Shipp v. General Motors Corp.

• Decision Date: 14 January 1985
• Docket Number: No. 83-2487,83-2487
• Citation: 750 F.2d 418
• Parties: , 17 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 346 Holly SHIPP, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 418

750 F.2d 418

1 Fed.R.Serv.3d 114, 17 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 346

Holly SHIPP, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 83-2487.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Jan. 14, 1985.

Fulbright & Jaworski, Stephen C. Dillard, Joe W. Redden, Jr., Houston, Tex., for defendant-appellant.

Hill, Parker, Franklin, Cardwell & Jones, Houston, Tex., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Before GEE, POLITZ and HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judges.

PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge:

General Motors appeals from a judgment following a jury trial in a products liability crashworthiness case. It challenges both the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury's findings of defective roof design and producing cause and the district court's evidentiary rulings regarding certain demonstrative evidence depicting rollover sequences. We affirm.

I

Holly Shipp, a nineteen-year-old Texas college student, and four of her friends were returning from a party in Holly's 1976 Pontiac TransAm automobile. While navigating the local "Dead Man's Curve," Holly lost control and the car completed a single rollover. The roof over the driver's seat collapsed, and though her four passengers were not seriously injured, Holly suffered a broken back and permanent paralysis. Holly sued, asserting that the car's roof had collapsed because it was defectively designed and that the roof's impact upon her shoulders broke her back. GM denied that the TransAm's roof was defectively designed or was a producing cause of injury. Rather, GM contended that Shipp, who was not wearing a seat belt, broke her back when she "fell" into the roof during the rollover. The jury accepted Shipp's theory and awarded her $750,000. After conforming the judgment to a written stipulation concerning past custodial care, the district court denied GM's motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and for new trial. GM here argues that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury's finding that the roof design was both defective and a producing cause of injury, and that the district court erred in certain evidentiary rulings.

II

We begin by noting that the jury's verdict, rendered after eleven days of trial will not be lightly disregarded. Its findings must be upheld if this court, considering all of the evidence and all its reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the winning party, finds that there is substantial evidence "of such quality and weight that reasonable and fair-minded men in the exercise of impartial judgment might reach different conclusions ...." Boeing Co. v. Shipman, 411 F.2d 365, 374 (5th Cir.1969) (en banc); Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. v. Falgoust, 386 F.2d 248, 253 (5th Cir.1967).

General Motors contends that our standard in reviewing the jury's finding of defective design is stricter given the fact its product met the only government standard relating to roof strength, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 216, 49 C.F.R. Sec. 71.216 (1973). But obedience to the federal standard does not intensify our standard of review. While compliance is evidence, albeit persuasive and contradictory to plaintiff's proof, it is only a piece of the evidentiary puzzle. Of course, compliance with such minimum safety standards does not exempt or immunize a manufacturer from common law strict liability. Sours v. General Motors Corp., 717 F.2d 1511, 1517 (6th Cir.1983); Ellis v. K-Lan Co., Inc., 695 F.2d 157, 161 (5th Cir.1983). Certainly Congress did not intend such a result, for 15 U.S.C. Sec. 1397(c) provides: "Compliance with any Federal motor vehicle safety standard issued under this subchapter does not exempt any person from any liability under common law."

In deciding whether, under Texas law, a product is defectively designed, ¹ a jury must balance the product's utility against the likelihood and gravity of injury from its use. Boatland of Houston, Inc. v. Bailey, 609 S.W.2d 743, 746 (Tex.1980); Turner v. General Motors Corp., 584 S.W.2d 844, 847 (Tex.1979). Texas courts have advanced balancing criteria to which strict liability parties should direct their evidence, ² but as the district judge did here, have only required that the jury be instructed in general terms to consider "the utility of the product and the risk involved in its use." Turner, 584 S.W.2d at 847.

Nonetheless, General Motors contends that under Texas law a plaintiff must offer evidence as to each criterion and that insufficiency of proof as to any one of them will defeat a finding of design defect as a matter of law. We disagree. The Texas Supreme Court has never explicitly made proof of each balancing factor a distinct element of a strict liability claim. See Boatland, 609 S.W.2d at 746 n. 2 ("a number of evidentiary factors may be considered in determining whether a product's design is defective") (emphasis added); Turner, 584 S.W.2d at 849 ("It has been pointed out that the evidence necessary to address the appropriate elements of balancing criteria should be overtly advanced by both parties in a strict liability action....") (emphasis added). And certainly, that the jury is instructed in ultimate terms without detailing the criteria is at odds with the notion that proof of each is required.

Shipp relied heavily upon circumstantial evidence and the opinion testimony of her expert, Dr. Michael Kaplan. GM, in its sufficiency challenge, in turn fired upon Kaplan's opinions. At the same time, GM does not quarrel with the admission of Kaplan's testimony, perhaps recognizing that a trial court's qualification of a witness as an expert, Fed.R.Evid. 702, will not be disturbed absent an abuse of discretion. Ellis, 695 F.2d at 162; Garwood v. International Paper Co., 666 F.2d 217, 223 (5th Cir.1982).

Dr. Kaplan testified that GM could and should have designed a stronger roof for the vehicle, with more headroom, to withstand the relatively low forces involved in this single revolution accident and to provide a reasonable amount of occupant protection. He believed the national standard to be an inadequate minimum because it was based on static forces and failed to establish a "non-encroachment zone" for occupant protection. Kaplan suggested a better method for testing the amount of roof deformation under dynamic rollover forces, which he demonstrated in conducting a "drop test" of a 1976 Pontiac TransAm. ³ He cited a number of scientific studies which stressed the importance of establishing a protected space around automobile occupants and which supported his finding of a "very strong correlation" between roof crush and the frequency and severity of rollover injuries. Kaplan, albeit in a sketchy way, then proposed an alternative roof design factoring in roof strength and headroom which, while "similar to the cars on the road today," would minimize roof intrusion into occupant space. When asked how GM could have made a "safer roof, a stronger roof" for the TransAm, Kaplan suggested that heavier metal be used more efficiently by "boxing" it with certain welding techniques. Though Kaplan never designed a TransAm automobile with such features, he testified that testing of redesigned roof structures on other passenger cars supported the feasibility of his alternative technique. ⁴ GM's own expert admitted that a stronger roof could indeed have been made for the TransAm, although such increased "strength" would reduce the energy absorbing characteristics of the design and force the energy to be absorbed in the lateral plane of multiple rollovers.

General Motors vigorously argues that Shipp never established that a stronger roof is a safer roof, and that the defectiveness of a product can only be determined by reference to safer alternatives. See Kindred v. Con/Chem, Inc., 650 S.W.2d 61, 62 (Tex.1983); Boatland, 609 S.W.2d at 746. Kaplan testified, however, that Shipp's accident "involved forces that were sufficiently low so that a manufacturer ... could have designed a roof to withstand it." He further stated that there was a "causal connection between how much roof deformation you get in a rollover accident and how seriously somebody is injured." The TransAm sustained substantial roof deformation, in his opinion, because the "[b]asic design of the roof is simply just too weak." In other words, roof weakness led to roof deformation, which in turn, resulted in serious injury. Otherwise stated, a stronger roof is a safer roof.

Despite the force of GM's argument, we are persuaded that the risk to passengers of roof deformation and the trade-offs involved in a more rigid roof design were questions for the jury. Holly Shipp offered evidence of the dangerousness of the TransAm roof and the feasibility and availability of a safer alternative. That no other passenger car employed this design will not alone defeat recovery. See General Motors Corp. v. Turner, 567 S.W.2d 812, 819 (Tex.Civ.App.--Beaumont 1978), rev'd on other grounds, Turner v. General Motors Corp., 584 S.W.2d 844 (Tex.1979). The jury had before it evidence enabling it to engage in the necessary balancing and supporting its finding of defective roof design.

GM next contends that there was insufficient evidence to support a finding that the defective roof was a producing cause of Holly Shipp's extensive injuries. The attack on this finding is two-tiered. GM first argues that the evidence conclusively established that Shipp could not have been injured in the manner which she claimed. At the next level, it argues that even if sufficient evidence supports such factual causation, Shipp failed to meet her legal burden of proving causation in this, a crashworthiness case.

a

Shipp draws a causal inference from the fact that the bulk of roof deformation occurred over her seat and that she was the only passenger seriously injured. GM demurs, pointing out that "substantial" roof deformation also existed over the...