However the authorities may be divided on the point just discussed, they appear to be agreed that strict liability should be confined to consequences which lie within the extraordinary risk whose existence calls for such responsibility. Prosser on Torts, 458, § 60; Harper, Liability Without Fáult and Proximate Cause, 30 Mich. L. Rev. 1001, 1006; 3 Restatement of Torts, 41, § 519. This limitation on the doctrine is indicated in the italicized portion of the rule as set forth in Restatement of Torts, supra:

“Except as stated in §§ 521-4, one who carries on an ultra-hazardous activity is hable to another whose person, land or chattels the actor should recognize as likely to be harmed by the unpreventable miscarriage of the activity for harm resulting thereto from that which makes the activity ultra-hazardous, although the utmost care is exercised to prevent the harm.” (Italics ours.)

This restriction which has been placed upon the application of the doctrine of absolute liability is based upon considerations of policy. As Professor Prosser has said:

“It is one thing to say that a dangerous enterprise must pay its way within reasonable limits, and quite another to say that it must bear responsibility for every extreme of harm that it may cause. The same practical necessity for the restriction of liability within some reasonable bounds, which arises in connection with problems of ‘proximate cause’ in negligence cases, demands here that some limit be set . . . This limitation has been expressed by saying *445that the defendant’s duty to insure safety extends only to certain consequences. More commonly, it is said that the defendant’s conduct is not the ‘proximate cause’ of the damage. But ordinarily in such cases no question of causation is involved, and the limitation is one of the policy underlying liability.” Prosser on Torts, 457, § 60.

Applying this principle to the case before us, the question comes down to this: Is the risk that any unusual vibration or noise may cause wild animal's, which are being raised for commercial purposes, to kill their young, one of the things which make the activity of blasting ultra-hazardous?

We have found nothing in the decisional law which would support an affirmative answer to this question. The decided cases, as well as common experience, indicate that the thing which makes blasting ultrahazardous is the risk that property or persons may be damaged or injured by coming into direct contact with flying debris, or by being directly affected by vibrations of the earth or concussions of the air.

Where, as a result of blasting operations, a horse has become frightened and has trampled or otherwise injured a person, recovery of damages has been upheld on the theory of negligence. Klein v. Phelps Lbr. Co., 75 Wash. 500, 135 Pac. 226; Peterson v. General Geophysical Co., 185 P. (2d) (Cal. Dist. Ct.) 56; Bassett v. Moberly Paving Brick Co., 219 Mo. App. 81, 268 S. W. 645; Missouri Iron & Metal Co. v. Cartwright, 207 S. W. (Tex.) 397. Contra: Uvalde Constr. Co. v. Hill, 142 Tex. 19, 175 S. W. (2d) 247, where a milkmaid was injured by a frightened cow. But we have found no case where recovery of damages caused by a frightened farm animal has been sustained on the ground of absolute liability.

If, however, the possibility that a violent vibration, concussion, or noise might frighten domestic animals and lead to property damages or personal injuries be considered one of the harms which makes the activity of blasting ultra-hazardous, this would still not include the case we have here.

*446The relatively moderate vibration and noise which 'appellant’s blasting produced at a distance of two and a quarter miles was no more than a usual incident of the ordinary life of the community. See 3 Restatement of Torts, 48, § 522, comment a. The trial court specifically found that the blasting did not unreasonably interfere with the enjoyment of their property by nearby landowners, except in the case of respondent’s mink ranch.

It is the exceedingly nervous disposition of mink, rather than the normal risks inherent in blasting operations, which therefore must, as a matter of sound policy, bear the responsibility for the loss here sustained. We subscribe to the view expressed by Professor Harper (30 Mich. L. Rev. 1001, 1006, supra) that the policy of the law does not impose the rule of strict liability to protect against harms incident to the plaintiff’s extraordinary and unusual use of land. This is perhaps but an application of the principle that the extent to which one man in the lawful conduct of his business is liable for injuries to another involves an adjustment of conflicting interests. Exner v. Sherman Power Constr. Co., supra.

It may very well be that, under the facts of a particular case, recovery for damages of this kind may be sustained upon some theory other than that of absolute liability. In Hamilton v. King County, 195 Wash. 84, 79 P. (2d) 697, for example, recovery of such damages was sanctioned on the ground that defendant had trespassed upon plaintiff’s land in doing the blasting which caused the disturbance.

Likewise, if the facts warrant, it is possible that such damages may be predicated upon a violation of RCW 70.74.250 [cf. Rem. Supp. 1941, § 5440-25], requiring notice to be given at certain times of the year when blasting is to be undertaken within fifteen hundred feet of any fur farm or commercial hatchery, except in certain cases. In Mait-land v. Twin City Aviation Corp., 254 Wis. 541, 37 N. W. (2d) 74, where a low-flying airplane frightened mink and loss of kittens resulted, recovery was allowed upon a showing that the airplanes were flown at an unlawfully low elevation.

*447. In Madsen v. East Jordan Irr. Co., 101 Utah 552, 125 P. (2d) 794, recovery was denied under facts very similar to: those of the instant case, on the ground that the mother mink’s intervention broke the chain of causation. .

It is our conclusion that the risk of causing harm of the kind here experienced, as a result of the relatively minor vibration,, concussion, and noise from distant blasting, is not the kind of risk" which makes the activity of blasting ultrahazardous. The doctrine of absolute liability is therefore inapplicable under the facts of this case, and respondent is- not entitled to recover damages.

The judgment is reversed.

Grady, C. J., Mallery, Finley, and Olson, JJ., concur.

POPE, Justice.

Paul Marshall instituted this suit against John C. Ranne seeking damages for injuries he sustained when Ranne’s vicious hog attacked him and severely injured his hand. The jury made findings that plaintiff Marshall was contributorily negligent and also that he voluntarily assumed the risk of the hog. The trial court rendered judgment for the defendant on the verdict. The court of civil appeals ruled that the findings of the jury concerning the plaintiff’s assumption of the risk supported the judgment and affirmed. 493 S.W.2d 533. We reverse the judgments of the courts below and render judgment for the plaintiff Marshall.

The opinion of the court of civil appeals correctly states these operative facts:

The only witness to the occurrence was plaintiff. He and defendant both lived in Dallas, but they owned neighboring farms in Van Zandt County. Plaintiff’s principal occupation was raising hogs. At the time of the injury he had about two hundred on his farm. The hog in question was a boar which had escaped from defendant’s farm and had been seen on plaintiff’s land during several weeks before the day of the injury. According to plaintiff, defendant’s boar had charged'him ten to twelve times be.fore this occurrence, had held him prisoner in his outhouse several times, and had attacked his wife on four or five occasions. On the day of the injury plaintiff- had hauled in several barrels of old bread in his pickup and had put it out for his hogs at the barn. At that time he saw defendant’s boar about a hundred yards behind the barn, but it came no nearer. After feeding his hogs, he went into the house and changed clothes to get ready to go back to Dallas. On emerging from the house, he looked for the boar because, as he testified, he always *257had to look before he made a move, but he did not see it. He started toward his pickup, and when he was about thirty feet from it, near the outhouse, he heard a noise behind him, turned around and saw the boar charging toward him. He put out his hand defensively, but the boar grabbed it and bit it severely.

Plaintiff testified that the first time the hog had jeopardized his safety was about a week or ten days before he was hurt. He did not shoot the hog because he did not consider that the neighborly thing to do, although he was an expert with a gun and had two available. He made no complaint about the hog to defendant until the day of the injury, when he wrote a note and put it on defendant’s gate. The note read:

“John, your boar has gone bad. He is trying to chase me off the farm. He stalks us just like a cat stalks a mouse every time he catches us out of the house. We are going to have to get him out before he hurts someone.”

This note did not come to defendant’s attention until he came in late that afternoon, and the evidence does not reveal whether he saw it before plaintiff was injured. Plaintiff testified that he and defendant had previously discussed the hog’s viciousness on several occasions.

The answers to the special issues were: (1) defendant’s boar hog bit the plaintiff’s right hand on January 21, 1970, (2) immediately prior to that date, the boar hog had vicious propensities and was likely to cause injury to persons, (3) refused to find that at any time before plaintiff’s injury, the defendant actually knew that the defendant’s boar hog was vicious and was likely to cause injury to persons, (4) the defendant prior to plaintiff’s injury in the exercise of ordinary care should have known that the boar hog was vicious and likely to cause injury to persons, (5) defendant permitted his boar hog to run at large after he knew or should have known that the hog was vicious and likely to cause injury to persons, (6) plaintiff, Paul Marshall, had knowledge of the vicious propensities of the defendant’s boar hog and that it was likely to cause injury to persons at and prior to the time the hog bit him, (7) plaintiff, Paul Marshall, with knowledge of the nature of defendant’s boar hog voluntarily exposed himself to the risk of attack by the animal, (8) plaintiff’s failure to shoot the defendant’s boar hog prior to the time the hog bit plaintiff was negligence, (9) which failure was a proximate cause of plaintiff’s injuries, (10) plaintiff failed to maintain a fence about his premises sufficiently close to prevent hogs passing through, (11) which was negligence, and (12) a proximate cause of plaintiff’s injuries, (13) plaintiff was damaged in the amount of $4,146.00.

The questions presented by this cause are (1) the true nature of an action for damages caused by a vicious animal, (2) whether contributory negligence is a defense to this action, and (3) whether plaintiff Marshal] was, as a matter of law, deprived of a voluntary and free choice in confronting the risk.

Nature of Vicious Animal Cases

A correct classification of this case is important, since that decision also controls the nature of the acceptable defenses to the action. In Texas, actions for damages caused by vicious domestic animals have sometimes been cast as common law negligence cases, at other times as strict liability cases, and sometimes as either. Comment, Personal Injuries by Animals in Texas, 4 Baylor L.Rev. 183 (1952). Among the cases which have been pleaded and tried as negligence cases are: H. E. Butt Grocery Company v. Perez, 408 S.W. 2d 576 (Tex.Civ.App.1966, no writ); Zuniga v. Storey, 239 S.W.2d 125 (Tex.Civ.App.1951, writ ref’d n. r. e.); Dakan v. Humphreys, 190 S.W.2d 371 (Tex.Civ.App.1945, no writ); Herring v. Schingler, 101 S.W.2d 394 (Tex.Civ.App.1937, writ dism’d); Villareal v. Alexander, 13 S.W.2d 712 (Tex.Civ.App.1929, no writ); Pettus v. *258Weyel, 225 S.W. 191 (Tex.Civ.App.1920, writ ref’d); Trinity & S. Ry. Co. v. O’Brien, 18 Tex.Civ.App. 690, 46 S.W. 389 (1898, no writ) ; Badali v. Smith, 37 S.W. 642 (Tex.Civ.App. 1896, no writ).

Strict liability has been applied in about an equal number of vicious animal cases. In Moore v. McKay, 55 S.W.2d 865 (Tex.Civ.App.1933, no writ), the court noticed that Badali v. Smith, 37 S.W. 642 (Tex.Civ.App.1896, no writ), in applying negligence rules conflicted with Triolo v. Foster, 57 S.W. 698 (Tex.Civ.App.1900, no writ), which charged an owner with liability for damages for injuries in keeping an animal which the owner knew or had reason to know was vicious. The court ruled that the defendant’s negligence was not the proper basis for liability. Comment, Personal Injuries by Animals in Texas, 4 Baylor L.Rev. 183 (1952). These cases have approved the strict liability theory: Wells v. Burns, 480 S.W.2d 31 (Tex.Civ.App.1972, no writ) ; Arrington Funeral Home v. Taylor, 474 S.W.2d 299 (Tex.Civ.App. 1971, writ ref’d n. r. e.); Lewis v. Great Southwest Corporation, 473 S.W.2d 228 (Tex.Civ.App.1971, writ ref’d n. r. e.); Hill v. Palms, 237 S.W.2d 455 (Tex.Civ.App.1951, no writ) ; Bly v. Swafford, 199 S.W.2d 1015 (Tex.Civ.App.1947, no writ); Gamer v. Winchester, 110 S.W.2d 1190 (Tex.Civ.App.1937, writ dism’d) ; Moore v. McKay, supra; Copley v. Wills, 152 S.W. 830 (Tex.Civ.App.1913, no writ) ; Barklow v. Avery, 40 Tex.Civ.App., 355, 89 S.W. 417 (1905, no writ); Triolo v. Foster, supra; Note, 16 Tex.L.Rev. 395 (1938).

We approve the rule expressed in Moore v. McKay, supra, that suits for damages caused by vicious animals should be governed by principles of strict liability, and disapprove the cases which hold the contrary. W. Prosser, Law of Torts § 76 (4th ed. 1971); 2 F. Harper & F. James, the Law of Torts § 14.11 (1956). The correct rule is expressed in Restatement of Torts §§ 507, 509 (1938):

§ 507. LIABILITY OF POSSESSOR OF WILD ANIMAL.

Except as stated in §§ 508 and 517, a possessor of a wild animal is subject to liability to others, except trespassers on his land, for such harm done by the animal to their persons, lands or chattels as results from a dangerous propensity which is characteristic of wild animals of its class or of which the possessor has reason to know, although he has exercised the utmost care to confine the animal or otherwise prevent it from doing harm.

§ 509. HARM DONE BY ABNORMALLY DANGEROUS DOMESTIC ANIMALS.

Except as stated in § 517, a possessor of a domestic animal which he has reason to know has dangerous propensities abnormal to its class, is subject to liability for harm caused thereby to others, except trespassers on his land, although he has exercised the utmost care to prevent it from doing the harm.

The jury in this case refused to find that the defendant actually knew that the hog was vicious and was likely to cause injury to persons, but it did find in answer to special issue four that the defendant prior to plaintiff’s injury should have known that fact. Defendant Ranne does not challenge the finding to issue four.

The Restatement, quoted above, uses the phrase “has reason to know” and the fourth special issue submitted in this case used the phrase “should have known.” There is no essential distinction between the two terms as explained in Restatement (Second) of Torts § 12 (1965):

§ 12. Reason to Know; Should Know

(1) The words “reason to know” are used throughout the Restatement of this Subject to denote the fact that the actor has information from which a person of reasonable intelligence or of *259the superior intelligence of the actor would infer that the fact in question exists, or that such person would govern his conduct upon the assumption that such fact exists.

(2) The words “should know” are used throughout the Restatement of this Subject to denote the fact that a person of reasonable prudence and intelligence or of the superior intelligence of the actor would ascertain the fact in question in the performance of his duty to another, or would govern his conduct upon the assumption that such fact exists.

Contributory Negligence is No Defense To Strict Liability

The trial court over plaintiff’s objection, submitted contributory negligence issues and the jury found that plaintiff Marshall was negligent in several particulars. We hold that contributory negligence is not a defense to this action. The court in Copley v. Wills, 152 S.W. 830 (Tex.Civ.App.1913, no writ), confronted this question and rejected contributory negligence as an applicable defense to an action for strict liability for keeping a vicious animal which one knew or had reason to know was vicious. This is also the view expressed in Restatement (Second) of Torts § 515, Comment b (Tent.Draft No. 10, 1964) :

b. Since the strict liability of the possessor of an animal is not founded on his negligence, the ordinary contributory negligence of the plaintiff is not a defense to such an action. The reason is the policy of the law which places the full responsibility for preventing the harm upon the defendant. Thus where the plaintiff merely fails to exercise reasonable care to discover the presence of the animal, or to take precautions against the harm which may result from it, his recovery on the basis of strict liability is not barred.

We conclude that the findings of plaintiff’s contributory negligence as contained in the answers to special issues eight through twelve have no place in this case and did not bar the plaintiff from recovery. 2 F. Harper & F. James, The Law of Torts § 14.12, at 843 (1956). We do not hold that negligence and contributory negligence can never be a correct theory in a case which concerns animals. All animals are not vicious and a possessor of a non-vicious animal may be subject to liability for his negligent handling of such an animal. This was the situation in Dawkins v. Van Winkle, 375 S.W.2d 341 (Tex.Civ.App.), writ dism’d w. o. j., 377 S.W .2d 830 (Tex.1964). Accord, Restatement of Torts § 518 (1938); 2 F. Harper & F. James, The Law of Torts § 14.11, at 833-834 (1956); 3A C.J.S. Animals § 178 (1973).

Did Marshall Voluntarily Assume the Risk?

Plaintiff Marshall does not contend that voluntary assumption of risk is no defense to an action which asserts the defendant’s strict liability. He alludes to the truth that it has been abolished as a defense in a number of states in actions grounded upon negligence.1 Marshall’s ar*260gument is that he did not, as a matter of law voluntarily expose himself to the risk of the attack by the hog. The jury found that plaintiff Marshall had knowledge of the vicious propensities of the hog and that it was likely to cause injury to persons, and also found that plaintiff, with knowledge of the nature of defendant’s hoar hog, voluntarily exposed himself to the risk of attack by the animal. We hold that there was no proof that plaintiff had a free and voluntary choice, because he did not have a free choice of alternatives. He had, instead, only a choice of evils, both of which were wrongfully imposed upon him by the defendant. He could remain a prisoner inside his own house or he could take the risk of reaching his car before defendant’s hog attacked him. Plaintiff could have remained inside his house, but in doing so, he would have surrendered his legal right to proceed over his own property to his car so he' could return to his home in Dallas. The latter alternative was forced upon him against his will and was a choice he was not legally required to ac'cept. W. Prosser, Law of Torts § 68, at 450-453 (4th ed. 1971). We approve and follow the rule expressed in Restatement (Second) of Torts- § 496E (1965):

(1) A plaintiff does not assume a risk of harm unless he voluntarily accepts the risk.

(2) The plaintiff’s acceptance of a risk is not voluntary if the defendant’s tor-tious conduct has left him no reasonable alternative course of conduct in order to

(a) avert harm to himself or another, or

(b) exercise or protect a right or privilege of which the defendant has no right to deprive him.

The dilemma which defendant forced upon plaintiff was that of facing the danger or surrendering his rights with respect to his own real property, and that was not, as a matter of law the voluntary choice to which the law entitled him. Kanelos v. Kettler, 132 U.S.App.D.C. 133, 406 F.2d 951 (1968); American Smelting & Refining Co. v. Riverside Dairy & Stock Farm, 236 F. 510 (8th Cir. 1916); Judson v. Giant Powder Co., 107 Cal. 549, 40 P. 1020 (1895); Associated Metals & Minerals Corp. v. Dixon Chemical & Research Co., 82 N.J.Super. 281, 197 A.2d 569 (1962); Schiro v. Oriental Realty Co., 272 Wis. 537, 76 N.W.2d 355, 73 A.L.R.2d 1368 (1956); 2 F. Harper & F. James, The Law of Torts § 21.1, at 1166 (1956); 65A C.J.S. Negligence § 174(2) (1966).

We held in Harvey v. Seale, 362 S.W.2d 310, 313 (Tex.1962), that a choice afforded a nine-year-old child to cease playing on a porch that her parents held by lease or to risk stepping in a hole was not a voluntary one. We wrote in that case:

By virtue of her father’s lease, she was entitled to be on the front porch of her home without regard to respondent’s consent. Respondent was not privileged, therefore, to adopt a “take it or leave it” attitude, and his duty to petitioner was not fully discharged when she learned of the danger. The negligent failure to repair the hole placed her in a position where she was compelled to choose between foregoing her legal right to play on the porch and encountering the risk involved in playing there. If her choice was unreasonable under the circumstances, she was guilty of contributory negligence, but respondent will not be heard to say that she voluntarily exposed herself to the danger, and that he owed her no duty with respect thereto, when she decided to play on the porch.

Nor do we regard Rabb v. Coleman, 469 S.W.2d 384 (Tex.1971), in conflict with our holding. In Rabb, we ruled that voluntary assumption of risk applies to one who owns the property upon which he is injured, but Coleman, the owner, faced a known danger which he fully appreciated when he was free to move only a short distance and escape the danger. The burden upon his freedom of movement was very slight.

Defendant Ranne argues also that the plaintiff Marshall had yet another alterna*261tive, that of shooting the hog. The proof showed that Marshall was an expert marksman and had a gun in his house with which he could have killed the hog. Plaintiff Marshall testified that he was reluctant to destroy his neighbor’s animal because he did not know how Ranne would react. We do not regard the slaughter of the animal as a reasonable alternative, because plaintiff would have subjected himself arguably to charges under the provision of two criminal statutes.2

We accordingly hold that contributory negligence is not a defense in a strict liability action. Voluntary assumption of risk, if- established, would be a valid defense. In this case as a matter of law, the proof shows that plaintiff Marshall did not voluntarily encounter the vicious hog. We, therefore, reverse the judgments of the courts below and render judgment that plaintiff recover the sum of $4,146.00 the amount of damages found by the jury.

ON REHEARING

Defendant, John C. Ranne, urges in his motion for rehearing that there was neither finding nor evidence that he permitted the hog to run at large after he should have known the animal was vicious. The jury found as a fact that he permitted his hog to run at large after he knew, or should have known that the hog was vicious and likely to cause injury to persons. Ran-ne himself testified concerning the nature of the animal, “I knew that he had been raised alone and wasn’t, you know, a regular yard type animal.” According to the plaintiff, Ranne visited him in the hospital and told him, “I knew the bugger was mean.” A witness told of Ranne’s visit to the hospital after the animal attacked plaintiff. She testified that Ranne then told Marshall, “I knew he was vicious, why didn’t you kill him?” We overrule defendant’s motion for rehearing.

Plaintiff, Marshall, also filed a motion for rehearing and urges that the court of civil appeals erred in refusing to consider his point that the damages awarded in the trial court were manifestly unjust and grossly inadequate. The trial court’s judgment was grounded upon a verdict which found no damages for past or future pain and mental anguish or for loss of past or future earnings. We grant plaintiff’s motion for rehearing, set aside our former judgment, reverse the judgments of the courts below and remand the cause to the court of civil appeals for its consideration of the point touching the adequacy of the damages.

OPINION OF THE COURT

Jasen, J.

We are asked to decide on this appeal whether the plaintiff established a prima facie case of strict products liability for an allegedly defectively designed product.

Plaintiff was using a circular power saw manufactured by the defendant to cut 2 by 4 boards for the purposes of remodeling the roof on his mobile home. Working at sawhorses which he had set up in his driveway, he would cut each board in half and then, using a template, cut one end of each board at a 45-degree angle.

The housing of the saw covers all but the lower portion of the circular blade. Part of that lower portion of the blade is covered by a guard which is designed to move back as the blade makes contact with the wood. This guard has a spring mechanism so that as soon as the pressure from the contact with the wood stops, the guard automatically closes to its original position. The purpose of the guard is, of course, to protect the operator, but plaintiff’s expert testified that in order for the saw to operate properly part of the blade should be exposed even when the guard is in the closed position to allow the initial contact between the blade and the wood.

Plaintiff testified that he was holding the saw in his right hand and bracing the 2 by 4 against the sawhorse with his left hand. As he made a cut across one of the boards, the saw hit a knot, projecting the saw upward approximately 18 inches into the air. Sufficient time elapsed for the guard to close before the saw came down in such a manner that the exposed and unguarded part of the rotating saw blade struck plaintiff’s hand, severely lacerating it and severing part of his thumb which, upon contact, became wedged between the blade and the guard. Plaintiff testified that he believed the blade stopped rotating when it hit the bone in his thumb. There is no dispute *105that the guard was operating properly and had closed as far as it could before the blade came in contact with the plaintiff’s hand.

Testimony of an expert witness who had conducted a series of tests on plaintiff’s saw also was presented. He testified that the kinetic energy produced by the rotating saw hitting the knot would be sufficient to force the saw into the air as plaintiff described. The tests conducted by the expert also indicated that sufficient time would have elapsed to allow the movable guard to close to its maximum point and that the guard on plaintiff’s saw was operating as the manufacturer intended. Defendant did not question plaintiff’s testimony that the guard had closed to its maximum point before contacting plaintiff’s hand.

Plaintiff alleged in his cause of action sounding in strict products liability that defendant’s saw was defectively designed because the saw blade guard allowed an excessive amount of the blade to be exposed. In support of this position, plaintiff questioned his expert witness concerning industry standards and good engineering principles as applicable to the design of circular power saws. It was the opinion of that expert that it would have been a simple matter to design the saw so that it would be safer by extending the movable guard and that to do so would have brought the saw into conformity with both minimum safety standards and good design standards.

The minimum safety standard testified to was that developed and published by the Underwriters Laboratory, Inc. The saw bore the familiar UL logo indicating its conformity with those standards. Plaintiff’s expert, however, demonstrated that the saw with the guard closed to its maximum point allowed 53 degrees of the blade to be exposed. The maximum exposure of blade under the underwriters standards was set at 45 degrees. Although he could not state with certainty that the plaintiff would not have been injured had the exposure been reduced to 45 degrees, he did testify that the guard “should extend much farther [than it does] in order to meet good design standard”.

At the close of the plaintiff’s case, the Trial Judge dismissed the causes of action alleging breach of warranty and strict products liability. The case proceeded on the *106remaining cause of action sounding in negligence. The jury returned a verdict of no cause on the negligence cause of action, and plaintiff has not disputed that verdict.

On appeal, the plaintiff has also abandoned his claim under the warranty cause of action, but urges that it was error to refuse to submit the case to the jury on the strict products liability cause of action. The evidence presented, he argues, was sufficient to establish a prima facie case of liability based on the defectively designed product. The Appellate Division affirmed the dismissal of the cause of action sounding in strict products liability, without opinion. Because our review of the record indicates that plaintiff did establish a prima facie case of strict products liability for a defectively designed product, we now modify the order of the Appellate Division and remit to the trial court for a new trial on the cause of action sounding in strict products liability.

In New York, a plaintiff injured by an allegedly defective product may seek recovery against the manufacturer on the basis of any one or more of four theories of liability. “Depending on the factual context in which the claim arises, the injured plaintiff, and those asserting derivative claims, may state a cause of action in contract, express or implied, on the ground of negligence, or, as here, on the theory of strict products liability.” (Victorson v Bock Laundry Mach. Co., 37 NY2d 395, 400.)

In recognizing a cause of action for strict products liability, we stated that “the manufacturer of a defective product is liable to any person injured or damaged if the defect was a substantial factor in bringing about his injury or damages; provided: (1) that at the time of the occurrence the product is being used * * * for the purpose and in the manner normally intended, (2) that if the person injured or damaged is himself the user of the product he would hot by the exercise of reasonable care have h th discovered the defect and perceived its danger, and (3) that by the exercise of reasonable care the person injured or damaged would not otherwise have averted his injury or damages.” (Codling v Paglia, 32 NY2d 330, 342.) As the law of strict products liability has developed in New York, a plaintiff may assert that the product is defective because of a *107mistake in the manufacturing process (Victorson v Bock Laundry Mach. Co., supra) or because of an improper design (Micallef v Miehle Co., Div. of Miehle-Goss Dexter, 39 NY2d 376) or because the manufacturer failed to provide adequate warnings regarding the use of the product (Torrogrossa v Towmotor Co., 44 NY2d 709). (Robinson v Reed-Prentice Div. of Package Mach. Co., 49 NY2d 471, 478-479.)

In this case, plaintiff does not allege that there was any defect in the manner in which the product was manufactured or the warnings provided by the manufacturer. Our inquiry will accordingly be limited to whether plaintiff established a prima facie case of a defectively designed product.

We have held that a “defectively designed product is one which, at the time it leaves the seller’s hands, is in a condition not reasonably contemplated by the ultimate consumer and is unreasonably dangerous for its intended use; that is one whose utility does not outweigh the danger inherent in its introduction into the stream of commerce”. (Robinson v Reed-Prentice Div. of Package Mach. Co., supra, at p 479.) Strict products liability for design defect thus differs from a cause of action for a negligently designed product in that the plaintiff is not required to prove that the manufacturer acted unreasonably in designing the product. The focus shifts from the conduct of the manufacturer to whether the product, as designed, was not reasonably safe. (See Note, 42 Ford L Rev 943.) A manufacturer is held liable regardless of his lack of actual knowledge of the condition of the product because he is in the superior position to discover any design defects and alter the design before making the product available to the public. Liability attaches when the product, as designed, presents an unreasonable risk of harm to the user.

In order to establish a prima facie case in strict products liability for design defects, the plaintiff must show that the manufacturer breached its duty to market safe products when it marketed a product designed so that it was not reasonably safe and that the defective design was a substantial factor in causing plaintiff’s injury.

*108Much has been written as to what must be shown to establish that the product was defective, including discussions as to the proper distinctions between “reasonably safe”, “not reasonably safe” and “unreasonably dangerous”. (Epstein, Modern Products Liability Law, at pp 76-92; Swartz, The Concepts of “Defective Condition” and “Unreasonably Dangerous” in Products Liability Law, 66 Marquette L Rev 280; Keeton, Product Liability and the Meaning of Defect, 5 St Mary’s LJ 30, 35-39; Note 42 Ford L Rev 943.) As a result, courts have interchangeably used these terms in instructing jurors concerning the applicable standard for determining whether a product was defectively designed. We believe that a variety of terms with various subtle distinctions in their definitions may tend only to create confusion in ascertaining the proper standard to determine whether or not a given product is defectively designed. Therefore, we conclude that the proper standard to be applied should be whether the product as designed was “not reasonably safe” — that is, whether it is a product which, if the design defect were known at the time of manufacture, a reasonable person would conclude that the utility of the product did not outweigh the risk inherent in marketing a product designed in that manner. (See 1 NY PJI2d 138-139 [1982 Supp].)

It will be for the jury to decide whether a product was not reasonably safe in light of all the evidence presented by both the plaintiff and defendant. (Rainbow v Elia Bldg. Co., 79 AD2d 287, 291, affd 56 NY2d 550; Robinson v Reed-Prentice Div. of Package Mach. Co., supra, at p 479; Micallef v Miehle Co., Div. of Miehle-Goss Dexter, supra, at p 386.) The plaintiff, of course, is under an obligation to present evidence that the product, as designed, was not reasonably safe because there was a substantial likelihood of harm and it was feasible to design the product in a safer" manner. The defendant manufacturer, on the other hand, may present evidence in opposition seeking to show that the product is a safe product — that is, one whose utility outweighs its risks when the product has been designed so that the risks are reduced to the greatest extent possible while retaining the product’s inherent usefulness at an acceptable cost. (Rainbow v Elia Bldg. Co., 79 AD2d 287, *109affd 56 NY2d 550, supra; Micallef v Miehle Co., Div. of Miehle-Goss Dexter, 39 NY2d 376, 386, supra.) The question for the jury, then, is whether after weighing the evidence and balancing the product’s risks against its utility and cost, it can be concluded that the product as designed is not reasonably safe. (Epstein, Modern Products Liability Law, at pp 76-92; Vandall, “Design Defect” in Products Liability: Rethinking Negligence and Strict Liability, 43 Ohio St LJ 61, 85-86.)

In balancing the risks inherent in the product, as designed, against its utility and cost, the jury may consider several factors. (Epstein, Modern Products Liability Law, op. cit.; Kimble & Lesher, Products Liability, § 55, p 81.) Those factors may include the following: (1) the utility of the product to the public as a whole and to the individual user; (2) the nature of the product — that is, the likelihood that it will cause injury; (3) the availability of a safer design; (4) the potential for designing and manufacturing the product so that it is safer but remains functional and reasonably priced; (5) the ability of the plaintiff to have avoided injury by careful use of the product; (6) the degree of awareness of the potential danger of the product which reasonably can be attributed to the plaintiff; and (7) the manufacturer’s ability to spread any cost related to improving the safety of the design. (Rainbow v Elia Bldg. Co., 79 AD2d 287, 291, affd 56 NY2d 550, supra; see, also, Wade, On the Nature of Strict Tort Liability for Products, 44 Miss LJ 825, 837-838; 1 NY PJI2d 139-140 [1982 Supp].)

Pertinent factors in the individual case, when evaluated as to whether or not they are applicable, should form the. basis for charging the jury as to how it should evaluate the evidence in order to decide whether a product is not reasonably safe.

Additionally, to establish a prima facie case, the plaintiff is required to show that the defectively designed product caused his injury and that the defect was the proximate cause of the injury. (Micallef v Miehle Co., Div. of Miehle-Goss Dexter, supra, at pp 386-387; 1 Weinberger, New York Products Liability, § 21:06.) By proximate cause in the context of strict products liability for design defects, we mean that after weighing the various factors and conclud*110ing that the design was defective the jury has decided that the defect was a substantial factor in causing plaintiff’s injury. (Rainbow v Elia Bldg. Co., supra, at p 289; 1 Weinberger, New York Products Liability, op. cit.)

Proximate cause in a products liability case serves a somewhat different role than in a case sounding in negligence because that cause of action seeks to impute liability to the manufacturer not on the basis of his negligence but because the product is not reasonably safe as it was designed. The tie which proximate cause is to provide in order to impose legal liability must be between the design defect of the product and the injury — that is, the plaintiff must show that the design defect in the product was a substantial factor in causing his injury.

Turning to the case before us, we believe that plaintiff presented sufficient evidence to justify submitting the defective design issue to the jury. While products such as those involved in this case can be said to be inherently dangerous, it would be for the jury, applying the aforesaid principles, to decide whether the saw as designed and marketed was not reasonably safe. In deciding this, they would consider plaintiff’s proof that the exposed portion of the saw was so large that it did not meet minimum safety standards. Additionally, plaintiff’s expert’s opinion that a safer saw could easily be built at a reasonable cost merely by extending the movable guard should be considered.

Were the jury to decide after considering any evidence offered by defendant* that the product was defective, it would be proper for the jury to decide whether the defective design was a substantial factor causing plaintiff’s injury. On the basis of the record before this court, the jury could so conclude based on plaintiff’s testimony that his injuries occurred when the unguarded portion of the blade came down on his hand and that the severed portion of his thumb became lodged between the blade and the guard, the very design of which plaintiff alleges was defective. Expert testimony with reference to proximate causation is not always required; in this case the jury could have found *111proximate causation from its consideration of the characteristics of the circular saw and plaintiff’s description of how the accident happened. Having presented evidence from which the jury could have found that the saw was designed in a manner which made it not reasonably safe and that this design defect was a substantial factor in causing his injuries, the cause of action in strict products liability for design defect should have been submitted to the jury.

Plaintiff also alleged that it was error not to allow the other complaints filed against the manufacturer to be submitted into evidence to establish that the manufacturer was on notice that its product was not reasonably safe. There was no error as plaintiff failed to provide any proof that the documents were genuine or had been served on the defendant. We would further note that as to the cause of action in strict products liability, there was no error as the manufacturer’s knowledge, actual or constructive, is not in issue; rather, the design of the product in light of the state of the art at the time of production is the issue.

Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be modified, with costs to abide the event, and the case remitted to Supreme Court for a new trial on the strict products cause of action, and, as so modified, the order should be affirmed.

Chief Judge Cooke and Judges Jones, Wachtler, Fuchsberg and Meyer concur; Judge Simons taking no part.

Order modified, with costs to abide the event, and case remitted to Supreme Court, Oswego County, for a new trial in accordance with the opinion herein and, as so modified, affirmed.

Affirmed by published opinion. Chief Judge WILKINSON wrote the opinion, in which Judge WIDENER and Judge KING joined.

OPINION

WILKINSON, Chief Judge:

Wilson M. Hood lost part of his thumb and lacerated his leg when he removed the blade guards from his new Ryobi miter saw and then used the unguarded saw for home carpentry. Hood sued Ryobi, alleging that the company failed adequately to warn of the saw’s dangers and that the saw was defective. Applying Maryland products liability law, the district court granted summary judgment to Ryobi on all claims.

The saw and owner’s manual bore at least seven clear, simple warnings not to operate the tool with the blade guards removed. The warnings were not required to spell out all the consequences of improper use. Nor was the saw defective — Hood altered and used the tool in violation of Ryobi’s clear warnings. Thus we affirm the judgment.

I.

Hood purchased a Ryobi TS-254 miter saw in Westminster, Maryland on February 25, 1995, for the purpose of performing home repaii-s. The saw was fully assembled at the time of purchase. It had a ten-inch diameter blade mounted on a rotating spindle controlled by a finger trigger on a handle near the top of the blade. To operate the saw, the consumer would use that handle to lower the blade through the material being cut.

Two blade guards shielded nearly the entire saw blade. A large metal guard, fixed to the frame of the saw, surrounded the upper half of the blade. A transparent plastic lower guard covered the rest of the blade and retracted into the upper guard as the saw came into contact with the work piece.

A number of warnings in the operator’s manual and affixed to the saw itself stated that the user should operate the saw only with the blade guards in place. For example, the owner’s manual declared that the user should “KEEP GUARDS IN PLACE” and warned: “ALWAYS USE THE SAW BLADE GUARD. Never operate the machine with the guard removed”; “NEVER operate this saw without all guards in place and in good operating condition”; and “WARNING: TO PREVENT POSSIBLE SERIOUS PERSONAL INJURY,NEVER PERFORM ANY CUTTING OPERATION WITH THE UPPER OR LOWER BLADE GUARD REMOVED.” The saw itself carried several decals stating “DANGER: DO NOT REMOVE ANY *610 GUARD. USE OF SAW WITHOUT THIS GUARD WILL RESULT IN SERIOUS INJURY”; . “OPERATE ONLY WITH GUARDS IN PLACE”; and “WARNING ... DO NOT operate saw without the upper and lower guards in place.”

The day .after his purchase, Hood began working with the saw in his driveway. While attempting to cut a piece of wood approximately four inches in height Hood found that the blade guards prevented the saw blade from passing completely through the piece. Disregarding the manufacturer’s warnings, Hood decided to remove the blade guards from the saw. Hood first detached the saw blade from its spindle. He then unscrewed the four screws that held the blade guard assembly to- the frame of the saw. Finally, he replaced the blade onto the bare spindle and completed his cut.

Rather than replacing the blade guards, Hood continued ■ to work with’ the saw blade exposed. He worked in this fashion for about twenty minutes longer when, in the middle of another cut, the spinning saw blade flew off the saw and back toward Hood. The blade partially amputated his left thumb and lacerated his right leg.

Hood admits that he read the owner’s manual and most of the warning labels on the saw before he began his work. He claims, however,.that he believed the blade guards were intended solely to prevent a user’s clothing or fingers from coming into contact with the saw. blade. He contends that he was unaware that removing the blade guards would permit the spinning blade to detach from the saw. But Ryobi, he claims, was aware of that possibility. In fact, another customer had sued Ryobi after suffering a similar accident in the mid-1980s.

On December 5, 1997, Hood sued several divisions of Ryobi in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. Hood raised claims of failure ■ to warn and defective design under several theories of liability. On cross-motions for summary judgment the district court entered judgment for the defendants on all claims, finding that in the face of adequate warnings Hood had altered the saw and caused his own injury. Hood v. Ryobi N. Am., Inc., 17 F.Supp.2d 448 (D.Md.1998). Hood appeals.

II.

A manufacturer may be' liable for placing a product on the market that bears inadequate instructions and warnings or that is defective in design. Moran v. Faberge, Inc., 273 Md. 538, 332 A.2d 11, 15 (1975); Simpson v. Standard Container Co., 72 Md.App. 199, 527 A.2d 1337, 1339-40 (Ct.Spec.App.1987). Hood asserts that Ryobi failed adequatély to warn of the dangers of using the saw without the blade guards in place. Hood also contends that the design of the saw was defective. We disagree on both counts. 1

A.

Hood first complains that the warnings he received were insufficiently specific. Hood admits that Ryobi provided'several clear and conspicuous warnings not to operate the saw without the blade guards. He contends, however, that the warnings affixed to the product and displayed in the operator’s manual were inadequate to alert him to the dangers of doing so. In addition to Ryobi’s directive “never” to operate a guardless saw, Hood would require the company to inform of the actual consequences of such conduct. Specifically, Hood contends that an adequate warning would have explained that removing the guards would lead to blade detachment.

We disagree. Maryland does not require an encyclopedic warning. Instead, “a warning need only be one that is rea *611 sonable under the circumstances.” Levin v. Walter Kidde & Co., 251 Md. 560, 248 A.2d 151, 153 (1968). A clear and specific warning will normally be sufficient — “the manufacturer need not warn of every mishap or source of injury that the mind can imagine flowing from the product.” Liesener v. Weslo, Inc., 775 F.Supp. 857, 861 (D.Md.1991); see Levin, 248 A.2d at 154 (declining to require warning of the danger that a cracked syphon bottle might explode and holding “never use cracked bottle” to be adequate as a matter of law). In deciding whether a warning is adequate, Maryland law asks whether the benefits of a more detailed warning outweigh the costs of requiring the change. Moran, 332 A.2d at 15.

Hood assumes that the cost of a more detailed warning label is minimal in this case, and he claims that such a warning would have prevented his injury. But the price of more detailed warnings is greater than their additional printing fees alone. Some commentators have observed that the proliferation of label detail threatens to undermine the effectiveness of warnings altogether. See James A. Henderson, Jr. & Aaron D. Twerski, Doctrinal Collapse in Products Liability: The Empty Shell of Failure to Warn, 65 N.Y.U. L.Rev. 265, 296-97 (1990). As manufacturers append line after line onto product labels in the quest for the best possible warning, it is easy to lose sight of the label’s communicative value as a whole. Well-meaning attempts to warn of every possible accident lead over time to voluminous yet impenetrable labels — too prolix to read and too technical to understand.

By contrast, Ryobi’s warnings are clear and unequivocal. Three labels on the saw itself and at least four warnings in the owner’s manual direct the user not to operate the saw with the blade guards removed. Two declare that “serious injury” could result from doing so. This is not a case where the manufacturer has failed to include any warnings at all with its product. See Moran, 332 A.2d at 13-14. Ryo-bi provided warnings sufficient to apprise the ordinary consumer that it is unsafe to operate a guardless saw — -warnings which, if followed, would have prevented the injury in this case.

It is apparent, moreover, that the vast majority of consumers do not detach this critical safety feature before using this type of saw. Indeed, although Ryobi claims to have sold thousands of these saws, Hood has identified only one fifteen-year-old incident similar to his. Hood has thus not shown that these clear, unmistakable, and prominent warnings are insufficient to accomplish their purpose. Nor can he prove that increased label clutter would bring any net societal benefit. We hold that the warnings Ryobi provided are adequate as a matter of law.

B.

Hood’s defective design claim is likewise unpersuasive. Hood’s injuries were the direct result of the alterations he made to the saw — alterations that directly contravened clear, unambiguous warnings. And such alterations defeat a claim of design defect. 2

This rule has been expressed alternatively as one of duty and one of causation. First, a manufacturer is only required to design a product that is safe for its reasonably foreseeable uses. If that duty is met,-the product is simply not defective. Banks v. Iron Hustler Corp., *612 475 A.2d 1243, 1255 (Md.Ct.Spec.App.1984). Second, if a consumer alters a product in a way that creates a defect, the consumer’s conduct rather than the manufacturer’s is the proximate cause of any ensuing accident. See id. at 1253-55; Singleton v. Manitowoc Co., 727 F.Supp. 217, 222 (D.Md.1989), aff'd, 931 F.2d 887 (4th Cir.1991) (table). Under either rationale, a post-sale product alteration will defeat a design defect claim if that alteration leads directly to the plaintiffs injury.

Hood admits that he altered the table saw by removing the blade guards from the unit’s frame, and he acknowledges that the alteration led directly to his injuries. Hood asserts, however, that Ryobi should have foreseen that consumers might operate its saws with the guards removed. Hood notes that the operation of equipment without safety guards is a frequently cited OSHA violation. And, as noted, Ryo-bi itself has faced litigation on one other occasion for the same type of accident that befell Hood. In short, Hood contends that Ryobi should have designed its saw to operate equally well with the guards in place or removed.

We disagree. Maryland imposes no duty to predict that a consumer will violate clear, easily understandable safety warnings such as those Ryobi included with this product. For example, a manufacturer need not foresee that a consumer might store a gasoline can in his basement in contravention of clear warning labels. Simpson, 527 A.2d at 1341 (“ ‘Where warning is given, the seller may reasonably assume that it will be read and heeded; and a product bearing such a warning, which is safe for use if it is followed, is not in defective condition, nor is it unreasonably dangerous.’” (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A cmt. j)). Nor must a manufacturer foresee that a worker will shove his arm into a conveyor machine to repair it without first shutting the machine down, again in violation of “explicit written warnings.” Kline v. ABCO Engineering Corp., 991 F.Supp. 747, 750-51 (D.Md.1997). When a consumer injures himself by using a product — or, as in this case, by altering it — in violation of clear, unmistakable, and easy-to-follow warnings, it is the consumer’s own conduct that causes the injury. Id.; see Higgins v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 863 F.2d 1162, 1167-68 (4th Cir.1988). The manufacturer is not liable under a design defect theory.

We recognize that the American Law Institute has recently underscored the concern that comment j of the Second Restatement, i*ead literally, would permit a manufacturer of a dangerously defective product to immunize itself from liability merely by slapping warning labels on that product. See Restatement (Third) of Torts: Prod. Liab. § 2 cmt. 1 & Reporter’s Note. We are all afflicted with lapses of attention; warnings aimed simply at avoiding consumer carelessness should not absolve a manufacturer of the duty to design reasonable safeguards for its products. See id. cmt. 1, illus. 14 (when warning could not eliminate the possibility of accidental contact with a dangerous shear point, decal declaring “keep hands and feet away” does not bar a design defect claim).

The Maryland courts have already made clear, however, that warnings will not inevitably defeat liability for a product’s defective design. See Klein v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 92 Md.App. 477, 608 A.2d 1276, 1282-83 (Ct.Spec.App.1992) (such warnings as “never leave tool running unattended” and “do not place fingers or hands in the path of the saw blade” are too vague to defeat manufacturer’s liability for failing to include blade guards on its saws). Maryland has thus sought to encourage manufacturers to rid their products of traps for the unwary, while declining to hold them responsible for affirmative consumer misuse.

This case involves much more than a consumer’s inevitable inattention. Rather, Hood took affirmative steps to remove the safety, guards from his saw and — in contravention of warnings which were “clear, *613 direct, simple, unequivocal!], unmistakable, definite, and easy to understand and obey” — then used the saw to cut several pieces of wood. Klein, 608 A.2d at 1282. Hood’s own conduct thus caused his injury and defeats any claim that the saw is defective in design.

III.

Warned never to operate his miter saw without the blade guards in place, Hood nonetheless chose to detach those guards and run the saw in a disassembled condition. We hold that Ryobi is not hable for Hood’s resulting injuries under any of the theories of recovery raised here. The judgment of the district court is therefore

AFFIRMED.

*730Opinion

RICHARDSON, J.

The most important of several problems which we consider is whether the principles of comparative negligence expressed by us in Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804 [119 Cal.Rptr. 858, 532 P.2d 1226, 78 A.L.R.3d 393], apply to actions founded on strict products liability. We will conclude that they do. We also inquire whether evidence of “compensating” safety devices installed in a motor vehicle by its manufacturer is admissible to offset alleged design deficiencies, and whether, under the particular facts herein, evidence of a driver’s claimed intoxication or of his asserted failure to use his vehicle’s safety equipment may be considered. While agreeing that evidence of compensating design characteristics is admissible, we will further determine that under the circumstances herein prejudicial error requiring reversal occurred upon the admission of evidence of the decedent’s alleged intoxication and failure to use safety devices in his vehicle.

The Facts And The Trial

Although there were no eyewitnesses, the parties agree, generally, on the reconstruction of the accident in question. In the early hours of October 31, 1970, decedent Kirk Daly, a 36-year-old attorney, was driving his Opel southbound on the Harbor Freeway in Los Angeles. The vehicle, while travelling at a speed of 50-70 miles per hour, collided with and damaged 50 feet of metal divider fence. After the initial impact between the left side of the vehicle and the fence the Opel spun counterclockwise, the driver’s door was thrown open, and Daly was forcibly ejected from the car and sustained fatal head injuries. It was equally undisputed that had the deceased remained in the Opel his injuries, in all probability, would have been relatively minor.

Plaintiffs, who are decedent’s widow and three surviving minor children, sued General Motors Corporation, Boulevard Buick, Underwriter’s Auto Leasing, and Aleo Leasing Company, the successive links in the Opel’s manufacturing and distribution chain. The sole theory of plaintiffs’ complaint was strict liability for damages allegedly caused by a defective product, namely, an improperly designed door latch claimed to have been activated by the impact. It was further asserted that, but for the faulty latch, decedent would have been restrained in the vehicle and, although perhaps injured, would not have been killed. Thus, the case involves a so-called “second collision” in which the “defect” did not *731contribute to the original impact, but only to the “enhancement” of injury.

At trial the jury heard conflicting expert versions as to the functioning of the latch mechanism during the accident. Plaintiffs’ principal witness testified that the Opel’s door was caused to open when the latch button on the exterior handle of the driver’s door was forcibly depressed by some protruding portion of the divider fence. It was his opinion that the exposed push button on the door constituted a design “defect” which caused injuries greatly in excess of those which Daly would otherwise have sustained. Plaintiffs also introduced evidence that other vehicular door latch designs used in production models of the same and prior years afforded substantially greater protection. Defendants’ experts countered with their opinions that the force of the impact was sufficiently strong that it would have caused the door to open resulting in Daly’s death even if the Opel had been equipped with door latches of the alternative designs suggested by plaintiffs.

Over plaintiffs’ objections, defendants were permitted to introduce evidence indicating that: (1) the Opel was equipped with a seat belt-shoulder harness system, and a door lock, either of which if used, it was contended, would have prevented Daly’s ejection from the vehicle; (2) Daly used neither the harness system nor the lock; (3) the 1970 Opel owner’s manual contained warnings that seat belts should be worn and doors locked when the car was in motion for “accident security”; and (4) Daly was intoxicated at the time of collision, which evidence the juiy was advised was admitted for the limited purpose of determining whether decedent had used the vehicle’s safety equipment. After relatively brief deliberations the jury returned a verdict favoring all defendants, and plaintiffs appeal from the ensuing adverse judgment.

Strict Products Liability And Comparative Fault

In response to plaintiffs’ assertion that the “intoxication-nonuse” evidence was improperly admitted, defendants contend that the deceased’s own conduct contributed to his death. Because plaintiffs’ case rests upon strict products liability based on improper design of the door latch and because defendants assert a failure in decedent’s conduct, namely, his alleged intoxication and nonuse of safety equipment, without which the accident and ensuing death would not have occurred, there is *732thereby posed the overriding issue in the case, should comparative principles apply in strict products liability actions?

It may be useful to refer briefly to certain highlights in the historical development of the two principles—strict and comparative liability. Tort law has evolved from a legal obligation initially imposed without “fault,” to recovery which, generally, was based on blameworthiness in a moral sense. For reasons of social policy and because of the unusual nature of defendants’ acts, liability without fault continued to be prescribed in a certain restricted area, for example, upon keepers of wild animals, or those who handled explosives or other dangerous substances, or who engaged in ultrahazardous activities. Simultaneously, and more particularly, those who were injured in the use of personal property were permitted recovery on a contract theory if they were the purchasers of the chattel or were in privity. Subsequently, liability was imposed in negligence upon the manufacturer of personalty in favor of the general consumer. (For a comprehensive historical review, see Prosser, Law of Torts (4th ed. 1971) § 96, pp. 641-644; 2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts (1956) § 12.2 and foll., p. 747 and foll.) Evolving social policies designed to protect the ultimate consumer soon prompted the extension of legal responsibility beyond negligence to express or implied warranty. Thus, in the area of food and drink a form of strict liability predicated upon warranty found wide acceptance. Warranty actions, however, contained their own inherent limitations requiring a precedent notice to the vendor of a breach of the warranty, and absolving him from loss if he had issued an adequate disclaimer.

General dissatisfaction continued with the conceptual limitations which traditional tort and contract doctrines placed upon the consumers and users of manufactured products, this at a time when mass production of an almost infinite variety of goods and products was responding to a myriad of ever-changing societal demands stimulated by wide-spread commercial advertising. From an historic combination of economic and sociological forces was bom the doctrine of strict liability in tort.

We, ourselves, were perhaps the first court to give the new principle judicial sanction. In Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc. (1963) 59 Cal.2d 57 [27 Cal.Rptr. 697, 377 P.2d 897, 13 A.L.R.3d 1049], confronted with injuiy to an ultimate consumer caused by a defective power tool, we fastened strict liability on a manufacturer who placed on the market a defective product even though both privity and notice of breach of warranty were lacking. We rejected both contract and warranty theories, *733express or implied, as the basis for liability. Strict liability, we said, did not rest on a consensual foundation but, rather, on one created by law. The liability was created judicially because of the economic and social need for the protection of consumers in an increasingly complex and mechanized society, and because of the limitations in the negligence and warranty remedies. Our avowed purpose was “to insure that the costs of injuries resulting from defective products are borne by the manufacturer that put such products on the market rather than by the injured persons who are powerless to protect themselves.” (Id., at p. 63.) Subsequently, the Greenman principle was incorporated in section 402A of the Restatement Second of Torts, and adopted by a majority of American jurisdictions. (Prosser, supra, at pp. 657-658.)

From its inception, however, strict liability has never been, and is not now, absolute liability. As has been repeatedly expressed, under strict liability the manufacturer does not thereby become the insurer of the safety of the product’s user. (Cronin v. J. B. E. Olson Corp. (1972) 8 Cal.3d 121, 133 [104 Cal.Rptr. 433, 501 P.2d 1153]; Dippel v. Sciano (1967) 37 Wis.2d 443 [155 N.W.2d 55, 63]; West v. Caterpillar Tractor Company, Inc. (Fla. 1976) 336 So.2d 80, 90; Traynor, The Ways and Meanings of Defective Products and Strict Liability (1965) 32 Tenn.L.Rev. 363, 366-367.) On the contrary, the plaintiff’s injury must have been caused by a “defect” in the product. Thus the manufacturer is not deemed responsible when injury results from an unforeseeable use of its product. (Cronin, supra, at p. 126; Rest.2d Torts, supra, coms. g, h.) Furthermore, we have recognized that though most forms of contributory negligence do not constitute a defense to a strict products liability action, plaintiff’s negligence is a complete defense when it comprises assumption of risk. (Luque v. McLean (1972) 8 Cal.3d 136, 145 [104 Cal.Rptr. 443, 501 P.2d 1163]; Rest.2d Torts, § 402A, com. b.) As will thus be seen, the concept of strict products liability was created and shaped judicially. In its evolution, the doctrinal encumbrances of contract and warranty, and the traditional elements of negligence, were stripped from the remedy, and a new tort emerged which extended liability for defective product design and manufacture beyond negligence but short of absolute liability.

In Li v. Yellow Cab Co., supra, 13 Cal.3d 804, we introduced the other doctrine with which we are concerned, comparative negligence. We examined the history of contributory negligence, the massive criticism directed at it because its presence in the slightest degree completely barred plaintiff’s recovery, and the increasing defection from the doctrine. We then weighed the two principal arguments against its *734removal from California law, namely, that such a sharp change in direction required legislative action, and that there existed a cluster of asserted practical obstacles relating to multiple parties, the apportionment burdens on a jury and the uncertain effect on the defenses of last clear chance, assumption of risk, and wilful misconduct. Concluding that none of the obstacles was insurmountable, we announced in Li the adoption of a “pure” form of comparative negligence which, when present, reduced but did not prevent plaintiff’s recovery. (Pp. 828-829.) We held that the defense of assumption of risk, insofar as it is no more than a variant of contributory negligence, was merged into the assessment of liability in proportion to fault. (Pp. 824-825.) Within the broad guidelines therein announced, we left to trial courts discretion in the particular implementation of the new doctrine. (Pp. 826-827.)

We stand now at the point of confluence of these two conceptual streams, having been greatly assisted by the thoughtful analysis of the parties and the valuable assistance of numerous amici curiae. We are by no means the first to consider the interaction of these two developing principles.. As with the litigants before us, responsible and respected authorities have reached opposing conclusions stressing in various degrees the different considerations which we now examine.

Those counseling against the recognition of comparative fault principles in strict products liability cases vigorously stress, perhaps equally, not only the conceptual, but also the semantic difficulties incident to such a course. The task of merging the two concepts is said to be impossible, that “apples and oranges” cannot be compared, that “oil and water” do not mix, and that strict liability, which is not founded on negligence or fault, is inhospitable to comparative principles. The syllogism runs, contributory negligence was only a defense to negligence, comparative negligence only affects contributory negligence, therefore comparative negligence cannot be a defense to strict liability. (See Butaud v. Suburban Marine & Sport. Goods, Inc. (Alaska 1976) 555 P.2d 42, 47 (dis. opn. by Burke, J.), noted by Masin (1977) 4 Western St.U. L.Rev. 283, 284.) While fully recognizing the theoretical and semantic distinctions between the twin principles of strict products liability and traditional negligence, we think they can be blended or accommodated.

The inherent difficulty in the “apples and oranges” argument is its insistence on fixed and precise definitional treatment of legal concepts. In the evolving areas of both products liability and tort defenses, *735however, there has developed much conceptual overlapping and interweaving in order to attain substantial justice. The concept of strict liability itself, as we have noted, arose from dissatisfaction with the wooden formalisms of traditional tort and contract principles in order to protect the consumer of manufactured goods. Similarly, increasing social awareness of its harsh “all or nothing” consequences led us in Li to moderate the impact of traditional contributory negligence in order to accomplish a fairer and more balanced result. We acknowledged an intermixing of defenses of contributoiy negligence and assumption of risk and formally effected a type of merger, “As for assumption of risk, we have recognized in this state that this defense overlaps that of contributory negligence to some extent . . . .” (Li, supra, at p. 824.) In Li, we further reaffirmed our observation in Grey v. Fibreboard Paper Products Co. (1966) 65 Cal.2d 240, 245 [53 Cal.Rptr. 545, 418 P.2d 153]: “ ‘[T]hat in one kind of situation, to wit, where a plaintiff unreasonably undertakes to encounter a specific known risk imposed by a defendant’s negligence, plaintiff’s conduct, although he may encounter that risk in a prudent manner, is in reality a form of contributoiy negligence . . . .’ We think it clear that the adoption of a system of comparative negligence should entail the merger of the defense of assumption of risk into the general scheme of assessment of liability in proportion to fault in those particular cases in which the form of assumption of risk involved is no more than a variant of contributory negligence.” (13 Cal.3d at pp. 824-825, quoting Grey, supra, at pp. 245-246, italics in original.)

Furthermore, the “apples and oranges” argument may be conceptually suspect. It has been suggested that the term “contributory negligence,” one of the vital building blocks upon which much of the argument is based, may indeed itself be a misnomer since it lacks the first element of the classical negligence formula, namely, a duty of care owing to another. A highly respected torts authority, Dean William Prosser, has noted this fact by observing, “It is perhaps unfortunate that contributory negligence is called negligence at all. ‘Contributoiy fault’ would be a more descriptive term. Negligence as it is commonly understood is conduct which creates an undue risk of harm to others. Contributoiy negligence is conduct which involves an undue risk of harm to the actor himself. Negligence requires a duty, an obligation of conduct to another person. Contributory negligence involves no duty, unless we are to be so ingenious as to say that the plaintiff is under an obligation to protect the defendant against liability for the consequences of his own negligence.” (Prosser, Law of Torts, supra, § 65, p. 418.)

*736We think, accordingly, the conclusion may fairly be drawn that the terms “comparative negligence,” “contributory negligence” and “assumption of risk” do not, standing alone, lend themselves to the exact measurements of a micrometer-caliper, or to such precise definition as to divert us from otherwise strong and consistent counterváiling policy considerations. Fixed semantic consistency at this point is less important than the attainment of a just and equitable result. The interweaving of concept and terminology in this area suggests a judicial posture that is flexible rather than doctrinaire.

We pause at this point to observe that where, as here, a consumer or user sues the manufacturer or designer alone, technically, neither fault nor conduct is really compared functionally. The conduct of one party in combination with the product of another, or perhaps the placing of a defective article in the stream of projected and anticipated use, may produce the ultimate injury. In such a case, as in the situation before us, we think the term “equitable apportionment or allocation of loss” may be more descriptive than “comparative fault.”

Given all of the foregoing, we are, in the wake of Li, disinclined to resolve the important issue before us by the simple expedient of matching linguistic labels which have evolved either for convenience or by custom. Rather, we consider it more useful to examine the foundational reasons underlying the creation of strict products liability in California to ascertain whether the purposes of the doctrine would be defeated or diluted by adoption of comparative principles. We imposed strict liability against the manufacturer and in favor of the user or consumer in order to relieve injured consumers “from problems of proof inherent in pursuing negligence . . . and warranty . . . remedies, . . .” (Cronin v. J. B. E. Olson Corp., supra, 8 Cal.3d at p. 133, italics added; Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc., supra, 59 Cal.2d at p. 63; Escola v. Coca Cola Bottling Co. (1944) 24 Cal.2d 453, 461-462 [150 P.2d 436] (conc. opn. by Traynor, J.).) As we have noted, we sought to place the burden of loss on manufacturers rather than “... injured persons who are powerless to protect themselves . . . .” (Greenman, supra, at p. 63; italics added; see Escola, supra, at p. 462; Price v. Shell Oil Co. (1970) 2 Cal.3d 245, 251 [85 Cal.Rptr. 178, 466 P.2d 722] [“protection of otherwise defenseless victims of manufacturing defects and the spreading throughout society of the cost of compensating them”] italics added.)

The foregoing goals, we think, will not be frustrated by the adoption of comparative principles. Plaintiffs will continue to be relieved of proving *737that the manufacturer or distributor was negligent in the production, design, or dissemination of the article in question. Defendant’s liability for injuries caused by a defective product remains strict. The principle of protecting the defenseless is likewise preserved, for plaintiff’s recovery will be reduced only to the extent that his own lack of reasonable care contributed to his injury. The cost of compensating the victim of a defective product, albeit proportionately reduced, remains on defendant manufacturer, and will, through him, be “spread among society.” However, we do not permit plaintiff’s own conduct relative to the product to escape unexamined, and as to that share of plaintiff’s damages which flows from his own fault we discern no reason of policy why it should, following Li, be borne by others. Such a result would directly contravene the principle announced in Li, that loss should be assessed equitably in proportion to fault.

We conclude, accordingly, that the expressed purposes which persuaded us in the first instance to adopt strict liability in California would not be thwarted were we to apply comparative principles. What would be forfeit is a degree of semantic symmetry. However, in this evolving area of tort law in which new remedies are judicially created, and old defenses judicially merged, impelled by strong considerations of equity and fairness we seek a larger synthesis. If a more just result follows from the expansion of comparative principles, we have no hesitancy in seeking it, mindful always that the fundamental and underlying purpose of Li was to promote the equitable allocation of loss among all parties legally responsible in proportion to their fault.

A second objection to the application of comparative principles in strict products liability cases is that a manufacturer’s incentive to produce safe products will thereby be reduced or removed. While we fully recognize this concern we think, for several reasons, that the problem is more shadow than substance. First, of course, the manufacturer cannot avoid its continuing liability for a defective product even when the plaintiff’s own conduct has contributed to his injury. The manufacturer’s liability, and therefore its incentive to avoid and correct product defects, remains; its exposure will be lessened only to the extent that the trier finds that the victim’s conduct contributed to his injury. Second, as a practical matter a manufacturer, in a particular case, cannot assume that the user of a defective product upon whom an injury is visited will be blameworthy. Doubtless, many users are free of fault, and a defect is at least as likely as not to be exposed by an entirely innocent plaintiff who will obtain full recovery. In such cases the manufacturer’s *738incentive toward safety both in design and production is wholly unaffected. Finally, we must observe that under the present law, which recognizes assumption of risk as a complete defense to products liability, the curious and cynical message is that it profits the manufacturer to make his product so defective that in the event of injury he can argue that the user had to be aware of its patent defects. To that extent the incentives are inverted. We conclude, accordingly, that no substantial or significant impairment of the safety incentives of defendants will occur by the adoption of comparative principles.

In passing, we note one important and felicitious result if we apply comparative principles to strict products liability. This arises from the fact that under present law when plaintiff sues in negligence his own contributory negligence, however denominated, may diminish but cannot wholly defeat his recovery. When he sues in strict products liability, however, his “assumption of risk” completely bars his recovery. Under Li, as we have noted, “assumption of risk” is merged into comparative principles. (13 Cal.3d at p. 825.) The consequence is that after Li in a negligence action, plaintiff’s conduct which amounts to “negligent” assumption of risk no longer defeats plaintiff’s recovery. Identical conduct, however, in a strict liability case acts as a complete bar under rules heretofore applicable. Thus, strict products liability, which was developed to free injured consumers from the constraints imposed by traditional negligence and warranty theories, places a consumer plaintiff in a worse position than would be the case were his claim founded on simple negligence. This, in turn, rewards adroit pleading and selection of theories. The application of comparative principles to strict liability obviates this bizarre anomaly by treating alike the defenses to both negligence and strict products liability actions. In each instance the defense, if established, will reduce but not bar plaintiff’s claim.

A third objection to the merger of strict liability and comparative fault focuses on the claim that, as a practical matter, triers of fact, particularly jurors, cannot assess, measure, or compare plaintiff’s negligence with defendant’s strict liability. We are unpersuaded by the argument and are convinced that jurors are able to undertake a fair apportionment of liability.

We are strengthened in the foregoing conclusion by the federal experience under the maritime doctrine of “unseaworthiness.” For decades, seamen have been permitted to recover from shipowners for injuries caused by defects rendering a vessel “unseaworthy.” (E.g., The *739 Osceola (1903) 189 U.S. 158, 175 [47 L.Ed. 760, 764, 23 S.Ct. 483].) As noted by many courts, the concept of “unseaworthiness” is not limited to or affected by notions of the shipowner’s fault or due care, but applies to any deficiency of hull, equipment or crew, regardless of cause, which renders the ship less than reasonably fit for its intended purposes. (Mitchell v. Trawler Racer, Inc. (1960) 362 U.S. 539, 550 [4 L.Ed.2d 941, 948, 80 S.Ct. 926]; Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki (1946) 328 U.S. 85, 94 [90 L.Ed. 1099, 1105-1106, 66 S.Ct. 872], rehg. den., 328 U.S. 878 [90 L.Ed. 1646, 66 S.Ct. 1116].) Nonetheless, comparative principles have been made applicable to suits brought under the “unseaworthiness” doctrine, a form of strict liability, and the degree to which plaintiff’s own negligence contributes to his injuries has been considered in determining the amount of his recovery. (Pope & Talbot, Inc. v. Hawn (1953) 346 U.S. 406, 408-409 [98 L.Ed. 143,150-151,74 S.Ct. 202].) No serious practical difficulties appear to have arisen even where jury trials are involved. (E.g., Price v. Mosler (5th Cir. 1973) 483 F.2d 275, 277-278.)

We find equally unpersuasive a final objection that the merger of the two principles somehow will abolish or adversely affect the liability of such intermediate entities in the chain of distribution as retailers (Vandermark v. Ford Motor Co. (1964) 61 Cal.2d 256, 263 [37 Cal.Rptr. 896, 391 P.2d 168]), and bailors (Price v. Shell Oil Co., supra, 2 Cal.3d 245, 253.) We foresee no such consequence. Regardless of the identity of a particular defendant or of his position in the commercial chain the basis for his liability remains that he has marketed or distributed a defective product. If, as we believe, jurors are capable of assessing fully and fairly the legal responsibility of a manufacturer on a strict liability basis, no reason appears why they cannot do likewise with respect to subsequent distributors and vendors of the product.

We note that the majority of our sister states which have addressed the problem, either by statute or judicial decree, have extended comparative principles to strict products liability.

Our research discloses that of the more than 30 states which have adopted some form of comparative negligence, three (including California) have done so judicially. The two other states, Alaska (Butaud v. Suburban Marine & Sport. Goods, Inc., supra, 555 P.2d 42, 46) and Florida (West v. Caterpillar Tractor Company, Inc., supra, 336 So.2d 80, 89-90) have likewise, judicially, extended comparative principles to strict liability actions. At least five states have adopted comparative fault statutes which are not limited in their language to negligence actions: *740Arkansas (Ark.Stat.Ann. §§ 27-1763-1765 (1975)); Maine (Me.Rev.Stat., tit. 14, § 156 (1965)); Mississippi (3 Miss. Code Ann. § 11-7-15 (1917)); New York (CPLR, art. 14-A, § 1411 (1975)); and Rhode Island (2A R.I. Gen. Laws, § 9-20-4 (1971)). The New York statute expressly applies to strict liability actions. (See CPLR, supra, art. 14-A, § 1411, Practice Commentaries, CP 1411:1.) The Mississippi statute has been judicially construed as extending to suits founded on strict products liability. (Edwards v. Sears, Roebuck and Company (5th Cir. 1975) 512 F.2d 276, 290.) On the other hand one state, Connecticut, has statutorily prohibited the use of comparative fault as a defense in strict liability actions. (Pub.L. No. 77-335, eff. July 1, 1977.)

Of the three decisions which have declined to apply comparative negligence to strict liability, two have noted their reliance on state comparative negligence statutes which are expressly confined to “negligence” actions. (Melia v. Ford Motor Co. (8th Cir. 1976) 534 F.2d 795, 802 [Nebraska “slight-gross” comparative negligence statute]; Kirkland v. General Motors Corporation (Okla. 1974) 521 P.2d 1353, 1367-1368 [noting the limiting statutory language but holding that driving while intoxicated was product misuse barring recovery]; see also Kinard v. Coats Company, Inc. (1976) — Colo.App. — [553 P.2d 835, 837].) At least three jurisdictions have applied comparative negligence statutes to strict liability actions, despite language arguably limiting the statute application to negligence. (Dippel v. Sciano, supra, 155 N.W.2d 55, 64; Sun Val. Airlines, Inc. v. Avco-Lycoming Corp. (D.Idaho 1976) 411 F.Supp. 598, 602-603; Hagenbuch v. Snap-On Tools Corp. (D.N.H. 1972) 339 F.Supp. 676, 681-683.) Finally, one court has judicially extended a “pure” form of comparative fault to the traditional strict liability defense of “product misuse,” despite the existence of a statutory scheme of “modified” comparative negligence. (General Motors Corp. v. Hopkins (Tex. 1977) 548 S.W.2d 344, 351-352.)

Moreover, we are further encouraged in our decision herein by noting that the apparent majority of scholarly commentators has urged adoption of the rule which we announce herein. These include, from the academic community: Wade, A Uniform Comparative Fault Act—What Should It Provide? (1977) 10 Mich. J. L. Ref. 220; Fleming, The Supreme Court of California 1974-1975—Foreword: Comparative Negligence at Last—By Judicial Choice (1976) 64 Cal.L.Rev. 239, 269-271; Schwartz, Comparative Negligence (1974) § 12.1 et seq., p. 195 et seq. (see also Special Cal. Supplement re Nga Li v. Yellow Cab Co. of California (1975) § 4(B), p. 8); Wade, On the Nature of Strict Tort Liability for Products (1973) 44 *741Miss.L.J. 825, 850; Noel, Defective Products; Abnormal Use, Contributory Negligence, and Assumption of Risk (1972) 25 Vand.L.Rev. 93, 117-118; contra, Levine, Strict Products Liability and Comparative Negligence: The Collision of Fault and No-Fault (1977) 14 San Diego L.Rev. 337, 346 et seq. Among other commentaries urging such a rule are: Posner et al., Comparative Negligence in California: Some Legislative Solutions—Part II (1977) Los Angeles Daily Journal Report (Aug. 26, 1977) at pages 4, 9-18 (proposed legislation); Brewster, Comparative Negligence In Strict Liability Cases (1976) 42 J. Air L. & Com. 107, 109-117; Comment, Comparative Negligence in Vermont: A Solution or a Problem (1976) 40 Albany L.Rev. 777, 810; Feinberg, The Applicability of a Comparative Negligence Defense in a Strict Products Liability Suit Based on Section 402A of the Restatement of Torts 2d (1975) 42 Ins.Couns.J. 39, 52; Comment, Tort Defenses to Strict Products Liability (1969) 20 Syracuse L.Rev. 924, 925; Epstein, Products Liability: Defenses Based on Plaintiff’s Conduct (1968) 1968 Utah L.Rev. 267, 284; Levine, Buyer’s Conduct as Affecting the Extent of Manufacturer’s Liability in Warranty (1968) 52 Minn.L.Rev. 627, 652-663; contra, Robinson, Square Pegs (Products Liability) In Round Holes (Comparative Negligence) (1977) 52 State Bar J. 16; Schwartz, Pure Comparative Negligence in Action (1972) 34 Am.Trial Law. J. 117, 129.

. We find additional significance in the provisions of the proposed Uniform Comparative Fault Act (Act), authored by Professor Wade, a recognized torts scholar, distinguished professor of law, and former dean, Vanderbilt University, current reporter of the Restatement Second of Torts, and chairman of the special committee on the Act of the National Conference of the Commissioners on Uniform States Laws (Conference). Our attention has been called to the action of the Conference in August 1977, wherein it approved adoption of the Act by a vote of 40 states to 8 (California voting favorably). The Act is the distillation of approximately five years of discussion, analysis, and contribution by a special committee and a review committee of the Conference. We quote portions of section 1 of the proposed Act: “Section 1. [Effect of Contributory Fault.] [H] (a) In an action based on fault to recover damages for injury or death to person or harm to property, any contributory fault chargeable to the claimant diminishes proportionately the amount awarded as compensatory damages for an injury attributable to the claimant’s contributory fault, but does not bar recovery .... [If] (b) ‘Fault’ includes acts or omissions that are in any measure negligent or reckless toward the person or property of the actor or others, or that subject a person to strict tort liability.” (Italics added.) While lacking any legislative sanction, the *742Act, in our view, points in the direction of a responsible national trend. As such, section 1 is revealing in two notable respects: in its clear definitional expression in subsection (b) that comparative principles are to be applied to cases of “strict tort liability,” and in its substitution of the broad generic term “fault,” in subsection (a), as including both negligence and strict liability.

Having examined the principal objections and finding them not insurmountable, and persuaded by logic, justice, and fundamental fairness, we conclude that a system of comparative fault should be and it is hereby extended to actions founded on strict products liability. In such cases the separate defense of “assumption of risk,” to the extent that it is a form of contributory negligence, is abolished. While, as we have suggested, on the particular facts before us, the term “equitable apportionment of loss” is more accurately descriptive of the process, nonetheless, the term “comparative fault” has gained such wide acceptance by courts and in the literature that we adopt its use herein.

In Li, we announced a system of pure comparative negligence “the fundamental purpose of which shall be to assign responsibility and liability for damage in direct proportion to the amount of negligence of each of the parties.” (13 Cal.3d, at p. 829.) Those same underlying considerations of policy which moved us judicially in Li to rescue blameworthy plaintiffs from a 100-year-old sanction against all recovery persuade us now to extend similar principles to the strict products liability area. Legal responsibility is thereby shared. We think that apportioning tort liability is sound, logical and capable of wider application than to negligence cases alone. To hold otherwise, in our view, would be to perpetuate a system which, as we noted in Li, Dean Prosser describes as placing “. . . upon one party the entire burden of a loss for which two are, by hypothesis, responsible.” (Prosser, supra, § 67, p. 433.) We reiterate that our reason for extending a full system of comparative fault to strict products liability is because it is fair to do so. The law consistently seeks to elevate justice and equity above the exact contours of a mathematical equation. We are convinced that in merging the two principles what may be lost in symmetiy is more than gained in fundamental fairness.

In Li we scrupulously abstained from issuing a detailed guidebook to the new area of comparative negligence, preferring to adopt the view of a Florida court that “. . . the trial judges of this State are capable of applying [a] comparative negligence rule without our setting guidelines *743in anticipation of expected problems. The problems are more appropriately resolved at the trial level in a practical manner instead of a theoretical solution at appellate level. The trial judges are granted broad discretion in adopting such procedure as may accomplish the objectives and purposes expressed in this opinion.” (Hoffman v. Jones (Fla. 1973) 280 So.2d 431, 439-440.) We reaffirm the wisdom of such a course and, likewise, in the matter before us leave broad discretion in the trial court to implement the details of comparative principles in strict products liability cases.

For the guidance of trial courts, we do note the existence, under rule 49(a), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, of a form of special verdict tailored to cases applying the maritime doctrine of strict liability for unseaworthiness, to which we have referred. Under this form, the jury is first required to answer “yes” or “no” to a series of questions setting forth possible bases for a finding that vessel unseaworthiness was a proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injuries. If the jury indicates that unseaworthiness was a contributing cause, it then moves on to a second group of similar questions seeking to determine whether, and in what particulars, the plaintiff’s own negligence was also a contributing factor. If the answers to these questions establish a finding of contributory negligence, the jury is told to “state in percentage the extent to which the plaintiff’s own negligence contributed to his injuries. (_%).” Finally, the juiy is instructed to indicate the amount of plaintiff’s damages without reference to his own negligence. The court then reduces the damage award by the percentage figure the jury has supplied. (3 Devitt & Blackmar, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions (3d ed. 1977) § 96.32; see also Menard v. Penrod Drilling Co. (5th Cir. 1976) 538 F.2d 1084, 1086-1087.) We cite this form as illustrative of one technique by which the court and jury may approach the task of apportionment.

Retroactivity

It remains for us to decide the extent to which comparative principles are to be applied to strict liability actions other than those hereafter filed. We conclude that, for reasons of public policy and the reasonable expectations of the parties to this action and litigants generally, the principles herein expressed shall apply to all cases in which trial has not begun before the date this opinion becojmes final in this court. No judgment based upon a trial which was commenced prior to the finality of this opinion shall be reversible on appeal on the sole ground that principles of comparative fault were not applied. If any such *744judgment is reversed on appeal for other reasons, the principles herein expressed shall be applicable to any retrial commenced after this opinion becomes final in this court. (Li v. Yellow Cab Co., supra, 13 Cal.3d at p. 829; Westbrook v. Mihaly (1970) 2 Cal.3d 765, 800 [87 Cal.Rptr. 839, 471 P.2d 487], vacated on other grounds (1971) 403 U.S. 915 [29 L.Ed.2d 692, 91 S.Ct. 2224].) As in Li, we give particular emphasis to “considerations of reliance applicable to individual cases according to the stage of litigation which they have reached ....” (Ibid.)

While it is arguable that retroactivity should extend to the finality of Li, and it is true that our conclusions herein owe a distinct philosophical debt to that case, nonetheless they do not constitute a direct application of Li. Furthermore, in Horn v. General Motors Corp. (1976) 17 Cal.3d 359, 370 [131 Cal.Rptr. 78, 551 P.2d 398], decided subsequent to Li, we retained, if only briefly, the separate system of defenses applicable to strict products liability. Under the circumstances before us, we conclude that it would be manifestly unfair to make the present opinion effective as of the finality of Li.

We further conclude that, under the particular circumstances, comparative principles cannot be applied retroactively to the instant case in order to justify admission of the intoxication and “nonuse” evidence here challenged. The issue of comparative fault was raised for the first time on appeal, and was never placed in issue by any party at trial herein. No jury instructions on the issue were requested or given. The juiy therefore had no basis for evaluating the evidence under correct principles of comparative fault. In the event of retrial, however, the principles herein announced will, of course, apply.

We turn to an explanation of the reasons which prompt us to reverse the judgment of the trial court, and then examine, for the benefit of court and counsel one of the remaining contentions of the parties.

The Safety Equipment And Intoxication Evidence

We must determine whether admission of evidence of decedent’s failure to use available safety devices and of his intoxication constituted prejudicial error under rules heretofore applicable to strict liability cases. We conclude that it did.

*745While initially evidence bearing on decedent’s intoxication was excluded, other evidence pertaining to the decedent’s alleged failure to employ seat belts and door locks was admitted, apparently on the ground that nonuse of safety devices bore on the issues of proximate cause and mitigation of damages. Plaintiffs contended that evidence of Daly’s intoxication, or of his failure to use available safety devices, was wholly inadmissible since contributory negligence was not a defense to an action founded in strict liability for a defective product. (Horn v. General Motors Corp., supra, 17 Cal.3d at pp. 369-371; Luque v. McLean, supra, 8 Cal.3d 136, 145.) The trial court ultimately admitted the intoxication evidence, ruling that such evidence related to decedent’s failure to use the Opel’s safety devices, which failure, the court reasoned, would bar recovery on the theory of product misuse “aside from any question of contributory negligence.” (In fairness to the very able trial judge, it must be noted that the trial herein preceded rendition of our opinions in both Li and Horn.)

As we observed in Horn, to accept a “nonuse” of safety equipment as a complete defense to a products liability action would constitute but a thinly disguised subversion of the rule that contributory negligence does not prevent recovery. Horn expressly rejected arguments that such “nonuse” could defeat recovery on theories of “assumption of risk,” “product misuse,” “proximate cause,” or “mitigation of damages.” (Id., at pp. 369-371.)

Substantial time was spent on the nonuse and intoxication issues, reasonably suggesting to tíre jury their central importance to the defense case. There can be little doubt that the evidence of Daly’s intoxication was inflammatory. The only restrictions placed on the jury’s consideration of the intoxication evidence was that it bore on the “nonuse” of safety devices in general. No limitation was placed on the conclusions which the jury could draw either from a finding of “nonuse” itself, or as to the effect on its deliberations of a finding of “nonuse.” In the absence of any such restrictions, we think the jury could well have concluded that decedent’s negligent failure, induced by intoxication, to use the belts and locks constituted negligent conduct which completely barred recovery for his death. We do not think it reasonable to conclude that plaintiffs waived their objection by failing to request limiting instructions.

In summary, our review of the record convinces us that, notwithstanding that plaintiffs’ case was founded on strict products liability, evidence of decedent’s failure to use available seat belts and door locks, and of his *746intoxication at the time of the fatal collision, may have been improperly regarded by the jury as authorizing a defense verdict. It appears reasonably probable that, had such evidence been either excluded or its effect confined, a result more favorable to plaintiffs would have been reached. Reversal is therefore required. (People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 836 [299 P.2d 243]; Downing v. Barrett Mobile Home Transport, Inc. (1974) 38 Cal.App.3d 519, 525 [113 Cal.Rptr. 277]; see Henderson v. Harnischfeger Corp. (1974) 12 Cal.3d 663, 670-676 [117 Cal.Rptr. 1, 527 P.2d 353].)

Defect—Component Or Product As A Whole?

We examine for the benefit of court and counsel, in the event of retrial, a single remaining contention of plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs challenge a jury instruction which directed that “[i]n determining whether or not the vehicle was defective you should consider all of the equipment on the vehicle including any features intended for the safety of the driver.” They urge that only the precise malfunctioning component itself, and alone, may be considered in determining whether injury was caused by a defectively designed product. We disagree, concluding that the issue of defective design is to be determined with respect to the product as a whole, and that the trial court’s instruction was correct.

The jury could properly determine whether the Opel’s overall design, including safety features provided in the vehicle, made it “crashworthy,” thus rendering the vehicle nondefective. Product designs do not evolve in a vacuum, but must reflect the realities of the market place, kitchen, highway, and shop. Similarly, a product’s components are not developed in isolation, but as part of an integrated and interrelated whole. Recognizing that finished products must incorporate and balance safety, utility, competitive merit, and practicality under a multitude of intended and foreseeable uses, courts have struggled to evolve realistic tests for defective design which give weight to this necessary balancing. Thus, a number of California cases have recognized the need to “weigh” competing considerations in an overall product design, in order to determine whether the design was “defective.” Recently, we ourselves in Barker v. Lull (1978) ante, pp. 413, 431 [143 Cal.Rptr. 225, 573 P.2d 443], have described some of the factors to be considered. (See, also, Buccery v. General Motors Corp. (1976) 60 Cal.App.3d 533, 547 [132 Cal.Rptr. 605]; Baker v. Chrysler Corp. (1976) 55 Cal.App.3d 710, 716 [127 Cal.Rptr. 745]; Hyman v. Gordon (1973) 35 Cal.App.3d 769, 773 [111 Cal.Rptr. 262].)

*747The danger of piecemeal consideration of isolated components has been expressly recognized. (Self v. General Motors Corp. (1974) 42 Cal.App.3d 1, 6-7 [116 Cal.Rptr. 575]; Dreisonstok v. Volkswagenwerk A.G. (4th Cir. 1974) 489 F.2d 1066, 1071-1072, applying Virginia law.) Specifically, it has been observed that a design rendered safe in one situation may become more dangerous in others. (Self supra, at pp. 6-7.) However phrased, these decisions emphasize the need to consider the product as an integrated whole.

We find that plaintiffs’ other contentions lack merit.

Conclusion

It is readily apparent that the foregoing broad expressions of principle do not establish the duties of the jury with that fixed precision which appeals to minds trained in law and logic. Nonetheless, rather than attempt to anticipate every variant and nuance of circumstance and party that may invoke comparative principles in a strict products liability context, we deem it wiser to await a case-by-case evolution in the application of the broad principles herein expressed.

By extending and tailoring the comparative principles announced in Li, supra, to the doctrine of strict products liability, we believe that we move closer to the goal of the equitable allocation of legal responsibility for personal injuries. We do so by relying on what Professor Schwartz aptly terms a “predicate of fairness.” In making liability more commensurate with fault we undermine neither the theories nor the policies of the strict liability rule. In Li we took “a first step in what we deem to be a proper and just direction, . . .” (13 Cal.3d at p. 826.) We are convinced that the principles herein announced constitute the next appropriate and logical step in the same direction.

The judgment is reversed.

Tobriner, J., Clark, J., and Manuel, J., concurred.

CLARK, J.

The reasoning of Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804 [119 Cal.Rptr. 858, 532 P.2d 1226, 78 A.L.R.3d 393], as the majority point out, is equally applicable to strict liability cases and compels applying *748comparative fault in those cases. (Horn v. General Motors Corp. (1976) 17 Cal.3d 359, 372 [131 Cal.Rptr. 78, 551 P.2d 398] (dis. opn. of Clark, J.).) Under the compulsion of Li, I have signed the majority opinion.

Nevertheless, again we must recognize the difficulties inherent in comparing fault. (See American Motorcycle Assn. v. Superior Court (1978) ante, pp. 578, 608 [146 Cal.Rptr. 182, 578 P.2d 899] (dis. opn. of Clark, J.).) Relying on the apples and oranges argument, Justices Mosk and Jefferson point out that comparative fault cannot be applied logically and consistently in strict liability cases. (Infra, pp. 762-764, 751 et seq.) The difficulty, however, isnotlimitedto comparingstrictliabilitywith negligence. The same difficulty persists in almost every case in which we attempt to compare parties’ negligence. (Horn v. General Motors Corp., supra, 17 Cal.3d 359, 377 (dis. opn.).)

For example, assume three drivers collide at an intersection, one being intoxicated, the second speeding, and the third having gone through a stop signal. Neither logic nor common experience can tell us how much of the loss is attributable to each driver. Logic cannot tell us that the first should bear 10 percent of the loss, the second 30, and the third 60.1 Nor may it establish any other percentages of liability. When we substitute a defective product for one of the drivers’ negligence, we neither add to nor subtract from the difficulty of the comparison, and the problem of comparison is the same whether we compare different negligent acts or compare a negligent act to a defect.

Logic failing, is there a hope that juries, or judges when juries are waived, will arrive at consistent results? Obviously not.2 It is not a problem that the allocation of fault cannot be precisely measured —rather, in most cases there is no measuring standard.

The lack of logic and consistency not only means that most claims will not be disposed of equitably but also that attorneys may seldom reasonably evaluate the cases for purposes of settlement. And because settlement plays such a large part in the determination of accident claims the efficient administration of justice is substantially impaired.

*749I also must part company from Justices Mosk and Jefferson as to the effect of the apples and oranges argument. The difficulty in comparing fault does not warrant either returning to the all-or-nothing rule applicable to contributory negligence cases prior to Li or continuing the all-or-nothing rule applied in strict liability cases. Dean Prosser’s famous statement remains unanswerable. It is improper to place “upon one party the entire burden of a loss for which two are, by hypothesis, responsible.” (Prosser, Torts (4th ed. 1971) § 67, p. 433.) The statement is as applicable to negligence cases as it is to strict liability cases. Apples and oranges do not warrant denial of loss apportionment—they require establishing a better system of apportionment.

Li effectively pointed out that the existing contributory negligence system placed on one party the entire burden of a loss for which two were responsible (13 Cal.3d at p. 810, fn. 3), and today’s majority opinion effectively points out that the negligent plaintiff is responsible and should not recover as much as an innocent one. (Ante, pp. 736-737.)

Those principles do not require a comparative fault system. Can they not be satisfied by a system which establishes a uniform index factor, such as 30, 50 or 70 percent? A uniform discount of the negligent plaintiff’s recovery would eliminate the necessity of the often impossible task of comparing fault. A discount system would bring about consistency and predictability where neither now exists, permitting evaluation and settlement of claims.

Such an approach is consistent with the departure from the Li principle made by the majority in American Motorcycle Assn. v. Superior Court, supra, ante, page 578, and in the instant case. In Li, this court repeatedly emphasized that the extent of fault should govern the extent of “liability” (e.g., 13 Cal.3d at pp. 811, 813, 829). By repeated use of the word “liability” rather than recovery the emphasis was placed on fairness to the defendant in the new comparative fault doctrine, and throughout the opinion comparability of fault is emphasized. However, a selective rejection of the Li reasoning appears in American Motorcycle in connection with the discussion of joint and several liability. The faimess-to-defendant justification for comparative fault is ignored, rather the court relies upon a policy of compensating injured plaintiffs. (Ante, p. 578.) And the court suggests that there is a significant difference between plaintiff negligence—a failure to exercise due care for oneself —and defendant negligence—a failure to exercise due care for others. (Ante, p. 578.) Today’s opinion, telling us that “the ‘apples and oranges’ *750argument may be conceptually suspect,” similarly emphasizes the difference between plaintiff and defendant fault, pointing out the difficulty in finding a breach of duty upon which to predicate plaintiff negligence. (Ante, pp. 735-736.)

In cases where the plaintiff is not negligent, the determination of liability is based on fault, and the extent of liability is based solely on amount of loss—whether grossly or marginally negligent, the defendant’s liability is the same. By focusing on a policy of compensating injured plaintiffs, pointing out the difference between plaintiff and defendant negligence, and providing that plaintiff’s recovery is to be diminished on the basis of his fault without regard to defense fairness, this court has departed from the Li principle, reflecting recognition of its shortcomings. We also should recognize that comparative fault—although equitable in theory—cannot be applied equitably, and precludes consistency of result, making settlement much more difficult and substantially impairing the efficient administration of justice.

We can and should do a better job. A discount system will not eliminate all inequities. Arbitrary results are inherent in attempting to adjust a loss between the two or more parties responsible, when their fault is based on different acts. The present comparative system is not only inequitable and arbitrary but also inconsistent and unpredictable. Eliminating two of the four defects by adoption of a discount system is worthy of the court’s task.

Having úndertaken the legislative function by repudiating contributory negligence and adopting comparative fault, we have abandoned our traditional deference to legislative province and to stare decisis. Having done so, we, like the Legislature, should reconsider our bold decisions from time to time, performing the legislative process to the best of our ability—until the Legislature awakens to reclaim and exercise its historic power.

JEFFERSON, J.*

I concur in part and dissent in part.

I agree with the majority’s result that the judgment should be reversed because of the prejudicial error in admitting evidence of decedent’s *751intoxication and of his failure to use available safety devices. Otherwise, I part company with the majority’s views.

The majority takes the position that, since Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804 [119 Cal.Rptr. 858, 532 P.2d 1226, 78 A.L.R.3d 393], adopted the doctrine of comparative negligence in tort actions founded on negligence, principles of justice, fairness and equity dictate an extension of comparative principles to tort actions founded on strict liability, introduced in Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc. (1963) 59 Cal.2d 57 [27 Cal.Rptr. 697, 377 P.2d 897, 13 A.L.R.3d 1049]. The majority, however, does not consider it significant that it is unable to determine what labels should be given to the new comparative principles—whether the new doctrine should be known as comparative fault, equitable apportionment of loss, or equitable allocation of loss. This inability to give the new doctrine an appropriate label is some indication of the shaky ground upon which the majority has decided to tread.

The majority rejects what I consider to be a sound criticism of its holding—that it is illogical and illusory to compare elements or factors that are not reasonably subject to comparison. The majority states that it is convinced that jurors will be able to compare the noncomparables— plaintiff’s negligence with defendant’s strict liability for a defective product—and still reach a fair apportionment of liability.

I consider the majority conclusion a case of wishful thinking and an application of an impractical, ivory-tower approach. The majority’s assumption that a jury is capable of making a fair apportionment between a plaintiff’s negligent conduct and a defendant’s defective product is no more logical or convincing than if a jury were to be instructed that it should add a quart of milk (representing plaintiff’s negligence) and a metal bar three feet in length (representing defendant’s strict liability for a defective product), and that the two added together equal 100 percent—the total fault for plaintiff’s injuries; that plaintiff’s quart of milk is then to be assigned its percentage of the 100 percent total and defendant’s metal bar is to be assigned the remaining percentage of the total. Either the jury or the trial judge will then subtract from the total amount of plaintiff’s damages an amount equal to the percentage of total fault allocated to plaintiff.

What the majority envisions as a fair apportionment of liability to be undertaken by the jury will constitute nothing more than an unfair reduction in the plaintiff’s total damages suffered, resulting from a jury *752process that necessarily is predicated on speculation, conjecture and guesswork. Because the legal concept of negligence is so utterly different from the legal concept of a product defective by reason of manufacture or design, a plaintiff’s negligence is no more capable of being rationally compared with a defendant’s defective product to determine what percentage each contributes to plaintiff’s total damages than is the quart of milk with the metal bar—posed in the above illustration.

The majority sets forth an example of how a trial judge might instruct a juiy, borrowing from a form, of special verdict, set forth under rule 49(a), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and tailored to the maritime doctrine of strict liability for unseaworthiness. The suggested instruction only emphasizes the futility in seeking to find logic and fairness in comparing noncomparables. The suggested instruction does nothing more than tell the juiy to do what I have posed heretofore, namely, to consider that a quart of milk and a metal bar equal 100 percent of fault and then decide what percentage of 100 percent is represented by each item.

There is simply no reasonable or logical formula or standard that can be given to the juiy to guide it in considering a defendant’s defective product and a plaintiff’s negligence as constituting 100 percent of fault for plaintiff’s injuries and then deciding what percentage of this 100 percent is caused by each of the two noncomparables—plaintiff’s negligence on the one hand and defendant’s defective product on the other. There is no doubt that q juiy, when so instructed, can, and will, assess a plaintiff’s negligence at some percentage between zero and 100 percent.. But the percentage assessed will represent nothing more substantial or reasonable than that which results from the application of the jurors’ instincts, speculations, conjectures and guesses.

I am persuaded that the juiy’s task under the majority’s holding does not, and cannot, produce justice, equity, or any fair apportionment of fault or loss. The defendant’s liability for a defective product placed in the stream of commerce should not be subject to diminution and dilution by the speculative verdict of a juiy in diminishing a plaintiff’s recoveiy of the total damages suffered from a defective product, pursuant to a trial judge’s instruction that noncomparable factors must be compared to reduce the plaintiff’s recovery from the total damages he has suffered to something less than the total.

*753A consideration of the instructions likely to be given to the jury under the majority’s holding will reveal the merit and substantiality of the objections to the majority’s views. Thus, a jury may, or may not, receive an instruction defining a “defect” in a product or a “defective” product. (See Barker v. Lull Engineering Co. (1978) ante, p. 413 [143 Cal.Rptr. 225, 573 P.2d 443].) The definition of negligence, usually given to a jury, is found in BAJI instruction No. 3.10.1 We can assume that, in substance, the jury will be told that if it finds that defendant’s product was defective in manufacture or design and that such defective product was a proximate cause of plaintiff’s injuries, and that if it also finds that plaintiff was negligent and that such negligence was also a proximate cause of plaintiff’s injuries, the two factors are to be considered as constituting 100 percent of fault (assuming there are no other proximate causes) for plaintiff’s injuries. The jury will then be told to determine what percentage each of these factors contributes to reach the 100 percent total.

Again, an instruction to the jury might be in the form of a revision of BAJI instruction No. 3.50 (1975 rev.),2 reading in essence as follows: “Contributory fault is negligence on the part of plaintiff which, combined with the defective product of defendant, contributes as a proximate cause in bringing about the injury. Contributory fault, if any, on the part of the plaintiff, does not bar a recovery by the plaintiff against the defendant but the total amount of plaintiff’s damages to which he would otherwise be entitled by reason of the injuries suffered from defendant’s defective product shall be reduced in proportion to the *754amount of fault—represented by his negligence—that is attributed to him, contrasted with the percentage of fault—represented by defendant’s defective product—that is attributable to defendant.”

But the missing element in this equation is the fact that there is no formula, no standard—other than what may be concocted in the jurors’ minds—to guide the jury in equating plaintiff’s negligence with defendant’s defective product to make the two equal 100 percent of fault and determine the respective contributions as a definitive percentage of this total fault.

This court had occasion recently to set forth a two-pronged test for determining the existence of a product made defective by virtue of its design. The court held that a product is “defective in design either (1) if the product has failed to perform as safely as an ordinary consumer would expect when used in an intended or reasonably foreseeable manner, or (2) if, in light of [certain] relevant factors . . ., the benefits of the challenged design do not outweigh the risk of danger inherent in such design.” (Barker, supra, ante, pp. 413,418.) The Barker court then made the cogent observation that “this test reflects our continued adherence to the principle that, in a product liability action, the trier of fact must focus on the product, not on the manufacturer’s conduct, and that the plaintiff need not prove that the manufacturer acted unreasonably or negligently in order to prevail in such an action.” (Ibid.) (Italics in original.)

The majority’s decision herein will require the jury, on the one hand, to follow Barker and focus on the manufacturer’s product—disregarding all questions of whether the manufacturer acted unreasonably or negligently—in order to determine defendant manufacturer’s liability. On the other hand, the juiy must next focus on plaintiff’s conduct, in order to find that plaintiff was negligent. The jury must then compare its focus on plaintiff’s negligent conduct with its focus on defendant’s defective product—eliminating, as irrelevant, any consideration of whether defendant’s conduct was unreasonable or negligent—to determine the amount of the reduction in plaintiff’s total damages. The end result of this configurational analysis by a jury, I submit, based as it must be—on a comparison of noncomparables—will necessarily constitute a patently unfair result.

Juries have been uniformly instructed over the years that they are “not permitted to award a party speculative damages, which means compensation for future loss or harm which, although possible, is conjectural or *755not reasonably certain.” (See BAJI No. 14.60 (1977 rev.).) But the majority’s holding today will require juries to reduce a party’s “reasonably certain” damages by using speculation, conjecture or occult divination and thus produce a verdict for damages that is the very antithesis of the principle enunciated by BAJI No. 14.60—an instrument which will continue to be given to juries in personal injury cases.

The guessing game that will be imposed on juries by the application of comparative negligence principles to defective product liability cases will be further enhanced in those cases in which several defendants are joined in an action—some being sued on a negligence theory and others on the defective product theory and where there are several plaintiffs whose conduct may range from no negligence at all to varying degrees of negligence. The jury will be required to determine percentages of fault with respect to all the parties (and perhaps some nonparties) by seeking to compare and evaluate the conduct of certain parties with the product of other parties to produce 100 percent of fault as the necessary starting point in order to calculate a reduction in the damages suffered by each plaintiff found to be negligent. I cannot agree with the majority that such a process is reasonably workable or that it will produce an equitable result to injured plaintiffs. If a just or fair result is reached by a jury under the majority’s holding, it will be strictly accidental and accomplished by pure happenstance.

With all due deference to the scholarly analysis and discussion found in the majority opinion, I must conclude, nevertheless, that the majority’s view constitutes a glaring failure to appreciate the limitations on, and the realities of, our jury trial system. Under the majority’s view, jurors are expected to accomplish a feat which trained judges cannot accomplish, namely, to reach a just result by starting with an untenable premise that totally different things—a plaintiff’s negligent conduct and a defendant’s defective product—can be added together and assigned percentages to total 100 percent, without having the means to reduce the two noncom-parables to a common denominator which is the necessary ingredient to produce reasonably accurate percentages. There is no common denominator by which factors such as pounds, circles, quarts, triangles, inches, and squares can be added together for a total so that a determination can be made of the percentage contribution of each to the total. This is the situation we deal with in requiring juries to reduce a plaintiff’s total damages resulting from a defendant’s defective product by a conjectural determination of a percentage contribution to thosé damages resulting from plaintiff’s negligence.

*756The majority finds significance in the provisions of the proposed Uniform Comparative Fault Act (Act), authored by Professor Wade, “a recognized torts scholar” and a “distinguished professor of law.” The proposed Act adopts the principles of comparative fault. It defines “fault” to include acts or omissions that constitute negligence or that subject a person to strict tort liability. The proposed Act requires a reduction in a plaintiff’s recovery based upon plaintiff’s proportionate contributory fault. But with all due respect to the high academic qualifications of the author, the Act possesses the same weaknesses that I find in the majority’s assumptions. The Act does not produce a practical formula, or any formula at all, by which the jury can avoid the task of employing conjecture, surmise and speculation in seeking to compare noncomparable factors that make up the Act’s concept of total “fault.” The Act’s provisions, therefore, suffering from the same weaknesses that permeate the majority’s holding, offer no support in logic, reason or fairness to the majority’s holding.

The majority calls attention to the fact that some legal scholars and some states have either moved, or have advocated moving, in the direction of the application of comparative negligence principles to strict-liability-in-tort cases. Such authorities do not demonstrate that the principle espoused is a viable one. The fact that some legal scholars and states are satisfied with a tort principle that requires and sanctions speculation and guesswork on the part of juries—necessarily producing inequities to consumers who have suffered injuries from manufacturers’ defective products—constitutes no basis for this court to follow suit.

It is my view that justice, fairness and equity are not served by the majority’s application of the Li principle of comparative negligence to the tort principle of a manufacturer’s strict liability in tort for a product defectively manufactured or defectively designed. Granting that a plaintiff was negligent when he suffered injury from using a defective product, a fair and equitable result is reached by imposing on the defendant manufacturer liability for the total damages suffered. This result is preferable to that of subjecting the injured plaintiff’s claim to a diminution of his total damages suffered—predicated on the jury’s application of the highly speculative, conjectural and chance formula of comparing two noncomparables.

It appeals to my sense of reason, justice and equity that we continue the existing legal principle which permits manufacturers to spread through society the costs of compensating injured plaintiffs fully, rather *757than the adoption of an untenable legal principle which will result in reducing the total costs to be spread by manufacturers, but at the expense of injured plaintiffs by reducing their recovery below the full losses sustained through the necessarily fortuitous, conjectural and haphazard determinations to be made by juries.

Bird, C. J., concurred.

MOSK, J.

I dissent.

This will be remembered as the dark day when this court, which heroically took the lead in originating the doctrine of products liability (Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc. (1963) 59 Cal.2d 57 [27 Cal.Rptr. 697, 377 P.2d 897, 13 A.L.R.3d 1049]) and steadfastly resisted efforts to inject concepts of negligence into the newly designed tort (Cronin v. J. B. E. Olson Corp. (1972) 8 Cal.3d 121 [104 Cal.Rptr. 433, 501 P.2d 1153]), inexplicably turned 180 degrees and beat a hasty retreat almost back to square one. The pure concept of products liability so pridefully fashioned and nurtured by this court for the past decade and a half is reduced to a shambles.

The majority inject a foreign object—the tort of negligence—into the tort of products liability by the simple expedient of calling negligence something else: on some pages their opinion speaks of “comparative fault,” on others reference is to “comparative principles,” and elsewhere the term “equitable apportionment” is employed, although this is clearly not a proceeding in equity. But a rose is a rose and negligence is negligence; thus the majority find that despite semantic camouflage they must rely on Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804 [119 Cal.Rptr. 858, 532 P.2d 1226, 78 A.L.R.3d 393], even though Li is purely and simply a negligence case which merely rejects contributory negligence and substitutes therefor comparative negligence.

Professor Schwartz made this acute observation (Schwartz, Li v. Yellow Cab Company: A Survey of California Practice Under Comparative Negligence (1976) 7 Pacific L. J. 747, 756): “The Li opinion, which was concerned with a typical automobile negligence case, contained no discussion of strict liability. In its April 24th modification of the opinion, the court in a number of places deleted the word ‘fault’ and substituted *758the word ‘negligence,’ perhaps indicating that it did not intend for its holding to apply to strict liability. Further, in a footnote of the modified opinion the court stated that ‘[i]n employing the generic term “fault” throughout this opinion we follow a usage common to the literature on the subject of comparative negligence. In all cases, however, we intend the term to import nothing more than “negligence” in the accepted legal sense.’ ”

What Professor Schwartz sensed was factually accurate. We desired, in Li, to affect only the concept of contributory negligence, and to substitute therefor the doctrine of comparative negligence. Where contributoiy negligence would have previously been relevant, comparative negligence was to be its replacement. It was never contemplated that comparative negligence would be injected into litigation in which contributoiy negligence had been specifically barred as a valid defense.

This court has emphasized over and over again that strict products liability is an independent tort species wholly distinct from contract warranties (Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc., supra, 59 Cal.2d at p. 63) and from negligence (Cronin v. J. B. E. Olson Corp., supra, 8 Cal.3d at p. 133). Indeed, in Cronin we stressed that “the very purpose of our pioneering efforts in this field was to relieve the plaintiff from problems of proof inherent in pursuing negligence” (id.). 1 And in Luque v. McLean (1972) 8 Cal.3d 136 [104 Cal.Rptr. 443, 501 P.2d 1163], this court unanimously declared that “contributory negligence does not bar recoveiy in a strict liability action” (id. at p. 145). To the same effect are Bill Loeper Ford v. Hites (1975) 47 Cal.App.3d 828, 835-836 [121 Cal.Rptr. 131], and McGoldrick v. Porter-Cable Tools (1973) 34 Cal.App.3d 885, 889 [110 Cal.Rptr. 481],

The bench and bar have abided by this elementary rule. They have learned to avoid injecting negligence—whether of the defendant or the plaintiff—into a products liability case. And they have understood the reason behind the distinction between negligence of any party and products liability. It was expressed over three decades ago by Justice *759Traynor in his concurring opinion in Escola v. Coca Cola Bottling Co. (1944) 24 Cal.2d 453, 467 [150 P.2d 436]: “As handicrafts have been replaced by mass production with its great markets and transportation facilities, the close relationship between the producer and consumer of a product has been altered. Manufacturing processes, frequently valuable secrets, are ordinarily either inaccessible to or beyond the ken . of the general public. The consumer no longer has means or skill enough to investigate for himself the soundness of a product, even when it is not contained in a sealed package, and his erstwhile vigilance has been lulled by the steady efforts of manufacturers to build up confidence by advertising and marketing devices such as trade-marks. [Citations.] Consumers no longer approach products warily but accept them on faith, relying on the reputation of the manufacturer or the trade mark.... The manufacturer’s obligation to the consumer must keep pace with the changing relationship between them; . . .” And again in Greenman, Justice Traynor declared the “purpose of such liability is to insure that the costs of injuries resulting from defective products are borne by the manufacturers that put such products on the market rather than by the injured persons who are powerless to protect themselves.” (59 Cal.2d at p. 63.)

In Price v. Shell Oil Co. (1970) 2 Cal.3d 245, 258 [85 Cal.Rptr. 178, 466 P.2d 722], this court warned that “it would do violence to the doctrine of strict liability and thwart its basic purpose, if we were to interpret [an indemnity] clause as transferring the liability for a defective article from the party putting the article in the stream of commerce, to the user or consumer of the article who is within the class the doctrine was designed to protect.”

Transferring the liability, or part of the liability, from the party responsible for putting the article in the stream of commerce to the consumer is precisely what the majority propose to do. They do this by employing a euphemism: the victim’s recovery is to be “proportionately reduced.” The result, however delicately described, is to dilute the defect of the article by elevating the conduct of the wounded consumer to an issue of equal significance. We can be as certain as tomorrow’s daylight that every defendant charged with marketing a defective product will hereafter assert that the injured plaintiff did something, anything, that conceivably could be deemed contributorily negligent: he drove the vehicle with a defective steering mechanism 56 miles an hour instead of 54; or he should have discovered a latent defect hidden in the machinery; or perhaps he should not have succumbed to the salesman’s *760persuasion and purchased the defective object in the first instance. I need no crystal ball to foresee that the pleading of affirmative defenses alleging contributory negligence—or the currently approved substitute terminology—will now become boilerplate.

. The majority see no problem in assessing the liability of intermediate entities in the commercial chain. I do. Consider, for example, the not uncommon situation in which, pursuant to a faulty design, a manufacturer produces widgets without negligence and precisely as designed. He turns the widgets over to a distributor who sells them to a wholesaler who in turn consigns them to a retailer, none of whom commits any active act of negligence. After a defective widget finally reaches and injures the consumer, it would be consummate supererogation for a trier of fact to attempt to measure some consumer negligence against either the faulty design of the product or the responsibility of the congeries of nonnegligent persons who placed the defective product in the stream of commerce, or their responsibility vis-a-vis each other. We have retained joint and several liability in comparative negligence (American Motorcycle Assn. v. Superior Court (1978) ante, p. 578 [146 Cal.Rptr. 182, 578 P.2d 899]) partly because of that very problem. In any event if the consumer used the product as intended or as foreseeable (Barker v. Lull Engineering Co. (1978) ante, p. 413 [143 Cal.Rptr. 225, 573 P.2d 443]) it is inconsequential that he committed some extraneous act of negligence, since the injury occurs whether or not there was an act of omission or commission by the user; it results from the commercial exploitation of a defective product.

The defective product is comparable to a time bomb ready to explode; it maims its victims indiscriminately, the righteous and the evil, the careful and the careless. Thus when a faulty design or otherwise defective product is involved, the litigation should not be diverted to consideration of the negligence of the plaintiff. The liability issues are simple: was the product or its design faulty, did the defendant inject the defective product into the stream of commerce, and did the defect cause the injury? The conduct of the ultimate consumer-victim who used the product in the contemplated or foreseeable manner is wholly irrelevant to those issues.

The majority devote considerable effort to rationalizing what has been described as a mixture of apples and oranges. Their point might be persuasive if there were some authority recognizing a defense of contributory products liability, for which they are now substituting *761comparative products liability. However, all our research to discover such apples and oranges has been fruitless. The conclusion is inescapable that the majority, in avoiding approval of comparative negligence in name as a defense to products liability, are thereby originating a new defense that can only be described as comparative products liability. We may now anticipate similar defenses in the vast number of other tort actions. Can comparative libel, comparative slander of title, comparative wrongful litigation, comparative nuisance, comparative fraud, be far behind? By whatever name, negligence, heretofore just one subtopic in the elaborate spectrum of torts—which require six volumes and appendices of the Restatement Second of Torts to cover—now seems destined to envelop the entire tort field.

Reliance by the majority upon federal maritime cases is to a certain extent misleading and at best unpersuasive. Pope & Talbot, Inc. v. Hawn (1953) 346 U.S. 406 [98 L.Ed. 143, 74 S.Ct. 202], which considered the plaintiff’s negligence to “mitigate, but not bar, recovery,” involved a carpenter, not a seaman, who was working on board a ship in dock, and who sued the shipowners for negligence in maintaining an unseaworthy vessel. No novel theory of law was involved in weighing the negligence of the plaintiff against the negligence of the defendant. None of the other Supreme Court cases cited by the majority (The Osceola (1903) 189 U.S. 158 [47 L.Ed. 760, 23 S.Ct. 483]; Mitchell v. Trawler Racer, Inc. (1960) 362 U.S. 539 [4 L.Ed.2d 941, 80 S.Ct. 926]; Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki (1946) 328 U.S. 85 [90 L.Ed. 1099, 66 S.Ct. 872]) mention the doctrine of comparative negligence.

Conceding, nevertheless, that federal courts today are likely to apply comparative negligence in maritime cases, I find there is a sound rationale for treating the law of the sea differently from common law tort litigation. Justice Stone articulated the Supreme Court’s theory in Socony-Vacuum Co. v. Smith (1939) 305 U.S. 424 [83 L.Ed. 265, 59 S.Ct. 262], He observed that a seaman, while on a vessel abroad or on the high seas “is subject to the rigorous discipline of the sea and has little opportunity to appeal to the protection from abuse of power which the law makes readily available to the landsman.. . . Withal, seamen are the wards of the admiralty, whose traditional policy has been to avoid, within reasonable limits, the application of rules of the common law____” (Id., at pp. 430-431 [83 L.Ed. at p. 270].) In short, admiralty is recognized as a unique field of law, generally uninfluenced by the common law, and thus it is improvidently cited for the purpose of influencing the common law.

*762The best reasoned authorities decline to inject negligence, contributory or comparative, into strict products liability litigation. In Kirkland v. General Motors Corporation (Okla. 1974) 521 P.2d 1353, the Oklahoma Supreme Court refused to apply a comparative negligence statute to products liability because it consistently determined that “manufacturers’ products liability is not negligence, nor is it to be treated as a negligence action” (id. at p. 1367). A similar result followed in Melia v. Ford Motor Co. (8th Cir. 1976) 534 F.2d 795, 802, in which the court held application of a comparative negligence statute would be “inappropriate in a strict liability case.” Even more emphatic was the court in Kinard v. Coats Co., Inc. (1976) — Colo.App. — [553 P.2d 835, 837]: “Although some other jurisdictions have chosen to apply comparative negligence to products liability cases [citation] in our view the better-reasoned position is that comparative negligence has no application to products liability actions under § 402A. [If] Products liability under § 402A does not rest upon negligence principles, but rather is premised on the concept of enterprise liability for casting a defective product into the stream of commerce. [Citations.] Thus, the focus is upon the nature of the product, and the consumer’s reasonable expectations with regard to that product, rather than on the conduct either of the manufacturer or of the person injured because of the product. [Citations.]” The Colorado Supreme Court completely eliminated negligence from products liability actions, declaring in such proceedings it “ ‘shifts the focus from the conduct of the manufacturer to the nature of the product.’ ” (Hiigel v. General Motors Corporation (1975) — Colo. — [544 P.2d 983, 988].)

We also declared in Ault v. International Harvester Co. (1974) 13 Cal.3d 113 [117 Cal.Rptr. 812, 528 P.2d 1148, 74 A.L.R.3d 986], that the focus is not on the conduct of the defendant, but on the nature of the product. That being so, the majority create an impossible dilemma for trial courts. If comparative negligence is to be applied, how can the trier of fact rationally weigh the conduct of the plaintiff against the defective product? I know of no other instance in American jurisprudence in which the antagonists are the conduct of a human being versus an inanimate object.

Professor Levine discusses the Alaska case (Butaud v. Suburban Marine & Sport. Goods, Inc. (Alaska 1976) 555 P.2d 42) and others relied upon by the majority (Levine, Strict Products Liability and Comparative Negligence: The Collision of Fault and No-Fault (1977) 14 San Diego L.Rev. 337) and concludes that it is impossible to apply a comparison of fault doctrine—comparative negligence—to a no-fault *763doctrine—strict products liability: “In California, comparative fault cannot logically and consistently be applied to the strict liability cause of action. Prejudice to a plaintiff would result if the jury was required to determine the plaintiff’s fault and to compare it to the defendant’s conduct in a cause of action not requiring that a jury consider the existence, nature, or extent of defendant’s culpability. How can comparative fault exist in a cause of action which proceeds irrespective of fault? What can a jury compare the plaintiff’s fault with if the defendant’s fault is not at issue? If the jury has not determined the nature, extent, or degree of the defendant’s fault but has merely concluded the product is defective, how can it reduce the plaintiff’s damages in proportion to respective fault?

“The application of ‘comparative’ fault to the strict products liability cause of action would prejudice a plaintiff because of the unusual and impossible demand placed upon a jury. In essence we would ask a jury that if they find the defendant’s product was defective, irrespective of fault, they should reduce the plaintiff’s damage by considering the plaintiff’s culpability in proportion to the defendant’s non-culpability. This requirement may be a feat which is beyond the prowess of an American jury.” (Id. at p. 356; italics omitted.)

The Court of Appeal reached the same conclusion in Buccery v. General Motors Corp. (1976) 60 Cal.App.3d 533, 549 [132 Cal.Rptr. 605]: “Comparative negligence, therefore, as adopted in Li, entails a comparison of the respective negligence of the plaintiff on the one hand and of the defendant on the other. Strict liability for defective products is not based upon defendant’s negligence. There may be, therefore, no negligence of the defendant to compare with that of plaintiff.”

The majority note one “felicitous result” of adopting comparative negligence to products liability: the merger of assumption of risk—which they term a “bizarre anomaly”—into their innovative defense. I find that result neither felicitous nor tenable. In Barker v. Lull Engineering Co., supra, ante, at page 429, we defined a defective product as one which failed to perform safely when used in an intended or foreseeable manner. If a consumer elects to use a product patently defective when other alternatives are available, or to use a product in a manner clearly not intended or foreseeable, he assumes the risks inherent in his improper utilization and should not be heard to complain about the condition of the object. One who employs a power saw to trim his fingernails—and thereafter finds the number of his fingers reduced— *764should not prevail to any extent whatever against the manufacturer even if the saw had a defective blade. I would retain assumption of risk as a total defense to products liability, as it always has been.

The majority deny their opinion diminishes the therapeutic effect of products liability upon producers of defective products. It seems self-evident that procedures which evaluate the injured consumer’s conduct in each instance, and thus eliminate or reduce the award against the producer or distributor of a defective product, are not designed as an effective incentive to maximum responsibility to consumers. The converse is more accurate: the motivation to avoid polluting the stream of commerce with defective products increases in direct relation to the size of potential damage awards.

In sum, I am convinced that since the negligence of the defendant is irrelevant in products liability cases, the negligence—call it contributory or comparative—of the plaintiff is also irrelevant. The majority, by considering the comparative negligence of a plaintiff in an action in which defendant’s negligence is not an issue, apply an untenable double standard. Their error is grievously unsettling to the law of torts. More significantly, this decision seriously erodes the pattern of the law which up to now reflected a healthy concern for consumers victimized by defective products placed on the market in this mechanized age through the dynamics of mass production, national and international distribution, and psychologically subtle marketing.

The length of the majority opinion and this opinion dissuades me from discussing the other issues involved herein. My abstention should not be construed as acquiescence in the majority’s conclusions. I see no reason to reverse the trial court.

I would affirm the judgment.

Appellants’ petition for a rehearing was denied April 13, 1978, and the opinion was modified to read as printed above. Bird, C. J., and Mosk, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

RODGERS, Presiding Justice.

This is a products liability suit in a wrongful death action. It was filed by the estate of Earnest Matthews in the Circuit Court of Benton County, Mississippi, against Ford Motor Company and Ray Brothers Tractor Company, Inc. During the trial, a settlement was reached between Ray Brothers and the plaintiff, leaving the Ford Motor Company as the sole defendant. The court, sitting without a jury, found for the plaintiff-administratrix and entered a judgment against Ford in the amount of seventy-four thousand two hundred seventy-two dollars and sixty-five *171cents ($74,272.65). Ford Motor Company appeals to this Court and assigns the following errors:

(1) The findings of fact of the court below are not supported by any evidence of any probative value, or in the alternative, were contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence.

(2) The conclusions of law of the court were in conflict with the decisions of this Court.

(3) The court below erred in failing to find that under the undisputed evidence the negligence of Ray Brothers was the intervening sole proximate cause of the accident.

(4) The court below erred in finding defendant, Ford, liable under the strict products liability rule.

(5) The court erred in admitting hearsay evidence of statements of the deceased after the accident.

(6) The court erred in entering judgment for plaintiff-administratrix against defendant-appellant.

Earnest Matthews was killed as a result of being run over by his tractor and dragged underneath a disc attachment. It was alleged that Matthews was standing beside his tractor when he started it, and the tractor was in gear at the time. The. Ford tractor in question was equipped with a starter safety switch which was designed to prevent the tractor from being started in gear. It is the position of the plaintiff-administratrix that the plunger connected with the safety switch was defective and allowed the tractor to be started in gear.

■ The tractor in question was sold to Ray Brothers by Ford in November of 1965. In April of 1966, Ford sent to all dealers a service bulletin advising of a possible defect in the safety switch system of tractors of the model sold to Earnest Matthews, outlining the necessary corrective measures. The testimony indicates that Ray Brothers never checked for nor attempted to remedy the defect. In November of 1967, the tractor was sold to J. W. Gools-by. The tractor was damaged in a fire in February, 1968. Ray Brothers purchased the salvage from Goolsby, and factory-trained mechanics rebuilt the tractor with genuine Ford parts. The mechanics stated that all damaged parts were replaced, including the starter safety switch, but the plunger was not damaged and was not replaced. The tractor was sold to Matthews in April, 1970. At no time did Ray Brothers attempt to repair the defective safety switch system as recommended by Ford. Furthermore, neither Ford nor Ray Brothers warned Matthews of the possible defect in the safety switch system, nor of the danger of starting the tractor while standing on the ground. On April 23, 1970, Matthews was killed by the tractor after it started in gear and ran over him, dragging the cutting disc over his body.

On the threshold of this study we are confronted with the issue as to whether or not the plaintiff sustained her burden of proof under the strict products liability rule adopted by this Court. This issue must be resolved by analyzing the requirements of the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A (1965) [hereinafter cited as Rest. (2d) Torts § 402A], which this Court first adopted in State Stove Manufacturing Company v. Hodges, 189 So.2d 113 (Miss. 1966). This section reads as follows:

“(1) One who sells any product in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user or consumer or to his property is subject to liability for physical harm thereby caused to the ultimate user or consumer, or to his property, if

(a) the seller is engaged in the business of selling such a product, and

(b) it is expected to and does reach the user or consumer without substantial change in the condition in which it is sold.

(2) The rule stated in Subsection (1) applies although

(a) the seller has exercised all possible care in the preparation and sale of his product, and

*172(b) the user or consumer has not bought the product from or entered into any contractual relation with the seller.”

The essential elements in such a case are as follows:

“The chief elements which a plaintiff must prove in a case involving strict liability in tort are (1) the defective and unreasonably dangerous condition of defendant’s product (including defendant’s connection with the product), and (2) a causal connection between such condition and the plaintiff’s injuries or damages.” Hursh, American Law of Products Liability § 5A:4, at 347-348 (Supp.1973).

Discussing these elements in order, it is first necessary to prove that the tractor in this case left the hands of Ford in a defective condition, which rendered it unreasonably dangerous. This issue was discussed in State Stove, supra, wherein the Court said: “Ordinarily the phrase ‘defective condition’ means that the article has something wrong with it, that it did not function as expected.” [189 So.2d at 121]. The Court further stated that: “It is a question of fact whether the particular article involved was reasonably safe when it left the control of the manufacturer.” [189 So.2d at 121],

Prosser defines “defective” in this manner:

“The prevailing interpretation of ‘defective’ is that the product does not meet the reasonable expectations of the ordinary consumer as to its safety. It has been said that this amounts to saying that if the seller knew of the condition he would be negligent in marketing the product.” Prosser, Law of Torts § 99, at 659-660 (1971).

In discussing “defective condition”, Rest. (2d) Torts § 402A, Comment (g), at 351 (1965) states:

“The rule stated in this Section applies only where the product is, at the time it leaves the seller’s hands, in a condition not contemplated by the ultimate consumer, which will be unreasonably dangerous to him.”

Rest. (2d) Torts § 402A, Comment (i), at 352 (1965) discusses “unreasonably dangerous” in these terms:

“The article sold must be dangerous to an extent beyond that which would be contemplated by the ordinary consumer who purchases it, with the ordinary knowledge common to the community as to its characteristics.”

Furthermore, it is said that:

“[A] jury can find a product defective when the record contains sufficient evidence of one or more of the following: a dangerous defect in manufacture; an unreasonably dangerous design; cor-cumstances in which, from common knowledge, the average user reasonably could have expected the product to perform safely.” Hursh, American Law of Products Liability § 5A: 6, at 362 (Supp. 1973), citing Heaton v. Ford Motor Co., 248 Or. 467, 435 P.2d 806 (1967).

Applying these statements to the facts at hand, it is evident that the tractor in question was unreasonably dangerous when it left Ford’s hands, due to a defect in the design of the safety switch system. Ford’s expert witness testified that the purpose of the safety switch was to prevent the tractor from starting in gear. Ford received reports from the field that some model 5000 tractors were starting in gear and notified all dealers of the problem, recommending that a shorter plunger and a dowel bolt be installed to alleviate the danger. It was the opinion of plaintiff’s expert witness that the plunger was too long and caused excessive wear of the safety switch. Ford’s expert admitted that because of tolerance stack-up in the safety switch system, and the length of the plunger, some tractors could be started in gear. From this testimony, it appears that when the tractor left the hands of Ford, it was defective due to a faulty design of the safety switch system. Taking into account the fact that farmers must frequently stand *173beside tractors to operate the hydraulic system and change or adjust implements, and considering the testimony that it is a common practice for farmers to start their tractors from the ground, it must be concluded that the defective design of the safety switch system rendered this tractor unreasonably dangerous. • •

The next element of proof is causation. It is necessary for the plaintiff to prove that the defect in the product was the proximate cause of the injury. Before the defect in the product can be isolated as the cause, it must be shown that the product reached the consumer without substantial change in its condition.

The Court of Appeals of Washington state confronted the issue of whether or not the product reached the consumer without substantial change in the recent decision of Bombardi v. Pochel’s Appliance and T.V. Company, 9 Wash.App. 797, 515 P.2d 540 (1973). Judgment was granted in favor of a purchaser of a second-hand television set against the manufacturer for fire damage caused by a defect in the set. The Admiral television set was sold by an authorized dealer in 1967 and was serviced by the dealer seven or eight times during its first ownership. The same set was sold “used” to the plaintiff in 1970. In addressing the question of “substantial change”, the court noted that although the set had been serviced a number of times, only Admiral parts were used and the work was performed by factory-trained technicians. Based on these facts, the Court held “ . . . that there was sufficient evidence to indicate that the used set purchased by Mrs. Bombardi was in essentially the same condition as when it was originally manufactured, . . .” [515 P.2d at 545].

In the case at hand, the tractor was over four years old when it was purchased by Matthews. It had a previous owner and had sustained serious damage in a fire. However, the tractor had been rebuilt using genuine Ford parts, with all damaged parts replaced by factory-trained mechanics. The mechanics found that the plunger was not damaged, and the proof is sufficient that the plunger in the tractor at the time of the accident was the identical one installed at the factory. Prosser discusses this point as follows:

“Tracing the defect in the product into the hands of the defendant confronts the plaintiff with greater difficulties. There is first of all the question of lapse of time and long continued .use. This in itself will never prevent recovery where there is satisfactory proof of an original defect; . . . ” Prosser, Law of Torts § 103, at 674 (1971).

Since the proof here is sufficient to show that the excessive length of the plunger was the original defect and was in the same condition at the time of the accident as when it left the factory, the requirement of Rest. (2d) Torts § 402A that it reach the consumer without substantial change is satisfied in this case.

This leaves the question of proximate cause. This is discussed in 2 Frumer and Friedman, Products Liability § 16A[4]e, at 3-306 to 3-310 (1973):

“[I]n a strict liability in tort cause of action, expert testimony may be used, and reasonable inferences from the circumstances may be drawn. Absolute proof that injury was the result of the defect is not essential, and the burden of proof can be satisfied by showing sufficient facts to allow a jury to infer defective quality and that such defective quality was a substantial element in producing the claimant’s injury.”

It was the opinion of the circuit judge, sitting without a jury, that the facts were sufficient to establish a causal connection between the defect and the injury. The relevant portion of his opinion reads as follows:

“This Court is of the opinion that taking all of the facts, as known, that the only logical conclusion one can reach from said known facts is that the deceased was adjusting the equipment, *174cranked the tractor to use the power lift or to make some adjustment without checking the gears, the tractor cranked and knocked him down with the equipment and pulled the disc upon him. It is therefore the opinion of this court that the direct and proximate cause of the accident was the dependency of the deceased upon the safety switch, and it did not function and caused the accident; and the design of the safety switch was the direct and proximate cause of the accident.”

Plaintiff’s expert witness testified that in his opinion, the defect in the safety switch system allowed the tractor to be started in gear. In its answer, Ford admitted that the tractor cranked in gear and ran over Matthews. There was testimony to the effect that after the accident, Matthews himself stated that the tractor cranked in gear. Ford asserts that this was hearsay evidence and inadmissible. Appellee counters, saying that the testimony comes within the res gestae exception. Appellee correctly points out that even if this testimony were inadmissible, its admission was harmless error, since the fact that the tractor started in gear was admitted in the pleadings. Furthermore, Ford’s own expert testified that if the plunger were not damaged by che fire, then it could be assumed that it was the “real culprit in this case.” It appears, therefore, that the judge’s finding of fact that the elements of American Law Institute’s Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A (1965) adopted in State Stove, supra, were met is supported by substantial evidence. There is proof that the tractor left Ford’s hands in a defective condition which rendered it unreasonably dangerous, and, further, there was sufficient proof from which the judge could find a causal connection between the defect and the injury.

The appellant Ford next contends that Matthews’ act of standing on the ground and starting the tractor while in gear was a misuse of the product. It is argued that such misuse is an absolute limitation on Ford’s liability. The basic authority for this position is Comment (h), Rest. (2d) Torts § 402A, which reads in part: “A product is not in a defective condition when it is safe for normal handling and consumption. If the injury results from abnormal handling . . . the seller is not liable.” [Rest. (2d) Torts § 402A, at 351], Several cases are cited by appellant to illustrate this proposition. However, in the cases cited, the court either found that there was no defect and the accident was caused by a misuse, or even if there were a defect, it played no part in the causation of the accident. Here the situation is clearly distinguishable. It is apparent that the failure of the safety switch to prevent the tractor from cranking in gear was a cause of the accident. The failure of the decedent to make sure the tractor was in neutral before starting [if that were true] may be characterized as the omission of a customary precaution, although there is no evidence that he was warned of this danger, or that he knew of the danger. Nevertheless, this was not such a misuse of the tractor as to relieve Ford from its strict liability for the defective condition of the tractor.

Although misuse of a product that causes an injury is normally a bar to strict liability, it is said that: “ . . . [T]he manufacturer is not liable for injuries resulting from abnormal or unintended use of his product, if such use was not reasonably foreseeable. The issue is one of foreseeability and misuse may be foreseeable.” (Emphasis added) 1 Frumer and Friedman, Products Liability § 15.01, at 351 (1973).

A recent law review writer expressed it in this manner: “In strict liability cases the same duty to foresee certain unintended uses has been recognized, and ordinarily the factual issue of the foreseeability of a particular use has been left to the jury.” Noel, Defective Products: Abnormal Use, Contributory Negligence, and Assumption of Risk, 25 Vand.L.Rev. 93, 97 (1972).

*175It is admitted that the tractor in question was designed to prevent its starting in gear. It is apparent that it could be foreseen by Ford that one day a tractor operator might carelessly crank the engine without first making certain that it was not in gear (as recommended in the owner’s manual), especially if he were aware of the purpose of the safety switch system. In short, even if Matthews were guilty of negligence, such negligence was reasonably foreseeable by Ford and is not a bar to an action based on strict liability resulting from a defective tractor.

A question quite pertinent to this discussion was posed in a recent law review article: “Should a distinction be made between use for an abnormal purpose and use for a proper purpose but in a careless manner, as is the case when the plaintiff fails to follow instructions?” [Noel, 25 Vand.L.R. at 94]. It is apparent that Matthews’ actions in starting the tractor did not constitute a “misuse”, but are more accurately characterized as “use for a proper purpose, but in a careless manner.” The failure of the decedent to act in a rea-'" sonably prudent manner and to exercise the customary precautions [even if he had been warned of the danger] amounts to contributory negligence on his part. As stated by Prosser:

“Contributory negligence is conduct on the part of the plaintiff, contributing as a legal cause to the harm he has suffered, which falls below the standard to which he is required to conform for his own protection.” Prosser, Law of Torts § 65, at 416-417 (1971).

It is the prevailing rule that contributory negligence is not a bar to recovery for strict liability in tort. This is supported by the following statement from a recent law review article:

“With reference to contributory negligence, almost all of the courts adopting the strict tort principles as set forth in the Restatement have also adopted the view expressed in the comment that an objectively negligent failure to discover the defect in a product, or to guard against the possibility of its existence, is not a defense.” (Emphasis added) Noel, 25 Vand.L.R. at 128, 129.

The particular negligent act of Matthews was his failure to guard against the possibility of a defect in the safety switch system, and while this contributed in part to the accident, under the majority rule it is not a defense to strict liability tort.

It is asserted by the appellant that even assuming Ford was at fault originally, that the failure of Ray Brothers to remedy the defect after express notification by Ford, constituted an act of negligence on their part sufficient to relieve Ford of its original liability. In short, Ford contends that the negligence of Ray Brothers was the sole proximate cause of the injury.

While it is recognized that a finding of strict liability in tort does not preclude a finding of negligence, it is evident from his opinion that the circuit judge based his finding on strict liability. Therefore, the question for decision is whether or not the negligent acts of Ray Brothers were sufficient to relieve Ford from liability under Rest. (2d) Torts § 402A.

Almost all of the cases involving the question of intervening cause relate to negligence actions. However, the general rules established by those cases should be applicable to the facts at hand. As stated by Prosser: “Although there have been few decisions, there is every reason to expect that the same conclusions, in general, will be reached when strict liability is in question.” Prosser, Law of Torts § 102, at 668 (1971).

To support its position, appellant relies primarily on three cases: State Stove v. Hodges, 189 So.2d 113 (Miss. 1966); E. I. DuPont De Nemours & Co. v. Ladner, 221 Miss. 378, 73 So.2d 249 (1954); and Ford Motor Co. v. Wagoner, 183 Tenn. 392, 192 S.W.2d 840 (1946).

State Stove, supra, is distinguishable in one very key aspect — the majority of the *176Court found that there was no defect in the heater when it left State Stove’s hands. Here, the safety switch system was defective when it left Ford’s hands, as shown by the evidence in this case. Admittedly, the failure of the contractors to install the safety device in State Stove was comparable to the failure of Ray Brothers to remedy the defect in the safety switch system, but in State Stove this negligent omission was found to be the only cause of the accident. In the case at bar, while Ray Brothers’ negligence was a secondary cause of the accident, it was not the only cause. The case at bar necessarily involves a weighing of two contributory causes, whereas no such question was involved in State Stove.

The DuPont case presents a set of facts similar to the present case. A chemical ingredient used in cattle feed was found to be harmful to cattle. The retailer was personally notified of the danger, but chose to continue to sell the product for cattle feed. The Court held that the retailer’s conscious act in selling the feed after the personal warning was an intervening, superseding cause and relieved DuPont of its original negligence. In comparing DuPont to the present case, it must be kept in mind that it was decided over a decade before Mississippi adopted strict liability in tort, and the decision was based on negligence, warranty, warning and privity of contract. The adoption of American Law Institute’s Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A (1965) carried with it the strong public policy requiring the burden of accidental injuries caused by defective products to be borne by the manufacturers (when the defect is a proximate cause of the accident).

Appellee argues that the DuPont case is distinguishable because the court there only considered the duty of DuPont to warn of the danger. In the present case, due care involves two elements: the duty to warn of the defect plus the duty to remedy the defect. It is clear that both DuPont and Ford warned the retailers of the danger. In the present case, there was an additional issue of whether Ford’s duty required it to remedy the defect or make sure that it was corrected by the dealer.

In the case of Ford Motor Company v. Wagoner, 183 Tenn. 392, 192 S.W.2d 840 (1946), Ford discovered that a particular model had a defective hood latch. Repair kits were sent to all dealers. The dealer gave the replacement part to a salesman who was using the car as a demonstrator. Feeling that it was unnecessary, the salesman declined to utilize the part. The car was sold by the salesman without warning the purchaser of the problem. An accident occurred because of the defective hood latch. The court held that the act of the salesman was an intervening, superseding cause, unforeseeable by Ford, which relieved Ford from its original negligence. As in DuPont, strict liability in tort was not available to the plaintiff in Wagoner. Furthermore, while the rules of law discussed in Wagoner are accurate, the ultimate question of proximate cause is a factual determination for the jury.

The issue, therefore, is whether Ray Brothers’ negligence was an intervening cause sufficient to relieve Ford of its liability. The following passage from Pros-ser may isolate the true issue:

“The question is always one of whether he [the party initially liable] is to be relieved of responsibility, and his liability superseded, by the subsequent event. In general, this has been determined by asking whether the intervention of the later cause is a significant part of the risk involved in the defendant’s conduct, or is so reasonably connected with it that the responsibility should not be terminated. It is therefore said that the defendant is to be held liable if, but only if, the intervening cause is foreseeable.” Prosser, Law of Torts § 44, at 272 (1971).

A recent California case discussed the issue as follows:

“Central to the inquiry here is the question whether under the particular circumstances the manufacturer could have reasonably foreseen that the neglect *177of third persons to respond to the manufacturer’s warnings of danger would frustrate its corrective efforts. Insofar as machinery dangerous to life and limb is involved, we think it a question of fact whether a manufacturer would reasonably anticipate that a wholesaler, a dealer, a retailer, an owner, or a user, may not positively respond to warnings of the need to correct a design deficiency.” Balido v. Improved Machinery, Inc., 29 Cal.App.3d 633, 105 Cal.Rptr. 890, 901 (1972).

Here, the defect in the safety switch system started the chain of events which led to the death of Matthews. When the tractor left Ford’s hands, it was defective and unreasonably dangerous. Just as the duty of care increases with the degree of danger, so should the range of foreseeability. Ford was not relieved of all liability by its single service bulletin warning Ray Brothers of the possible defect. Where the danger to human life and limb is great, the possibility that the tractor might leave the dealer’s hands without the recommended repairs comes within Ford’s range of foreseeability. Therefore, the negligent omission of the dealer is not the sole, proximate cause of the accident.

The question of liability in this case is largely a factual issue, and we hold that there is substantial evidence on which the judge could base his decision holding Ford strictly liable in tort for the injury to the deceased Earnest Matthews.

We have examined the belated objections made by Ford to the method used by the trial judge in determining the damages due to the estate of the deceased, and we are of the opinion that the total sum determined by the trial judge to be due was not excessive and the case should be affirmed.

Affirmed.

PATTERSON, INZER, SMITH and SUGG, JJ., concur.