Goodner v. Hyundai Motor Co.

• Decision Date: 19 August 2011
• Docket Number: No. 10–10660.,10–10660.
• Citation: 650 F.3d 1034
• Parties: Stuart GOODNER; Lisa Goodner, Individually and as Legal Heirs of the Estate of Sarah Goodner, deceased, and as next friends to R.G., a minor, Plaintiffs–Appellees,v.HYUNDAI MOTOR COMPANY, LIMITED, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

650 F.3d 1034

Stuart GOODNER; Lisa Goodner, Individually and as Legal Heirs of the Estate of Sarah Goodner, deceased, and as next friends to R.G., a minor, Plaintiffs–Appellees,

v.HYUNDAI MOTOR COMPANY, LIMITED, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 10–10660.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Aug. 19, 2011.

Kirk Louis Pittard (argued), Kelly, Durham & Pittard, L.L.P., Dallas, TX, Mellisa Richards Smith, Gillam & Smith, L.L.P., Marshall, TX, Paul D. Stipanovic, Gossett, Harrison, Reese, Wilson & Millican, San Angelo, TX, E. Todd Tracy, Tracy Firm, Dallas, TX, for Plaintiffs–Appellees.David E. Keltner, Marianne Marsh Auld (argued), Jody Scott Sanders, Kelly, Hart & Hallman, L.L.P., Fort Worth, TX, Chris A. Blackerby, Thomas M. Bullion, III, Germer, Gertz, Beaman & Brown, L.L.P., Austin, TX, for Defendant–Appellant.Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of TexasBefore HIGGINBOTHAM, DENNIS, and PRADO, Circuit Judges.PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge:

In this design defect case, Hyundai Motor Company Limited appeals a jury verdict in favor of Stuart and Lisa Goodner after their daughter, Sarah, sustained fatal injuries in an automobile accident. Hyundai argues there was insufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to have found that a design defect was the producing cause of Sarah's injuries. Applying the deferential standard of review required when examining jury verdicts, we affirm the judgment.

I.

In July 2007, R.G., 16–years–old at the time, and her 19–year–old sister, Sarah, drove five hours from their home outside of Dallas to watch their younger sister play in a softball tournament. The next morning, after sleeping for only five hours, Sarah and R.G. started the long drive back home.

Mrs. Goodner told Sarah not to let R.G. drive because she was tired and a young driver. However, R.G. started the drive, and the girls planned to switch drivers later. Sarah reclined the passenger seat of the 2005 Hyundai Tucson SUV and napped while her sister drove.¹ With the cruise control set to around 80 miles per hour, R.G. started falling asleep at the wheel, drifting off the highway. Sarah woke her, and R.G. overcorrected twice. The overcorrection caused the vehicle to drive off the road and crash into a barbed wire fence. Once off-road, the SUV rolled over three complete times before eventually stopping upright.

Both girls were wearing their seatbelts, and R.G. sustained only minor injuries. Sarah, however, was ejected from the vehicle. She was air-lifted to a nearby hospital but died en route.

The Goodner parents, Stuart and Lisa, filed suit against Hyundai and proceeded to trial on a strict liability design defect claim. The Goodners argued that the front passenger seat and the restraint system were defective because the seat could recline to an unsafe position—according to their expert, any recline of more than 45 degrees—permitting Sarah to be ejected from the vehicle even though she was wearing a seatbelt. After the plaintiffs rested their case, Hyundai moved for judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50, arguing that the Goodners had failed to prove the seat design was unreasonably dangerous. The district court denied the motion. Hyundai then renewed the motion at the jury charge conference, and it was again denied.

The jury found that a design defect was “a producing cause of the occurrence or injuries in question.” The jury assigned 45% responsibility to R.G., 10% to Sarah, and 45% to Hyundai, awarding $900,000 each to Stuart and Lisa for loss of companionship and mental anguish. The final judgment was reduced to $405,000 for each parent, based on the liability allocations.

Hyundai timely appealed, claiming that the district court should have granted its motion for judgment as a matter of law.

II.

If the issue is properly preserved, this court reviews de novo a district court's denial of a motion for judgment as a matter of law, applying the same standard as the district court.² In order to survive a Rule 50 motion, “the party opposing the motion must at least establish a conflict in substantial evidence on each essential element of their claim.” ³ We are “wary of upsetting jury verdicts” ⁴ and will “uphold a jury verdict unless the facts and inferences point so strongly and so overwhelmingly in favor of one party that reasonable [jurors] could not arrive at any verdict to the contrary.” ⁵ In other words, the “jury verdict must be upheld unless there is no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find as the jury did.” ⁶

When considering Rule 50 motions, a court “should consider all of the evidence—not just that evidence which supports the non-mover's case—but in the light and with all reasonable inferences most favorable to the party opposed to the motion.” ⁷ Although the federal standards of review apply, a court sitting in diversity, as here, “refers to state law for the kind of evidence that must be produced to support a verdict.” ⁸ Texas law will thus be used to determine the evidence the Goodners must produce to support their design defect claim.

Under Texas law, “[t]o recover for a products liability claim alleging a design defect, a plaintiff must prove that (1) the product was defectively designed so as to render it unreasonably dangerous; (2) a safer alternative design existed; and (3) the defect was a producing cause of the injury for which the plaintiff seeks recovery.” ⁹ On appeal, Hyundai asserts that the Goodners failed to prove each of these three elements.

III.

Unreasonable dangerousness is a common law element evaluated using the following five factors:

(1) the utility of the product to the user and to the public as a whole weighed against the gravity and likelihood of injury from its use; (2) the availability of a substitute product which would meet the same need and not be unsafe or unreasonably expensive; (3) the manufacturer's ability to eliminate the unsafe character of the product without seriously impairing its usefulness or significantly increasing its costs; (4) the user's anticipated awareness of the dangers inherent in the product and their avoidability because of the general public knowledge of the obvious condition of the product, or of the existence of suitable warnings or instructions; (5) the expectations of the ordinary consumer.¹⁰

This “risk-utility analysis does not operate in a vacuum, but rather in the context of the product's intended use and its intended users.” ¹¹ Generally, unreasonable dangerousness is a question of fact for the jury. It only becomes a matter of law if reasonable minds cannot differ.¹² Evidence on the five factors may be presented to the jury, but the factors themselves are not set out as a definitional requirement of design defect. ¹³ Here, the jury instructions defined “design defect” as “a condition of the product that renders it unreasonably dangerous as designed, taking into consideration the utility of the product and the risk involved in its use.” For courts considering judgment as a matter of law, the five factors are evaluated holistically; no single factor needs to be proven on its own, so long as all factors working together point to a finding of unreasonable dangerousness.¹⁴

The holistic analysis of the five factors does not compel judgment in Hyundai's favor as a matter of law. The first factor is a cost-benefit analysis of the utility of the design, here, a seat that can recline, compared to the risk to users. The evidence did not show a high utility for a seat that can recline more than 45 degrees, and the Goodners' expert testified that a reclined seat significantly increases the risk of ejection. While consumer preference is a consideration in the risk-utility analysis,¹⁵ limiting seat recline would not “impose liability in such a way as to eliminate whole categories of useful products from the market.” ¹⁶ There may be some benefits to a fully reclining seat, such as carrying cargo or napping at a rest stop, but a jury would not be unreasonable in concluding that the risks of this design outweigh the benefits.

The second factor, availability of an alternative, requires the jury to have reason to find that a proposed substitute is available that would not increase the risk for harm. The Goodners proposed limiting the seat recline to 45 degrees, a design which other car manufacturers had implemented. There was no indication that a seat with its recline limited to 45 degrees would create new hazards, other than possibly prohibiting a small subset of the population from purchasing very compact cars. Thus, the second factor weighs in favor of upholding the verdict. The third factor, the manufacturer's ability to eliminate the defect without impairing usefulness or significantly increasing cost, overlaps with the first two factors. There was evidence supporting a conclusion that Hyundai could have limited the recline of the seat without seriously impairing the overall usefulness of the seat or car. Indeed, the Hyundai Tucson's rear seats had a limited recline as did the front seats of competitor's vehicles.

The fourth and fifth factors involve consumer expectations and the user's ability to avoid harm through general knowledge or suitable warnings. Under Texas law “[w]hether the risk of injury is common knowledge is a question of law, not fact.” ¹⁷ However, the Supreme Court of Texas “did not foreclose the possibility that in some situations there could be a fact question about whether consumers have common knowledge of risks associated with a product.” ¹⁸ This is such a situation—it is not a matter of law whether the risk of injury from a reclining seat is common knowledge.¹⁹ Rather, common knowledge on reclining seats requires factual analysis, creating a jury question.

The only warnings against seat recline were in the owner's manual. Although a Hyundai expert testified these warnings were adequate, the jury is free to disregard his testimony and rely on...