Bearint ex rel. Bearint v. Dorell Juvenile Group

• Decision Date: 12 November 2004
• Docket Number: No. 04-10387.,04-10387.
• Citation: 389 F.3d 1339
• Parties: Edward BEARINT, on behalf of his minor child, Kagan BEARINT, Amanda Bearint, on behalf of her minor child, Kagan Bearint, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DOREL JUVENILE GROUP, INC., f.n.a. Cosco Inc., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

389 F.3d 1339

Edward BEARINT, on behalf of his minor child, Kagan BEARINT, Amanda Bearint, on behalf of her minor child, Kagan Bearint, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DOREL JUVENILE GROUP, INC., f.n.a. Cosco Inc., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 04-10387.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

November 12, 2004.

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Marie Tomassi, Trenam, Kemker, Scharf, Barkin, Frye, O'Neill & Mullis P.A., Saint Petersburg, FL, John Daniel Goldsmith, Trenam, Simmons, Kemker, Scharf, Barkin, Frye, O'Neill & Mullis P.A., Walter N. Burnside, III, Walter N. Burnside, P.A., Tampa, FL, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Weston F. Smith, Kenneth C. Deacon, Jr., Deacon & Moulds, P.A., St. Petersburg, FL, Walter C. Greenough, Schiff Hardin, LLP, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Before BIRCH, BARKETT and COX, Circuit Judges.

BARKETT, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiffs Edward and Amanda Bearint, on behalf of their minor child, Kagan Bearint, appeal the district court's entry of final judgment pursuant to a jury verdict finding that Cosco, the manufacturer of the automobile infant safety seat in which Kagan was seated at the time the Bearint car was involved in an accident, was not liable for the injuries Kagan sustained. The Bearints specifically contest the district court's handling of the jury instructions and verdict form, as well as several of the district court's evidentiary decisions.

I. Background

Amanda Bearint was driving a Saturn automobile with her sister Tracy Irwin, her ten-week-old son Kagan Bearint, and her seven-week-old nephew Alec Bacher. Tracy was in the front passenger seat, while the children were in rear-facing child seats in the back. Kagan's child seat, manufactured by Cosco and named the "Arriva," was strapped into the rear center seat. Alec's child seat, produced by another company, was secured to the right rear seat.

The four were stopped at an intersection when a Dodge conversion van rear-ended them at between 35 and 50 miles per hour. It pushed the Saturn forward with tremendous force. The stationary passengers moved towards the rear of the car as a result. This pressed Kagan against the harness of his Arriva. It also caused Amanda Bearint's front seat to collapse backwards onto Kagan's car seat. At the same time, the Dodge van smashed into the trunk of the car and pushed its contents into the back of the rear seat, which buckled forward. Further, the impact pushed the Saturn forward, into the rear of a Chevrolet Tahoe, forcing Kagan against the forward-facing shell of his car seat.

Amanda, Tracy, and Alec were not seriously injured. But for reasons that the Bearints and Cosco contest, Kagan sustained very serious brain damage. The Bearints claim that Kagan was injured when the back of the collapsing front seat struck him in the head, and sued both Saturn and Cosco for his "enhanced injuries" arising from alleged defects in the Saturn and alleged negligence and defects in the Arriva, respectively. "Enhanced injuries" do not include the injuries that Kagan sustained from the impacts themselves—they only encompass those caused by a defective device in the automobile once a crash occurs. In this case, the Bearints sought only damages from the alleged collision between the front seat back and Kagan's head, not from those caused by the crashes themselves.

Saturn settled with the Bearints, leaving Cosco as the sole defendant at trial. Thus, the purpose of trial was to determine if Kagan had suffered enhanced injuries beyond those caused by the impacts, whether the Arriva was defective or Cosco was negligent, and if so, whether the defect or negligence was a legal cause of his enhanced injuries. The Bearints' claims against Cosco specifically alleged that the Arriva seat failed to protect Kagan from the impact of the collapsing front seat back. Normally, infant car seats are designed to rotate backwards in rear-impact collisions to protect the children within. This cocoons the child between the back seat and the strong plastic shell of the car seat, and protects the child from the impact of a collapsing front seat. However, Kagan's Arriva did not rotate properly, exposing his head and allegedly causing his injuries. The Bearints alleged that the risk of collapsing front seats in rear-end impacts was so well-known when Cosco designed the Arriva that it had a duty to design the seat to protect children from this danger.

Cosco disputed that Kagan's injuries were actually from the collapse of the front seat, arguing rather that they were caused by the sudden acceleration and deceleration of his head in the child seat. It also argued that even if the collapsing front seat did cause enhanced injuries, the Arriva was not defective. Instead, it claimed that the Arriva was trapped by the almost simultaneous collapse of the front and rear seats. Further, Cosco alleged that Amanda Bearint strapped her son into the Arriva incorrectly, preventing the seat from restraining him properly.

A jury found that Kagan suffered "enhanced injuries," but that Cosco was not liable for them.¹ The trial court entered a judgment in favor of the company and denied the Bearints' post-trial motions.

The Bearints raise four issues on appeal. First, they claim that the trial court erred by allowing Cosco to admit evidence of Saturn's fault and by placing the issue of Saturn's liability on the jury verdict form,² contrary to Florida's "crashworthiness" doctrine. Second, they argue that the trial court abused its discretion when it excluded their expert's report of crash test results. Third, they claim that the trial court erroneously refused to give their jury instruction on manufacturing defects and used a confusing jury instruction and verdict interrogatory about Kagan's enhanced injuries. Finally, they claim that the trial court abused its discretion when it allowed Cosco to impeach their expert witness with materials that Cosco had never disclosed to the Bearints, by excluding one of their witnesses, and by excluding all of their rebuttal evidence.

II. Discussion

A. Admission of Evidence of Saturn's Fault and Placement of Saturn on Jury Verdict Form

The Bearints first challenge the district court's decision permitting Cosco to present evidence to the jury of Saturn's fault in causing any "enhanced injuries" and placing Saturn on the jury verdict form. They claim that D'Amario v. Ford Motor Co., 806 So.2d 424 (Fla.2001), which requires the exclusion of all evidence of fault with respect to the initial accident in "enhanced injury" cases, prevents the jury from considering whether Saturn was at fault for Kagan's enhanced injuries. The district court ruled that D'Amario did not exclude such evidence.

We review the district court's evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion. Morro v. City of Birmingham, 117 F.3d 508, 513 (11th Cir.1997), cert. denied, 523 U.S. 1020, 118 S.Ct. 1299, 140 L.Ed.2d 465 (1998). However, basing an evidentiary ruling on an erroneous view of the law constitutes an abuse of discretion per se. Conroy v. Abraham Chevrolet-Tampa, Inc., 375 F.3d 1228, 1232 (11th Cir.2004). We review a district court's determinations of state law de novo. Edic v. Century Prods. Co., 364 F.3d 1276, 1287 (11th Cir.2004). We therefore first address the district court's application of D'Amario.

D'Amario reconciles principles of comparative fault and proximate causation in enhanced injury cases. Florida follows the doctrine of comparative fault in civil negligence, strict liability, products liability, and breach of warranty cases such as this one. Fla. Stat. § 768.81 (2004). In general, parties are liable only for the percentage of the plaintiff's damages in an amount equal to the percentage of their fault. Id. In Fabre v. Marin, 623 So.2d 1182 (Fla.1993), the Florida Supreme Court held that this doctrine required the finder of fact to consider the fault of all tortfeasors—in that case those responsible for a car accident—when apportioning liability, even if they were not a party to the lawsuit. Thus, a defendant can argue to a jury that the fault of non-parties reduces the percentage of damages for which it is liable.

This doctrine created a problem in "enhanced injury" cases, also called "crashworthiness" suits. "Enhanced injury" claims generally occur after an automobile crash, when the failure of some device in the car causes more extensive injuries than would have been suffered had the device worked properly. In such a case, the fact-finder only determines liability for injuries inflicted by the failure of the device due to defects or negligence.

However, the principle that damages are apportioned by percentage of fault collides with the idea that society should hold manufacturers of faulty automotive equipment liable for defects regardless of what caused an underlying accident. On the one hand, the person who caused the initial accident is responsible for triggering the event that precipitated the failure of the faulty device in the first place. It follows that the jury should consider his or her fault when holding the manufacturer of the faulty device liable. On the other, the claimed injuries at issue are only those stemming from the failure of the faulty device. Regardless of whether the underlying accident resulted from someone's fault or purely by accident, the failure of the device would have caused the enhanced injuries. And because the manufacturer has a duty to design the device to protect against clearly foreseeable accidents, it should bear full responsibility for the product's defects. Thus, allowing a jury to allocate some of the fault to the initial tortfeasor would partially and unfairly absolve the manufacturer of liability for making a faulty device. In legal terms, the issue is whether the initial accident is a legal cause of the enhanced injuries.

The ...