The plaintiff was rendered a paraplegic when he joined a crowd to storm the field at the end of a football game and the goalpost fell on his back. (He was not pulling on the goalpost at the time it snapped.) The district court held it was obvious to a reasonable person that a collapsing goalpost posed a risk of serious injury. In affirming the decision, the Seventh Circuit noted that, although the “open and obvious” rule had been abrogated, obviousness remained a relevant inquiry because the question of what was unreasonably dangerous depended upon the reasonable expectations of consumers and expected uses. In addition, and in any event, it was the plaintiff’s burden under the Indiana Products Liability Act to show that the cost-benefit formula demanded adopting an alternative design. Affirming dismissal, the court explained that the plaintiff’s expert’s affidavit “is comprised of mere conclusions. For the premise that fans are unaware of the risks, he offers only speculation that social pressure and publicity falsely assure them that pulling down posts is safe. (Perhaps seeing the weakness, the Bournes contend simply that people would not rip down posts if they knew the risks.) As mentioned above, Adams’s suggestion that Gilman Gear’s change in aluminum alloy in 1985 made the product less safe is nothing but innuendo. Moreover, Adams does not provide a basis on which a finder of fact could evaluate the frequency of injuries caused by goalposts, or calculate the extent to which risk would actually be reduced by the alternative designs, or justify the cost of those alternatives relative to the benefits of aluminum posts. Although Gilman Gear points out such flaws, explaining that Adams’s affidavit actually proves the infrequency of injury relative to the number of games, the Bournes retort simply that Adams’s testimony was not meant to provide those statistics. As if unaware of their burden, they say neither statistics nor testing is required because the competitors actually sell safer (according to Adams) posts (although they are 38% to 700% more expensive). But that will not do: mere existence of a safer product is not sufficient to establish liability.” Bourne v. Marty Gilman Inc., 452 F.3d 632 (7th Cir. 2006).