Gammill v. Jack Williams Chevrolet, Inc.
| Citation | 972 S.W.2d 713,41 Tex. Sup.Ct. J. 1117 |
| Decision Date | 03 July 1998 |
| Docket Number | No. 97-0237,97-0237 |
| Parties | Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 15,362, 41 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 1117 James R. GAMMILL and Deborah Dianne Gammill, individually, and a/n/f of Curtis Gammill, a minor, and Jaime Michelle Gammill, a minor, Petitioners, v. JACK WILLIAMS CHEVROLET, INC., and American Isuzu Motors, Inc., Respondents. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Texas |
B. Thomas McElroy, Dallas, Patrick J. Fleming, Weatherford, for Petitioners.
James S. Maxwell, Betsy K. Power, Dallas, Donald Chrestman, Weatherford, Marlene S. Thomson, Dallas, for Respondents.
Whether summary judgment for defendants was proper in this products liability suit, as the court of appeals held it was, 1 depends on whether plaintiffs' two expert witnesses (1) were qualified to give the opinions they gave, (2) demonstrated that their opinions were relevant and reliable, and (3) were denied a reasonable inspection of the subject vehicle. The lower courts answered each of these questions negatively. We affirm.
Deborah Gammill was driving her 1988 Isuzu Trooper about 40 m.p.h. on a two-lane county road at 4:35 p.m. with her three-year-old son Curtis in the right front seat and her ten-year-old daughter Jaime in the right rear seat when the vehicle went onto the right shoulder, swerved across the roadway onto the left shoulder, and continued along a grassy area until it struck a utility box and several trees. Deborah was severely injured and now remembers nothing about the accident. Jaime was also severely injured and died the next day. Curtis received minor injuries.
Deborah and her husband, James, sued the manufacturer and seller of their vehicle, American Isuzu Motors, Inc. and Jack Williams Chevrolet, Inc., respectively, to recover damages for Deborah's injuries and Jaime's death. The Gammills pleaded products liability, misrepresentation, and negligence causes of action. While their factual allegations have shifted during the litigation, they now contend, in essence, that Deborah lost control of the vehicle because the accelerator pedal became caught in a wiring harness beneath the dashboard and would not release, and that Jaime died because her seat belt did not restrain her as it should have. The Gammills allege that the rear seat belt system and accelerator pedal were defectively designed and marketed, and that the vehicle was misrepresented as being safe.
More specifically, the Gammills allege that a wiring harness was positioned too close to the accelerator pedal and could block release of the pedal. As evidence of their contention, the Gammills point to a small scrape on the mylar sheath on the harness that they argue was made by rubbing against the pedal. With respect to the rear restraint system, the issues are complicated by the fact that no one saw whether Jaime was wearing her seat belt before the accident, and the fact that after the accident she was found lying on the floor of the vehicle between the front and rear seats. Thus, the first issue is whether Jaime was wearing her seat belt at the time of the accident. The Gammills contend that abrasions on Jaime's body and clothing, the nature of her injuries, and marks on the seat belt indicate that she was wearing it, as was her habit, when the accident occurred. The second issue is whether the seat belt was defective. The Gammills argue that the belt was made so that it did not fit tightly enough and that the push-button release was positioned so that it could be actuated accidentally in a collision. The Gammills allege that an alternative design could have avoided these defects. Finally, the third issue is whether the alleged defects in the restraint system caused Jaime's death, or whether she would have died even if the system worked perfectly.
Two years after suit was filed, the Gammills delivered their vehicle to defendants for inspection by defendants' experts. After completing their inspection, defendants moved for summary judgment, supported by the affidavits of two engineers, one of whom was also a physician. The affidavits stated that: the wiring harness could not have blocked the accelerator pedal, and even if it could have, it could not have prevented application of the brakes in time to avoid the collision; Jaime was not wearing her seat belt at the time of the accident; the rear restraint system was not defective; and if Jaime had been wearing her seat belt, her injuries would not have been fatal. The Gammills' attorney then withdrew, and the court extended the time for responding to defendants' motion to allow the Gammills to find new counsel. When counsel was substituted, the Gammills responded to defendants' motion, asserting that fact issues remained on all issues, based on the affidavits of two engineers, Robert Bell and William Rosenbluth. Both these experts had inspected the Gammills' vehicle, but the Gammills moved for a continuance to allow further inspection of the accelerator and wiring harness. The district court denied the motion for continuance and granted summary judgment, and the Gammills appealed.
The Gammills' second attorney then withdrew, and a third lawyer undertook their representation on appeal. The court of appeals reversed, holding that the Gammills had raised fact issues precluding summary judgment. 2
Six months after the case was remanded, the Gammills' third attorney withdrew and a fourth was substituted. Defendants again moved for summary judgment, based on the same evidence supporting their first motion, plus the affidavit of a third engineer. This time, however, defendants moved to strike the testimony of the experts designated by the Gammills on the ground that the experts were not qualified to give the opinions they gave, and on the further ground, following this Court's decision in E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Robinson, 3 that the experts' opinions were not reliable. The Gammills moved for further inspection of the vehicle, which they had requested defendants to store, including removal of the accelerator and rear restraint system from the vehicle for examination and testing. 4 After numerous hearings regarding the Gammills' requests for further inspections of the vehicle, the court conducted an evidentiary hearing. At that hearing, the Gammills offered testimony by two of their experts, Ronald Huston and David Lowry. Defendants argued to the court that they should be disqualified from testifying and that their opinions were not reliable. The court did not rule immediately on either defendants' motion to strike the experts' testimony or the Gammills' motion to further inspect the vehicle. While those motions remained pending, the Gammills responded to defendants' motion for summary judgment, again asserting, based on Huston's and Lowry's affidavits and testimony at the hearing on the motion for inspection, that subsisting fact issues precluded summary judgment.
Huston, a licensed professional engineer with a bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, has been a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Cincinnati since 1962. He has conducted research in mechanics, dynamics, biomechanics, vehicle occupant kinematics, and vehicle occupant restraint systems. Huston has had occasion to examine and test many vehicle restraint systems. His tests on restraint systems have focused on retractor locking dynamics, buckle integrity, premature buckle release, and belt positioning on occupants. Huston has written over 100 journal articles, 125 conference papers, 45 technical reports, and two books summarizing the results of his research. Since 1975, he has worked as a consultant in litigation matters, testifying as an expert in over 325 depositions and more than 145 trials.
Huston has previously tested seat belts like those in the Gammills' vehicle, and at their instance, he inspected the rear seat belt in their vehicle that Jaime was alleged to have been wearing. Huston also reviewed accident photographs, the police report, Jaime's x-rays and medical records, her shirt, the depositions taken in the case, and defendants' experts' affidavits. Based on this information, Huston concluded in his affidavit that: Deborah "was wearing her seat belt, but this did not prevent her incapacitating injuries from the impact and occupant compartment intrusion"; Jaime "received [a] fatal head injury from striking the right rear corner of the driver's seat back" where Huston found a dent, a tear in the seat cover material, and blood; Jaime "was wearing her seat belt at the beginning of the accident as evidenced by gliding abrasions found on her body, markings on the shirt she was wearing, apparent shirt fibers observed in the seat belt webbing, marks on the seat belt webbing, and the impact location on the driver's seat back"; Jaime's "seat belt prematurely released during the impact of the accident"; "[a] properly fitting and secure lap and shoulder seat belt system (three-point system) would have prevented Jaime Gammill's fatal injuries"; "[t]he webbing loop at the buckle of the right rear seat belt allowed the webbing to flow through the loop in turn allowing looseness to occur in the webbing"; "the use of a side push button buckle release on the right rear seat belt and with the buckle positioned approximately 5 inches away from the seat bottom/back rest crease created a configuration ideally suited for premature release upon impact"; and "[t]he use of the webbing loop and buckle release ... were design defects allowing the fatal injuries of Jaime Gammill to occur."
David Lowry, a licensed professional engineer with a bachelor's and master's degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A & M University, is employed by Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft, where he is responsible for incorporating design details in the F-22 fighter plane's construction. He has previously worked...
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