Black v. M&W Gear Co.
| Decision Date | 07 November 2001 |
| Docket Number | 00-6073,Nos. 00-6072,s. 00-6072 |
| Citation | 269 F.3d 1220 |
| Parties | (10th Cir. 2001) CAROLYN BLACK, individually and as administrator of the estate of John Braden Black, Plaintiff-Appellee/ Cross-Appellant, v. M & W GEAR COMPANY; ALAMO GROUP, INC., Defendants-Appellants/ Cross-Appellees |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma (D.C. No. CIV-98-1666-C) [Copyrighted Material Omitted]
[Copyrighted Material Omitted]
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[Copyrighted Material Omitted] John Gehlhausen, John Gehlhausen, P.C., Lamar, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee/Cross-Appellant.
Michael S. McMillin, (Dale Reneau, with him on the briefs), Fenton, Fenton, Smith, Reneau & Moon, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Defendants-Appellants/Cross-Appellees.
Before BRISCOE, MURPHY, Circuit Judges, and CROW, District Judge*
Plaintiff brought a products liability suit against Defendants in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma for the death of her husband. Jurisdiction was based on diversity of citizenship under 28 U.S.C. 1332. After a jury trial, Plaintiff was awarded $2.5 million in actual damages.
Both Plaintiff and Defendants have appealed various rulings made by the district court. Jurisdiction to consider the appeals arises under 28 U.S.C. 1291. With two exceptions, the various rulings of the district court are affirmed. Because the district court erroneously granted Plaintiff judgment as a matter of law on whether the alleged defect in the product caused the harm to Plaintiff's husband, and because the district court erroneously granted Defendants judgment as a matter of law on Plaintiff's claim for punitive damages, this court reverses in part and remands to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
On September 1, 1998, John Black ("Black") was crushed to death while operating his 18-hp Grazer Model 1890 riding tractor lawnmower ("mower") when the mower toppled into a dry creek bed. Black's wife, plaintiff Carolyn Black, sued the manufacturer of the mower, defendant M & W Gear Company.1 Plaintiff alleged a products liability claim against Defendants, asserting that the mower was defective and unreasonably dangerous because it lacked a rollover protective structure ("ROPS") and adequate warnings of the need for a ROPS. Plaintiff also sought punitive damages.
The jury returned a general verdict form for Plaintiff and awarded her $2.5 million in actual damages. Both Plaintiff and Defendants have appealed rulings made by the district court.
Defendants filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence "concerning dissimilar accidents." Defendants claimed that proffered testimony concerning other rollover injuries or fatalities should be excluded pursuant to Rules 401, 402, 403, and 802 of the Federal Rules of Evidence because the other accidents were not substantially similar to Black's accident involving Defendants' mower.
In ruling on the motion in limine, the trial judge focused on the deposition testimony of John B. Sevart, a licensed professional engineer in private practice. In his deposition testimony, Sevart relied on an article by James F. Arndt entitled "Rollover Protective Structures for Farm and Construction Tractors, a 50-year Review" to support his opinion that Defendants' mower was defective and unreasonably dangerous. Sevart explained that the Arndt article reported that fifty thousand people had been killed in tractor rollovers in the fifty years before 1971.2 Sevart also testified concerning his personal investigations of rollovers of "small tractors" used primarily for "mowing lawns" in which an individual was killed or seriously injured, the partial results of which he had published in an article he co-authored with Larry Schmitt entitled "The Design of ROPS for Small Tractors in the Ten to Twenty Horsepower Range." The district court denied the motion in limine, concluding that the testimony was admissible to show notice to Defendants of a design defect.
The trial record is replete with numerous references in the testimony not only to the Arndt and Sevart/Schmitt articles but also to other studies of tractor rollovers. The actual studies, however, were never admitted into evidence. Despite the numerous references to other accidents made during the course of the trial, Defendants failed to raise an objection, beyond their initial motion in limine, based on a lack of substantial similarity.
Defendants now claim on appeal that "[t]he trial court erred by admitting numerous references to other rollover accidents and statistical evidence involving dissimilar agricultural tractors, which had an unfair prejudicial effect on the jury's consideration of whether the subject 18 hp mower was dangerous." This court generally reviews district court decisions concerning the admission of evidence for abuse of discretion. See Smith v. Ingersoll-Rand Co., 214 F.3d 1235, 1246 (10th Cir. 2000). An abuse of discretion occurs when the district court's decision is "arbitrary, capricious, whimsical, or manifestly unreasonable." Coletti v. Cudd Pressure Control, 165 F.3d 767, 777 (10th Cir. 1999).
"The threshold inquiry in any dispute over the admissibility of evidence is whether the evidence is relevant." Id. This court has stated that evidence of other accidents in a products liability suit is relevant to show notice, demonstrate the existence of a defect, or to refute the testimony of a defense witness. See Four Corners Helicopters, Inc. v. Turbomeca, S.A., 979 F.2d 1434, 1440 (10th Cir. 1992). Before evidence of other accidents is admissible for any purpose, however, the party seeking its admission must show the circumstances surrounding the other accidents were substantially similar to the accident that is the subject of the litigation before the court. See Wheeler v. John Deere Co., 862 F.2d 1404, 1407 (10th Cir. 1988).
(a) Arndt Study--In considering Defendants' claim of error, we first focus on the testimony of Sevart referencing the Arndt study. The district court treated Defendants' motion in limine as a specific objection to the testimony of Sevart. As stated above, Sevart relied on the statistics in the Arndt article concerning the number of people killed in tractor rollovers in the fifty years before 1971 to support his conclusion that the mower manufactured by Defendants was defective and unreasonably dangerous. It does not appear from the record that Plaintiff made any attempt to establish the substantial similarity of the tractor rollovers reported in the Arndt article to the accident that caused the death of Black. This court will assume, therefore, that such a showing was not made during the proceedings relating to Defendants' motion in limine. .
That Plaintiff failed to show substantial similarity, however, does not automatically mean that there was an abuse of discretion in allowing Sevart's deposition testimony.
Our review . . . is not contingent on the theory of admissibility adopted by the district court: evidence does not become inadmissible simply because the district court relied on an erroneous reason for admitting it. So long as the evidence is admissible under some legally correct theory, no error occurred.
Ingersoll-Rand Co., 214 F.3d at 1247-48 (quotation omitted).
Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence permits a "witness qualified as an expert" to give an opinion about "scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge" which will assist the trier of fact in determining a "fact in issue." Fed. R. Evid. 702. Rule 703 pertains to the "facts or data" upon which an expert may base his opinion, and at the time of trial provided as follows:
The facts or data in the particular case upon which an expert bases an opinion or inference may be those perceived by or made known to the expert at or before the hearing. If of a type reasonably relied upon by experts in the particular field in forming opinions or inferences upon the subject, the facts or data need not be admissible in evidence.3
In his testimony, Sevart relied on the Arndt study to conclude that Defendants' mower was defective and unreasonably dangerous because it did not have a ROPS. The testimony of Sevart, a licensed professional engineer, was testimony by a "witness qualified as an expert." Fed. R. Evid. 702.4 Thus, Sevart was entitled to rely on "facts or data . . . of a type reasonably relied upon by experts in the particular field" in forming his opinion that Defendants' mower was defective and unreasonably dangerous. Fed. R. Evid. 703. As Defendants have not argued otherwise, this court will assume that the Arndt article is "of a type reasonably relied upon by experts in the particular field." Fed. R. Evid. 703.
Sevart was therefore entitled to rely on the Arndt article in forming his opinion about whether Defendants' mower was defective and unreasonably dangerous. It does not necessarily follow, however, that Sevart was also entitled to testify concerning the content of the Arndt article, as this evidence was otherwise inadmissable because of Plaintiff's failure to establish the substantial similarity of the other tractor rollover accidents. The language of Rule 703 does not indicate whether an expert can testify about the content of studies reasonably relied on in forming the basis of his expert opinion but otherwise inadmissable under the Federal Rules of Evidence. See Gong v. Hirsch, 913 F.2d 1269, 1273 (7th Cir. 1990) ().
In Kinser v. Gehl Co, this court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing an expert to...
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