Oakes v. General Motors Corp.

• Decision Date: 12 November 1993
• Docket Number: No. 1-91-3691,1-91-3691
• Citation: 257 Ill.App.3d 10,194 Ill.Dec. 844,628 N.E.2d 341
• Parties: , 194 Ill.Dec. 844, Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 13,833 Robert OAKES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellant/Third-Party Defendant-Appellant (Leonard A. Potter, Defendant/Third Party Plaintiff-Appellee).
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 341

628 N.E.2d 341

257 Ill.App.3d 10, 194 Ill.Dec. 844,

Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 13,833

Robert OAKES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellant/Third-Party Defendant-Appellant (Leonard A. Potter Defendant/Third Party Plaintiff-Appellee).

No. 1-91-3691.

Appellate Court of Illinois First District, Sixth Division.

Nov. 12, 1993.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing Jan. 28, 1994.

Charles J. Reed, Richard D. Trainor, David H. Lucas, Reed, Scoby & Trainor, Ltd., David A. Novolselsky, David A. Novoselsky & Associates, Chicago, for plaintiff-appellee Robert Oakes.

MODIFIED ON DENIAL OF REHEARING

Justice McNAMARA delivered the opinion of the court:

This cause arises out of a collision of two vehicles which resulted in the paralysis of plaintiff, Robert Oakes. The jury returned a joint and several verdict of $7,000,000 against defendant, General Motors, which manufactured plaintiff's vehicle, and co-defendant, Leonard Potter, who drove the vehicle which struck plaintiff. The trial court entered judgment on the verdict, and it is from this judgment that General Motors now appeals. (Potter admitted negligence at trial, and the jury was instructed that the only issue as to Potter was the amount of plaintiff's damages. On Potter's contribution claim against General Motors, the jury allocated 7% fault to General Motors and 93% to Potter. Potter raises no issues on appeal.) General Motors contends that: (1) The evidence failed to establish any enhanced injury attributable to a defective seat; (2) the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury on the concept of "enhanced injury"; and (3) the trial court erroneously excluded testing evidence that was critical to the enhanced injury issue and to the issues of proximate cause and defect.

The relevant facts are as follows. On February 10, 1983, shortly after 8:00 p.m., plaintiff was stopped at a traffic light in his 1982 Chevrolet Camaro Berlinetta when he was rear-ended by Potter, who was driving a four-wheel drive pickup truck with a snow plow bracket mounted on its front end and roofing shingles in the truck bed. Plaintiff was alone in his vehicle and was not wearing a seat belt. Plaintiff was later diagnosed as sustaining an axial fracture of the cervical vertebrae, resulting in permanent incomplete quadriplegia.

Within minutes, fire department and paramedic personnel arrived at the scene. Four of these individuals testified at trial that plaintiff was observed inside the vehicle with his feet near the brake and gas pedals, his buttocks on the console area separating the two front bucket seats and his head in the right rear corner of the rear passenger compartment.

Lawrence Naddy, a firefighter and paramedic for the Village of Midlothian, testified that the passenger compartment of plaintiff's vehicle had suffered only minor damage, and the rear left passenger seat, although slightly bowed, was still intact. The roof was almost in its normal position, and the rear passenger seatback was in a normal upright position, as if there had been no impact. The driver's seatback was in a fully-reclined position.

Jeffrey Floyd, a firefighter and paramedic for the Oak Forest Fire Department, examined plaintiff's vehicle while the roof was still in place and plaintiff still inside. Floyd observed that the back of the driver's seat was completely reclined and was resting on the seat in the left rear passenger area. The front passenger seat was in its normal position, and, apart from the position of the driver's seat, the remainder of the vehicle's interior was intact, with no noticeable damage. He testified that the only exterior damage was to the trunk-hatch area, noting that the left rear had substantially more damage than the right rear of the vehicle.

Stephen Morgan, a firefighter for the Village of Midlothian, observed the driver's seatback in a nearly fully-reclined, almost flat position, and stated that there were no obstructions in the rear seat area preventing the driver's seat from lying flat. The remainder of the interior was still intact, with the rear seatback in its normal position.

Susan Arnoni, an emergency medical technician for the Oak Forest Police Department, testified that the interior of the car appeared normal, and there was sufficient room for plaintiff's seatback to be in a fully-reclined position. From her vantage point on the passenger side, she was able to see plaintiff's seat cushion but could not see the seatback since Naddy was in the car obstructing her view.

Paramedic William Doepp, plaintiff's nephew, examined and photographed the car in a tow yard on February 11, 1983, the day after the collision. Doepp testified that the driver's seatback was in an upright position resting against some sheet metal and other car parts which had been placed in the vehicle's rear passenger area. Upon kneeling on the bottom cushion of the driver's seat, Doepp stated that the seat suddenly moved forward. Doepp then grabbed the bottom seat cushion and discovered that it slid back and forth freely in its track without having to maneuver any controls. When he moved the seat forward, Doepp noticed that the driver's seatback stayed in contact with the debris, reclining on its own, and when he moved the cushion backward, the seatback moved freely into an upright position.

Plaintiff called several expert witnesses to render opinions regarding the speed of the impact; whether the collapse of the driver's seatback was a defective condition of the vehicle; the causal relationship between the collapse of the seatback and the injury sustained by plaintiff; and the injuries which would have resulted had the seatback remained upright.

Dr. Rudolf Limpert, Ph.D., a mechanical engineer and accident reconstructionist, opined that the impact speed of Potter's truck, based on an estimated truck weight of 7,000 pounds, was between 31 and 36 miles per hour, producing a change of velocity or "Delta V" (representing the speed generated by an impacted vehicle at the moment of collision) of between 18 to 21 miles per hour. Limpert concluded that plaintiff would have endured the collision without serious injury, given the impact speed and Delta V of the collision, had the seatback not collapsed. Limpert opined that the seatback would have acted as a restraint mechanism, just as a seatbelt would in a front-end collision, and would have prevented any abnormal deflections or forces upon plaintiff's neck and head. Had the seatback remained in an upright position, according to Limpert, plaintiff would not have impacted the rear seatback. He concluded that the driver's seat in plaintiff's vehicle was unreasonably dangerous "because it failed in this fairly low Delta V rear-end collision."

Limpert also stated it was his opinion, based on a review of photographs of the vehicle and statements of eyewitnesses, that the rear seat of the vehicle was in its normal position and that there were no obstructions preventing the driver's seatback from fully reclining. He concluded that the cause of the seat collapse was the failure of the recliner mechanism. In his view, the teeth of the mechanism either slipped or broke, allowing the seatback to recline. The failure of the recliner mechanism, in Limpert's view, eliminated the only means of restraining plaintiff in an upright position when he was struck by Potter and caused plaintiff instead to be propelled towards the rear, ultimately causing his spinal injury.

Limpert disagreed with the testimony of General Motors's experts that the impact speed was 45 to 50 miles per hour. In Limpert's opinion, the speed of impact was much lower. He based this conclusion on the fact that plaintiff's vehicle traveled only 109 feet after impact, while at the speed suggested by General Motors, plaintiff's vehicle would have traveled at least 138 feet. Moreover, he stated that at an impact speed of 45 to 50 miles per hour, Potter's truck would have traveled 77 feet after impact. In fact, the truck traveled only 45 to 50 feet.

On cross-examination, Limpert stated that he had not analyzed the occupant kinematics in this case, which he defined as the study of what happens to an occupant's body when subjected to the motion and forces of a given impact. Limpert could not offer an opinion as to the precise degree of angle at which a seatback loses its ability to restrain an unbelted occupant, but stated that at 25 degrees, or at an upright position, the occupant would likely not move at all.

Leon Kazarian, a biomechanical engineer, testified on plaintiff's behalf regarding the cause of the spinal injury. Kazarian concluded that the only way plaintiff's injury could have occurred was if his head had been rammed backward in a diagonal fashion impacting the rear seatback, which he believed cupped plaintiff's head and brought it to a stop with his body following in an axial alignment, producing a fracture of the cervical, or neck, area of his spine. Kazarian opined that the seatback collapse was the cause of plaintiff's injury and that plaintiff would not have sustained a serious injury but for the collapse of the seatback. Kazarian stated that if the driver's seatback had remained upright, plaintiff's body would have gone back into it, and he would thus have had uniform surface contact over the back side of his body. A seatbelt would not have prevented plaintiff's injury since, in Kazarian's view, a seatbelt is only effective in front-end collisions, not rearward impacts.

Kazarian disagreed with General Motors's theory that plaintiff's head struck the roof upon impact. Kazarian stated that if plaintiff's head had hit the roof, he would have sustained an anterior wedge-type fracture of his cervical spine because his chin would have been forced to his chest. He also would have suffered a head injury or concussion as a result of his head hitting the roof. Plaintiff sustained none of these injuries.

On cross-examination,...