Tellez-Cordova v. Campbell-Hausfeld/Scott Fetzger

In Tellez-Cordova v. Campbell-Hausfeld/Scott Fetzger (2004) 129 Cal.App.4th 577, the plaintiff asserted strict liability claims based on defective warnings and design defects against manufacturers of grinding, sanding, and cutting tools the plaintiff had used. The plaintiff's complaint alleged that the defendants' tools released toxic dust from other manufacturers' products, and that the dust caused his injuries. (Ibid.) The defendants successfully demurred to the complaint on the basis of the component parts doctrine. (Id. at p. 581.) In reversing, the appellate court concluded that the component parts doctrine was inapplicable: "The facts before us are not that respondents manufactured component parts to be used in a variety of finished products, outside their control, but instead that respondents manufactured tools which were specifically designed to be used with the abrasive wheels or discs they were used with, for the intended purpose of grinding and sanding metals, that the tools necessarily operated with those wheels or discs, that the wheels and discs were harmless without the power supplied by the tools, and that when the tools were used for the purpose intended by respondents, harmful respirable metallic dust was released into the air." (Id. at p. 582.)