Early in my career, I worked on a case that forever changed the way I look at everyday tools. It involved a kind man—a husband and father—who was simply trying to pick avocados from a tree in his backyard for folks at the church he regularly attended. He used a telescoping fruit picker he had purchased from a large home improvement store, made by a well known tool manufacturer. No one looking at that product would have thought it was a deadly piece of equipment.
The fruit picker itself was bright orange and made of aluminum. That decision—choosing aluminum for a long, pole type tool used outdoors and around trees—turned out to be catastrophic.
The Hidden Electrocution Hazard
The avocado tree stood near overhead power lines, but the lines were obscured by the tree’s large leaves. From the ground, it was easy not to see them. As this man extended the aluminum fruit picker up into the canopy, the tool made contact with the concealed power line and he was electrocuted.
On the product itself, there were no meaningful warnings about electrocution. The only warning was buried in tiny print on a disposable product card that came in the basket portion of the tool—something most people throw away as packaging. Meanwhile, the pole’s bright orange color is the kind of thing that can easily read as “safety” to a homeowner or handyman, not as a signal of deadly electrical danger.
A long metal pole, marketed for reaching into trees, sold without clear, permanent warnings about power lines and electrocution. That is not just unfortunate; it is dangerous design and dangerous marketing.
What We Discovered About the Design Choices
During discovery, we learned that the manufacturer had been offered different material options when designing this fruit picker. Some of those options were insulated and far safer around electricity. The company did not choose those materials. Instead, it selected the cheapest option—aluminum—which is highly conductive.
Generally speaking, in product liability law, manufacturers are expected to act as experts in the products they sell. They are supposed to understand how their tools will be used in the real world and what risks those uses create. Here, that meant understanding that:
· Fruit pickers and nut harvesters are routinely used around trees near overhead power lines.
· Long, conductive poles raise obvious electrocution risks when they can accidentally contact energized lines.
· If a safer, reasonably available design exists—such as using insulated materials or building in clear, permanent warnings—that safer alternative can and should be used.
In fact, in another jurisdiction where this company also sold products, the law on the books banned aluminum in fruit and nut harvesting tools because of the electrocution risk. The danger was not theoretical. It was known.
Through investigation and discovery, we uncovered that the manufacturer had at least three safer, insulated materials available for use in this tool, yet it chose to build the fruit picker out of highly conductive aluminum because it was the cheapest option. That choice to prioritize lower cost over basic electrical safety helped turn an ordinary backyard task into a fatal electrocution.
Multiple Defendants, Shared Responsibility
The tool manufacturer was not the only party whose choices mattered. The power company responsible for the lines in that neighborhood had notice—through prior outages and complaints—that vegetation and tree growth near its lines were a problem. Yet the trees were not properly trimmed, and the power lines remained hidden in the avocado canopy.
When you combine:
· A highly conductive aluminum fruit picker with inadequate warnings, and
· Overhead power lines left obscured by untrimmed trees despite prior notice,
you create a foreseeable, lethal hazard that an ordinary homeowner working in his backyard could never fully appreciate.
In cases like this, the law allows a jury to look at all of the responsible parties—not just the product manufacturer, but also utilities and others who had duties to maintain safe conditions—and to apportion fault based on the choices each one made.
Profits Over People: How the Law Holds Manufacturers Accountable
Product liability law exists for exactly this reason. When a company:
· Puts a product into the marketplace that is unreasonably dangerous as designed.
· Fails to use safer, feasible alternative designs.
· Fails to provide clear, permanent warnings about known risks.
it can be held responsible for the harm those decisions cause.
In this case, the manufacturer’s decisions—along with the power company’s failure to properly manage vegetation around known, energized lines—held multiple defendants accountable. This case called out institutional actors that knew, or should have known, that their choices were a recipe for tragedy.
Why Stories Like This Matter
Most people assume that if a product is sold on the shelf of a major store, and a utility line runs through their neighborhood, they are reasonably safe if they use common sense. This family learned the hard way that is not always true. The law cannot bring a husband and father back, but it can demand answers and accountability for the decisions that led to his death.
Cases like this remind us that “accidents” are often the predictable result of design and maintenance choices made in boardrooms and control rooms far away from the backyard where the harm occurs. When companies and utilities put profits over people, the civil justice system may be the only tool families have to force change—and change was enforced: this product now carries a clear warning label about the electrocution danger that should have been there from the start.