Smith v. Mack Trucks, Inc.

• Decision Date: 20 June 2002
• Docket Number: No. 98-CA-00759-SCT.,98-CA-00759-SCT.
• Citation: 819 So.2d 1258
• Parties: Dorothy M. SMITH, R.C. Kilcrease, Jr., Robert Edgar Kilcrease and Roger Dale Ruffin v. MACK TRUCKS, INC. and Jackson Mack Sales, Inc.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

819 So.2d 1258

Dorothy M. SMITH, R.C. Kilcrease, Jr., Robert Edgar Kilcrease and Roger Dale Ruffin v. MACK TRUCKS, INC. and Jackson Mack Sales, Inc.

No. 98-CA-00759-SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

June 20, 2002.

Bo Roland, Jackson, Steven Mark Wann, Marie M. Fyke, attorneys for appellants.

H. Mitchell Cowan, Keith R. Raulston, Jackson, attorneys for appellees.

EN BANC.

DIAZ, J., for the court.

¶ 1. Jeffery Kilcrease died as a result of a single-vehicle log truck accident on November 6, 1991. His wrongful death beneficiaries filed suit against Mack Trucks, Inc. and Jackson Mack Sales, Inc. in Hinds County Circuit Court on March 2, 1993. The complaint alleged that the Mack truck Kilcrease was driving at the time of the accident had a defective brake system. On July 1, 1994, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint alleging that the fuel tank system on the Mack truck was defectively designed, thus abandoning their theory that the brake system was defective.

¶ 2. On March 13, 1998, the jury returned a unanimous verdict in favor of the defendants, and judgment was entered accordingly. Plaintiffs now appeal citing the following issues:

I. WHETHER THE CIRCUIT COURT COMMITTED REVERSIBLE ERROR BY GRANTING DEFENDANTS' JURY INSTRUCTION D-2, WHICH INCORRECTLY STATED THE SUBSTANTIVE LAW OF STRICT PRODUCTS LIABILITY USING THE MISSISSIPPI PRODUCTS LIABILITY ACT.

II. WHETHER THE CIRCUIT COURT'S JURY INSTRUCTIONS AS A WHOLE WERE PREJUDICIAL AND CONSTITUTED REVERSIBLE ERROR.

FACTS

¶ 3. On November 6, 1991. Kilcrease was driving his 1978 R Model Mack truck in Lauderdale County, pulling a trailer loaded with pine logs, when the truck's tire blew out. The truck crashed into several pine trees and caught on fire.

¶ 4. First on the scene, traveling U.S. Highway 80 west approximately one-quarter mile behind the decedent's truck were John Caudil and his sister, Rachel, who, after turning briefly to waive at neighbors, noticed that Kilcrease's truck had left the road. After driving approximately onehalf mile to the point where his truck had left the highway, they stopped, and Rachel walked down to the truck to see if anyone was alive. She heard a responsive moan. Caudil testified that he observed no evidence of fire when he first arrived at the scene and left to get help. Rachel stayed and attempted to pull Kilcrease from the wreckage when she began to hear sounds that indicated the beginning of a small fire. She explained:

After I worked my way to him, I tried pulling him out. I then began to hear small little twigs burning, you know, like a fire beginning to start. John had already left at that time ... It was like pine straw and little pine limbs burning. It wasn't—a fizz. It wasn't an explosion. It was small ... The best—it was, you know, small little pine needles beginning to burn,—small noises, you know, not a big noise, very quite noise like, but it was little bit like pine.

¶ 5. In March of 1993, plaintiffs filed a complaint alleging that a defective, unreasonably dangerous, and unmerchantable condition within the brake system of the Mack truck, caused Kilcrease to collide. In an amended complaint filed on July 1, 1994, plaintiffs retreated from the defective brake theory and charged Kilcrease's death was the proximate result of a defective and unreasonably dangerous fuel tank system, existing at the time the Mack truck was sold by the defendant. The theory was that the fire was caused by leakage or escaped diesel fuel from fuel tanks in the truck, in conjunction with ignition or heat sources, such as exhaust pipes or electrical batteries, located in close proximity to the fuel tanks. As a result, the driver's compartment of the Mack truck was engulfed with fire causing Kilcrease to suffer severe burns over most of his body, amputation of three limbs and ultimately his death in December of 1991.

¶ 6. At trial, competing expert testimonies were presented concerning the plaintiffs' theory. One expert testified the fire began because the exhaust pipe was placed too close to the passenger side diesel tank, which generated excessive heat inside the tank. The excessive heat increased the pressure in the tank causing the fuel to spray on the batteries when the passenger side fuel tank was ruptured during the accident. Within seconds, a spark from the batteries ignited the diesel fuel hole in the passenger side tank, thereby causing the fire. Plaintiffs' second expert, however, disagreed that the exhaust pipe increased the pressure in the passenger side fuel tank or had anything to do with causing the fire; suggesting rather, that several fires may have been initiated in different places and determining, ultimately, that the fire was caused by an electrical failure near the passenger fuel tank. The plaintiffs argued notwithstanding that even though it may not be perfectly clear where the fire was started, it was clearly caused by a defective design.

¶ 7. Mack Trucks asserted that due to the extensive damage to the truck, a single cause of the fire was unidentifiable. Given the conditions of the accident scene—the truck coming to rest in thick pine straw, on a warm dry day, with large amounts of motor oil, power steering fluid, antifreeze and diesel fuel from either side of the fuel lines or tanks dispersing—a number of potential causes for the fire existed. Most likely, according to Mack Trucks, the combination of dry pine straw and flammable liquids ignited from the truck's hot engine surface or from arcing electrical wiring, severed during the accident, caused the fire.

¶ 8. The jury returned a verdict in favor of defendants. Aggrieved, the plaintiffs appeal, asserting that the trial court erred in giving two alternative and inconsistent theories of substantive law in its instructions to the jury.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶ 9. This appeal involves an inquiry as to the product liability law applicable to the instant case and whether the circuit court correctly applied that law. The trial court has broad discretion in instructing the jury, and this Court will not reverse, even if the instruction is erroneous, when the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the prevailing party and there has been no miscarriage of justice. Smith v. Jones, 335 So.2d 896, 897 (Miss. 1976). Where two or more instructions are in hopeless and substantive conflict, the Court may reverse. Payne v. Rain Forest Nurseries, Inc. 540 So.2d 35, 40-41 (Miss.1989).

I. WHETHER THE CIRCUIT COURT COMMITTED REVERSIBLE ERROR BY GRANTING DEFENDANTS' JURY INSTRUCTION D-2, WHICH INCORRECTLY STATED THE SUBSTANTIVE LAW OF STRICT PRODUCTS LIABILITY USING THE MISSISSIPPI PRODUCTS LIABILITY ACT.

¶ 10. On March 25, 1993, this Court adopted the risk-utility test for determining whether a product is defective and unreasonably dangerous. Sperry-New Holland v. Prestage, 617 So.2d 248 (Miss. 1993). Soon thereafter, the Legislature passed the Products Liability Act, Miss. Code Ann. § 11-1-63 (Supp.2001), codifying strict products liability law. Procedural provisions of the Act became effective for all cases pending on July 1, 1993, but the remaining substantive provisions took effect on July 1, 1994, the same date the plaintiffs' amended complaint was filed.

¶ 11. Plaintiffs contend the trial court committed reversible error in giving Jury Instruction D-2 because it is an application of a substantive provision of Mississippi's Products Liability Act, Miss.Code Ann. § 11-1-63, a provision, which they argue essentially adopted the consumer expectation analysis for product liability cases. They argue that the court, therefore, committed reversible error because, pursuant to the Act's mandate, their case was subject to the statute's procedural provisions only.

¶ 12. Instruction D-2 reads as follows: You cannot find that the Mack Truck was defectively designed if the harm for which the Plaintiffs seek damages was caused by an inherent characteristic of the truck which is a generic aspect of the truck that cannot be eliminated without substantially compromising the truck's usefulness or desirability and which is recognized by the ordinary person with ordinary knowledge common to the community.

¶ 13. The Products Liability Act, Miss. Code Ann. § 11-1-63(1)(b), provides in pertinent part that:

(b) A product is not defective in design or formulation if the harm for which the claimant seeks to recover compensatory damages was caused by an inherent characteristic of the product which is a generic aspect of the product that cannot be eliminated without substantially compromising the product's usefulness or desirability and which is recognized by the ordinary person with the ordinary knowledge common to the community.

¶ 14. Presenting the jury with Instruction D-2's "consumer expectation" standard as codified in the Act was error, the plaintiffs argue, because the statutory notes of Miss.Code Ann. § 11-1-63, as follows, indicate that only the procedural provisions of the Act applied while the case was pending. It reads:

This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 1993. Procedural provisions of this act including subsections (1)(a), (b),(c) and (d) of Section 2 shall apply to all pending actions in which judgment has not been entered on the effective date of the act and al actions filed on or after the effective date of the act. All other provisions shall apply to all actions filed on or after July 1, 1994.

(emphasis added).

¶ 15. Mack Trucks does not directly respond to plaintiffs' contention that only the procedural provisions of the statute were applicable except to underscore that plaintiffs' amended complaint substituted a new theory for the cause of the accident on the same date that the Act's substantive provisions were scheduled to go into effect. The apparent significance being, that the plaintiffs changed their theory of liability by substituting the fuel tank theory for the defective brake theory as the proximate cause of the accident, or...