Products Liability Law Daily Wrap Up, CAUSATION—MOTOR VEHICLES—Minn. App.: Summary judgment in favor of RV maker reversed in insurer’s fire damage action, (May 27, 2025)

By Pankhuri Bhatnagar, B.A. LL.B.

A lower court improperly required the insurer to prove its claims in order to avoid summary judgment rather than merely furnishing evidence creating triable issues on material facts.

In an action brought against a recreational vehicle maker by an insurer seeking to recover the proceeds it paid to a consumer whose RV spontaneously caught fire, the Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed summary judgment for the manufacturer. The appellate court found that the insurer presented competent and admissible expert evidence identifying the vehicle’s batteries as the source of the fire, that the district court erred in weigh conflicting expert evidence and making credibility determinations, and that circumstantial evidence of a product defect was sufficient to show causation (Progressive Preferred Ins. Co. v. Adventurer Manufacturing, Inc., No. A24-1536 (Minn. App. May 19, 2025)).

Background. A man purchased a recreational vehicle (RV) designed, manufactured, and distributed by Adventurer Manufacturing, Inc. The RV’s electrical system had four batteries which could be recharged using solar panels on the RV’s roof, an inverter-charger connected to an external power source, or a combination of both. Adventurer later added battery heaters to allow the consumer to charge the batteries in cold weather. Two months later, the vehicle caught fire while parked and plugged in in the man’s driveway and was destroyed. The man’s insurer, Progressive Preferred Insurance Company, paid proceeds for the damage and then demanded this amount from the manufacturer. Adventurer refused, claiming that the temperature at the time of the incident was 27 degrees Fahrenheit (below freezing) and the RV’s manual specifically warned against charging a frozen battery. Progressive filed a subrogation action against Adventurer asserting causes of action for negligence, strict liability, and breach of warranties.

Prior proceedings. The insurer’s consulting engineer opined that the fire originated in the battery compartment, since he did not find any evidence of failure or malfunction on the inverter/charger or its wiring and the batteries themselves exhibited greater damage. The insurer’s forensic electrical expert had the same opinions. He noted that the only source of ignition inside the battery compartment were the batteries themselves, one battery was internally ruptured, but the exact cause of a battery failure was unknown. However, he excluded the consumer’s care and use of the RV as a cause because the manufacturer installed heat pads to warm the batteries to a safe charging temperature in winter, but no such heater was found near the batteries after the accident.

In response, Adventurer’s forensic engineer considered potential ignition sources including the extension cord, inverter-charger, battery heaters, batteries themselves, and associated wiring, but noted that the RV was “completely destroyed” and that most components were either too damaged or not collected for inspection, meaning that “none of the possible sources of ignition [could] be ruled out.” A second investigator reviewed the available data and found that there was insufficient evidence to determine the specific ignition source and sequence. A district court granted the manufacturer’s summary judgment motion, reasoning that Progressive presented only circumstantial evidence and failed to prove proximate cause. The insurer appealed, claiming that the lower court erred in weighing the parties’ expert evidence and determining that there was insufficient evidence of a product defect.

Credibility determination. The district court observed that each claim required a showing that the RV was defective, and all counts failed since none of Progressive’s experts could point to a defect in the battery. Progressive properly submitted that the district court applied the wrong standard by requiring “substantial evidence” and failing to recognize the disputed facts in the record. As per Minn. R. Civ. P. 56.03(a), Adventurer, as the party seeking summary judgment, bore the burden of making a prima facie showing that there were no genuine issues of material fact for trial. It failed to meet that burden since both of its experts agreed that the fire’s source could not be conclusively determined. Moreover, a nonmoving party “does not need to show substantial evidence to withstand summary judgment, but merely sufficient evidence to allow reasonable persons to reach different conclusions on the issue.” BFI Waste Sys. of N. Am., LLC v. Bishop, 927 N.W.2d 314, 323 (Minn. App. 2019). The insurer’s experts excluded the man’s actions as a possible source and identified the batteries as the ignition source, thus creating a genuine dispute of fact precluding summary judgment.

The lower court also found that Progressive had “not met its burden to prove proximate cause,” and could not “establish a defect that proximately caused the fire.” However, Progressive, as the nonmoving party, was “not required to demonstrate or prove [its] claim in order to avoid summary judgment,” but merely “furnish evidence creating genuinely disputed material facts.” Geist-Miller v. Mitchell, 783 N.W.2d 197, 202 (Minn. App. 2010). The conflicting expert opinions here fulfilled this standard and “summary judgment is inappropriate when reasonable persons might draw different conclusions from the evidence presented.” Warren v. Dinter, 926 N.W.2d 370, 375 (Minn. 2019). It is for the jury to weigh conflicting evidence and make credibility determinations, not the district court. Hoyt Props., Inc. v. Prod. Res. Grp., LLC, 736 N.W.2d 313, 320 (Minn. 2007). Accordingly, the district court erred by misapplying the law, weighing the evidence, and assessing the credibility of the competing experts.

Product defect. Progressive next asserts that the district court erred by concluding that it must show direct—rather than circumstantial—evidence of a defect and establish proximate causation by ruling out other “equally likely causes of the fire” to prove a product-liability claim. Minnesota courts have held that “generally no specific defect need be alleged, and a defective condition can be proved by circumstantial evidence.” Int’l Fin. Servs., Inc. v. Franz, 534 N.W.2d 261, 266 (Minn. 1995) “Moreover, circumstantial evidence may be sufficient to show the causal relationship between the product and the injury [that] followed its use.” The insurer claimed that it had offered both circumstantial and direct evidence in the form of expert testimony that would allow a reasonable juror to find a defect in the RV and was not required to “prove” its claim at the pretrial stage. The appeals court agreed that, at this stage, the insurer was not required to “prove” proximate causation. Nelson v. Wilkins Dodge, Inc., 256 N.W.2d 472, 476 (Minn. 1977) and that “causation in a breach-of-warranty case presents a factual issue.” Driscoll v. Standard Hardware, Inc., 785 N.W.2d 805, 816 (Minn. App. 2010). The district court’s acknowledgement that there were “equally plausible explanations” for the fire indicated triable issues and “all inferences from circumstantial evidence and all doubts must be resolved against the movant” Forsblad v. Jepson, 195 N.W.2d 429, 430 (Minn. 1972). Accordingly, the lower court’s decision was reversed.

The case is No. A24-1536.

Judge: Harris, J.

Attorneys: Alyssa L. Johnson (Yost & Baill, LLP) for Progressive Preferred Insurance Co. Paul E. Darsow (Tewksbury & Kerfeld, P.A.) for Adventurer Manufacturing, Inc.

Companies: Progressive Preferred Insurance Co.; Adventurer Manufacturing, Inc.

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