Ford Motor Co. v. Ledesma
| Decision Date | 21 December 2007 |
| Docket Number | No. 05-0895.,05-0895. |
| Citation | 242 S.W.3d 32 |
| Parties | FORD MOTOR COMPANY, Petitioner, v. Tiburcio LEDESMA, Jr., Respondent. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Craig A. Morgan, Attorney At Law, Michael W. Eady and William Leonard Mennucci, Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons, L.L.P., Austin, for Petitioner.
Kenneth Oden Jr., Brian Johnson Roark, Minton, Burton, Foster & Collins, Austin, Amanda Eileen Staine Peterson and Andy Taylor, Andy Taylor and Associates, P.C., Houston, TX, for Respondent.
Stephen E. Garner, Stephen E. Garner, P.C., Houston, TX, for Intervenor.
In this products liability case, Ford Motor Co. argues that the trial court reversibly erred in charging the jury by giving an incomplete definition of "manufacturing defect." We agree. Additionally, we hold that a frequently submitted definition of "producing cause" should no longer be used. We remand the case for a new trial under a jury charge that reflects our applicable caselaw, including our decision today.
In March 1999, Tiburicio Ledesma, Jr. purchased a new Ford F-350 Super Duty pickup truck for his construction business. The truck had four rear tires, two on each side, surrounded by fiberglass fenders extending beyond the sides of the truck.
On June 5, 1999, Ledesma turned onto a two-lane street in Austin and began to accelerate. He testified that after shifting gears the truck suddenly began to lurch, and he lost control, striking two parked cars, a Firebird and a Civic, on the side of the street. The truck then hit the street curb and came to rest: At the time of the accident, the truck's odometer read about 4,100 miles.
Power from the truck engine is conveyed to the rear axle by the drive shaft, which connects the transmission in the front of the truck with the differential/rear axle assembly in the rear. As seen in the trial exhibit reproduced below, the rearaxle housing is attached to two sets of rear leaf springs by u-bolts, which wrap around the axle housing and are bolted to a rear spring plate that sits on top of the leaf-spring, assembly. On each side of the truck, two u-bolts attach the rear-axle housing to a spring plate and set of leaf springs.
Both parties agree that the truck's rear leaf spring and axle assembly came apart and that this separation caused the drive shaft to dislodge from the transmission. The core dispute centers on when and why this malfunction occurred and whether it caused the collision or resulted from it. That is, did a manufacturing defect trigger the right rear-axle displacement and cause Ledesma to lose control of the truck and strike the parked cars (as Ledesma claims), or did the right rear axle detach when Ledesma struck the parked cars and curb (as Ford claims)?
At trial, Ledesma claimed that he lost control of the truck when its drive shaft separated from the transmission and "pronged" on the pavement, causing him to hit the parked cars. A police officer testified that he investigated the accident scene and prepared a report based on Ledesma's description of the accident. The report makes no mention of any other witnesses. Ledesma also presented two expert witnesses in support of his manufacturing defect claim, as discussed below.
Ford presented an expert, Dan May, in support of its theory that the axle-tospring attachment failed, not because of a manufacturing defect, but because of the forces exerted on it when Ledesma struck the parked vehicles and curb. Among other efforts to discredit May, Ledesma emphasized to the jury that May was a long-time Ford employee and had never found a defect in a Ford product.
Ford also called the owner of the Firebird, Edward Plyant, who testified by deposition that he witnessed the accident from a driveway. Plyant testified that Ledesma was speeding and inattentive and struck the Firebird at a high rate of speed. Ledesma testified that Plyant did not see the accident, but came outside after hearing the ensuing commotion, and that Plyant had unsuccessfully sued Ledesma.
The jury sided 11-1 with Ledesma, finding that a manufacturing defect caused the accident and that Ledesma was not contributorily negligent, and awarding economic damages of $215,380. The court of appeals affirmed.1
Ford argues that the trial court erred in admitting the testimony of Ledesma's two expert witnesses because their opinions were unreliable.2
Ledesma's expert David Hall, an accident reconstructionist, testified by deposition that he believed a mark in the road showed that the drive axle struck the pavement before the truck struck the Firebird, consistent with Ledesma's theory that the truck malfunctioned and caused the collision. He reached this conclusion by reviewing a number of photographs. Based on the photographic evidence of damage to the Firebird and an engineering paper providing a method for estimating speed based on the Firebird's body damage, Hall also estimated that Ledesma's truck was traveling at a very slow speed when it struck the Firebird, again consistent with Ledesma's theory of the accident and inconsistent with Ford's theory that Ledesma was speeding and otherwise driving carelessly.
Ford raises numerous complaints about the reliability of Hall's testimony. Ford notes that the post-accident photographs of the road were taken by Ledesma and his father with a low-quality disposable camera, that there are many spots and marks on the grainy photographs, and that the marks do not reliably indicate that the drive shaft struck the road prier to the crash with the Firebird. Ford stresses that the investigating police officer found no gouges in the pavement despite a careful search of the accident scene. Ford also raises numerous complaints about Hall's estimate of the truck's speed at the time of the Firebird collision. These complaints include two observations: (1) the engineering paper on which Hall relied states that it should not be used when examining side swipes such as the accident in issue; and (2) the damage to the Firebird, as confirmed by the car's owner and a repair estimate, was far more severe than Hall assumed, rendering his estimate of a very slow impact unreliable.
Ford complains that the testimony of Ledesma's principal expert, metallurgical and mechanical engineer Geert Aerts, was likewise unreliable. Ledesma counters that Aerts is a leading expert on truck leaf springs; Aerts has investigated about 150 leaf-spring failures. Ford does not claim that Aerts was unqualified to testify as an expert on the accident in issue but contends that his theory of the accident was unreliable for various reasons.
Aerts focused on the u-bolts holding the rear axle to the rear springs and concluded that one of them was defectively manufactured. His theory was that a rear passenger-side u-bolt was loose, causing it to vibrate. This vibration eventually fatigued and fractured a center pin holding the leaf springs to the rear spring plate, which in turn allowed the u-bolts, spring plate, and rear axle to slide backwards, pulling the drive shaft from the transmission. Aerts examined the truck's u-bolts while they were still on the truck and found the torque on each bolt to be well below that required by Ford's specifications. While he conceded that the torques might have changed due to the accident, he concluded that the u-bolt in issue was under-torqued when Ford assembled the truck.
Aerts testified extensively about how the th:bolt came to be under-torqued. One explanation was that one leg of the u-bolt was manufactured a few millimeters higher than the other, which could have caused the nut on the shorter leg to receive an insufficient torque when it and other nuts were simultaneously tightened. Aerts claimed that, according to a Ford "product engineering" sheet for the u-bolt, admitted into evidence, this slight difference in heights of the legs exceeded the tolerance in Ford's own specifications. The engineering sheet provided diagrams and various specifications for the u-bolts.
Aerts also testified that the product en gineering sheet required the bottom, curved portion of the u-bolt to be flattened to allow for a better grip on the axle, and that the flattened portion on the allegedly defective bolt was off center by about three-quarters of an inch. According to Aerts, this manufacturing defect reduced the surface area of the bolt in contact with the axle, thus reducing the bolt's grip on the axle. This defect also allegedly allowed the bolt to dig into and deform the axle housing, causing the bolt to further loosen over time. The product engineering sheet clearly shows that the flattened portion of the u-bolt is to be centered at the bottom of the curved portion of the bolt, with flattening forty-five degrees up from either side of the bottom of the bolt, and a blend from flat to round for another forty-five degrees on both sides of the bolt.
As further evidence of a pre-accident defect, Aerts focused on the rear spring plate. The u-bolts went through this plate, which sits on top of the leaf springs. The u-bolts were tightened onto the plate with four nuts. The rear spring plate also had a center pin attaching the leaf springs to the plate. Aerts claimed that rust and marks on the spring plate near the hole for the center pin indicated that the u-bolt was loose, allowing the assembly to vibrate and the pin to, scratch the spring plate over a period of time. These observations were consistent with his theory of a u-bolt that was loose before the accident, resulting in vibration that caused the center pin to suffer a fatigue fracture and precipitate the u-bolt slippage and drive shaft dislocation.
Aerts also theorized that, perhaps for a reason other than the uneven u-bolt ends and flattened portion of...
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