Szeliga v. General Motors Corp., 83-1336
| Decision Date | 05 March 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 83-1336,83-1336 |
| Parties | 15 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 541 Constantina SZELIGA, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, et al., Defendants, Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
John Silvia, Jr., with whom Long & Silvia, Fall River, Mass., was on brief, for plaintiff, appellant.
Edward P. Leibensperger, with whom Nelson G. Apjohn, and Nutter, McClennen & Fish, Boston, Mass., were on brief, for General Motors Corp.
Before CAMPBELL, Chief Judge, BOWNES, Circuit Judge, and PETTINE, * Senior District Judge.
Plaintiff-appellant Constantina Szeliga appeals from a jury verdict finding no breach of warranty by defendant-appellee General Motors Corporation. Szeliga brought a products liability action against General Motors 1 for injuries sustained in a single car accident on August 2, 1976. Liability was alleged on the basis of negligence and breach of warranty. At the close of plaintiff's case, the district court granted defendant's motion for directed verdict on the negligence count. The case went to the jury on the issue of breach of warranty, and it found that defendant was not liable.
There is one issue on appeal, whether the district court committed reversible error by allowing two movie films made by General Motors to be shown to the jury. Appellant alleges two reasons for finding error, that the showing of the films was unduly prejudicial and constituted unfair surprise.
The facts are simple. Plaintiff's car went off the road, struck a cement culvert and finally came to a stop in a group of trees. Plaintiff claimed that the accident happened because the left front wheel fell off due either to negligent assembly or defective design and construction. General Motors took the position that the car went off the road because of Szeliga's careless driving and that the wheel was torn off when the left front of the car hit the cement culvert. The liability part of the trial was in effect a battle between experts. 2
General Motors' expert, James Tomlinson, an automotive expert, used the two films to illustrate why, in his opinion, the impact with the cement culvert caused the wheel to be torn off the car. In the films, a wheel which had been attached to an axle with the standard lug and nut arrangement was mounted on a wagon. The wagon was propelled along a track at high speed until the wheel struck a concrete block barrier. As a result of the impact, the wheel was peeled off the axle over the lug nuts. This illustrated Tomlinson's testimony that it was the impact, not the loss of lug nuts that caused the wheel to leave the axle. The two films showed two different runs of the wagon and wheel assembly.
"Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice ...." Fed.R.Evid. 403. The question of permitting the showing of a motion picture film is one for the sound and broad discretion of the district court. Johnson v. William C. Ellis & Sons Iron Works, 604 F.2d 950, 958 (5th Cir.1979). In assessing the admissibility of evidence, "[e]ach case must be judged under its own particular facts taking into account the specific purposes for which this type of evidence is submitted." Robbins v. Whelan, 653 F.2d 47, 49-50 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1123, 102 S.Ct. 972, 71 L.Ed.2d 110 (1981).
The relevancy of the films to defendant's theory of causation cannot be disputed. They were not offered as a re-creation or representation of how the accident actually happened. The films depicted an experiment illustrating Tomlinson's theory of the cause of the accident. They were an aid to the jury's understanding of his testimony. Dissimilarities between experimental and actual conditions affect the weight of the evidence, not its admissibility. Id. at 49.
Before the films were shown to the jury, the district court screened them and conducted an extensive voir dire on the tests depicted. The court fully and carefully instructed the jury regarding their function in the case. The district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the probative value...
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Table of cases
..., 34 F.3d 1091, 1105 (1st Cir. 1994), §7:23 Swain v. Curry , 595 So.2d 168, 172-73 (Fla.App.1992), §23:11 Szeliga v. General Motors , 728 F.2d 566, 567 (1st Cir. 1984), §16:93 T Tiara Condominium Ass’n, Inc. v. Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc ., 110 So.3d 399 (Fla. 2013), §§22:03, 22:12, 22......
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Table of Cases
...47 F.3d 277 (8th Cir 1995), §§201.1, 235 Synthes Spine Co. v. Walden, 44 F.R.D. 460 (E.D. Pa. 2005), §243 Szeliga v. General Motors Corp., 728 F.2d 566 (1st Cir. 1984), §561.6 -T- Tackett v. State Farm Fire & Casualty, 558 A.2d 1098 (Del. Super. Ct. 1988), §582 Talkington v. Atria Reclamelu......