Bachman v. General Motors Corp.

• Decision Date: 29 July 2002
• Docket Number: No. 4-01-0237.,4-01-0237.
• Citation: 776 N.E.2d 262,267 Ill.Dec. 125,332 Ill. App.3d 760
• Parties: Debra L. BACHMAN, as Mother and Legal Guardian of the Estate and Person of Danielle L. Bachman, a Disabled Person, and Danielle L. Bachman, Individually, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, a Foreign Corporation; Uftring Chevrolet Oldsmobile, Inc., an Illinois Corporation; Delphi Automotive Systems, a Foreign Corporation; and Delco Electronic Systems, a Foreign Corporation, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

776 N.E.2d 262

332 Ill. App.3d 760

267 Ill.Dec. 125

Debra L. BACHMAN, as Mother and Legal Guardian of the Estate and Person of Danielle L. Bachman, a Disabled Person, and Danielle L. Bachman, Individually, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, a Foreign Corporation; Uftring Chevrolet Oldsmobile, Inc., an Illinois Corporation; Delphi Automotive Systems, a Foreign Corporation; and Delco Electronic Systems, a Foreign Corporation, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 4-01-0237.

Appellate Court of Illinois, Fourth District.

July 29, 2002.

William T. Cacciatore (argued), Eileen J. McCabe, Rockford, for Debra L. Bachman.

David M. Heilbron, Frank M. Hinman, Monty Agarwal, Christina M. Wheeler, McCutchin, Doyle, Brown & Enersen, LLP, San Francisco, CA, Joseph E. O'Neil (argued), Francis J. Grey, Jr., Jennifer M. Brooks, Lavin, Coleman, O'Neil, Ricci, Finarelli & Gray, Philadelphia, PA., for General Motors Corporation.

Justice STEIGMANN delivered the opinion of the court:

In December 2000, plaintiffs, Debra L. Bachman and Danielle L. Bachman, filed a third-amended complaint against defendants, General Motors Corporation (General Motors), Uftring Chevrolet Oldsmobile, Inc. (Uftring), Delphi Automotive Systems (Delphi), and Delco Electronic Systems (Delco), seeking to recover for injuries Danielle sustained when her 1996 Chevrolet Cavalier collided with an oncoming 1984 Ford one-ton delivery van (step van). Plaintiffs alleged that the Cavalier's supplemental inflatable restraint system (air bag) inadvertently deployed prior to the collision, thus causing the collision. Later that same month, following a jury trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of defendants and against plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs appeal, arguing that (1) the trial court erred by (a) allowing evidence regarding data downloaded from the Cavalier's sensing and diagnostic module (SDM or SDM-R) (the air-bag crash sensor) and admitting related opinion testimony, (b) striking the causation opinion of one of plaintiffs' expert witnesses, (c) limiting the testimony of certain witnesses involved in allegedly similar occurrences, (d) allowing evidence regarding data downloaded from the SDMs of the vehicles that were driven by the "similar occurrence" witnesses, (e) denying plaintiffs' motion to bar defendants' opinion witnesses based on alleged discovery violations, (f) permitting the jury to view Danielle's damaged Cavalier during defendants' case in chief, (g) allowing one of defendants' witnesses to testify about the dangerousness of the curve where Danielle's collision occurred, (h) allowing evidence regarding Danielle's seat belt use and the condition of her seat belt following the collision, (i) submitting a special interrogatory to the jury, and (j) denying plaintiffs' motion to amend their complaint to add a punitive damages prayer, pursuant to section 2-604.1 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Code) (735 ILCS 5/2-604.1 (West 1996)); (2) the jury's verdict was against the manifest weight of the evidence; and (3) the trial court's cumulative errors denied plaintiffs a fair trial. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

In late October 1996, Danielle purchased a new 1996 Cavalier from Uftring. On the morning of November 6, 1996, Danielle was driving her Cavalier north on Nofsinger Road in Woodford County. At around 7:45 a.m., Danielle lost control of the car and collided with an oncoming step van. As a result of the collision, Danielle sustained very serious and permanently disabling injuries.

In June 1998, plaintiffs sued defendants (as well as other entities that are no longer parties to this action) for injuries Danielle sustained in the collision. In December 2000, plaintiffs filed a third-amended complaint, alleging as follows: (1) the air bag in Danielle's Cavalier, which was sold by General Motors through its authorized dealer, Uftring, was defective in that it inadvertently deployed because its SDM (which was designed and manufactured by Delphi and Delco) was "hypersensitive" to road surfaces and objects striking the Cavalier's floor pan; (2) General Motors, alone and by and through Uftring, failed to warn consumers about defective air bags in 1996 Cavaliers; (3) negligence on the part of General Motors and Uftring; (4) Delphi and Delco failed to warn consumers about the defective air bags in 1996 Cavaliers; and (5) negligence on the part of Delphi and Delco.

A. Frye Hearing

In September 2000, plaintiffs filed a motion in limine, seeking to bar defendants from presenting evidence regarding data downloaded from the SDM in Danielle's Cavalier. In October 2000, defendants filed a supplemental response to plaintiffs' motion, requesting a Frye hearing (see Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C.Cir.1923)) to determine the admissibility of the SDM evidence. The trial court granted defendants' request, and the evidence at the November 2000 hearing showed the following.

Douglas Nunan, a senior project engineer in Delphi's restraint systems electronics group, testified that between August 1989 and May 1996, he was responsible for designing and developing SDMs, including the type of SDM installed in Danielle's Cavalier. Crash sensing devices like the SDM are commonly used throughout the automobile industry. The SDM, which is controlled by a microprocessor, has multiple functions: (1) it determines if a severe enough impact has occurred to warrant deployment of the air bag; (2) it monitors the air bag's components; and (3) it permanently records information. The SDM contains software that analyzes the longitudinal deceleration of a vehicle to determine whether a deployment event has occurred "based on testing that was done previously to determine what events would require protection by an air bag." When the SDM senses an event (either a deployment event or an event that is not severe enough to require an air bag—that is, a near-deployment event), that information is recorded to the microprocessor's electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM). (When the air bag is deployed, the SDM records the event as a "Code 51.") Nunan explained that by recording data, "you have a record to go back and look to see, did the result that came out match what you should have had." Although certain diagnostic codes stored in the EEPROM could be erased, the SDM installed in the Cavalier "was specifically designed to prevent" air-bag deployment data from being altered or erased.

Based on crash test data, Nunan opined that the type of SDM installed in Danielle's Cavalier accurately and reliably recorded data. Because SDM data is stored in hexadecimal format, it must ordinarily be converted to a decimal format before it can be analyzed. (A hexadecimal system is a numbering system that has 16 characters; that system employs the letters A through F, in addition to the numbers zero through nine, which are used in the decimal system.) A competent engineer could convert and read the data using a basic calculator and General Motors documents. In mid 2000, a publicly available crash data retrieval tool (Vetronix equipment) was updated with new software to allow anyone with a Windows-based computer to download SDM data in an easy-to-read format. Based on Nunan's experience, engineers at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), as well as automobile manufacturing engineers, rely upon data that is recorded and stored by SDMtype devices. He opined that deployment and crash event data recorded by the SDM is generally accepted as reliable and accurate by the automobile industry and the NHTSA.

Nunan also stated that a power loss during a crash would not affect data previously recorded. Therefore, the fact that Danielle's Cavalier lost electrical power during the collision did not affect the reliability or accuracy of the data recorded by the SDM. Due to the Cavalier's loss of electrical power, an external power source was used to retrieve data from the SDM in August 1997. According to Nunan, such a procedure is normal and does not affect the accuracy of the SDM's data. Nunan further stated that the newly updated Vetronix equipment could be used to retrieve data from Danielle's Cavalier, and that data would be identical to the data originally retrieved. He acknowledged that the SDM's performance specifications were not public knowledge. He also acknowledged that at the time of the collision, crash data recorders in vehicles were not standardized.

Nunan further testified that General Motors began receiving reports in 1996 indicating that air bags in some Cavaliers and other "J-cars" inadvertently deployed when small road objects hit a specific area under the car and the SDM's microprocessor incorrectly interpreted the incident as a deployment event. (J-cars included Cavaliers and Pontiac Sunfires.) General Motors' investigation of those inadvertent, non-crash deployments reconfirmed the reliability of the SDM's data-recording capabilities. Nunan explained that the eventual recall involved repairing the SDMs by recalibrating the software to create a higher threshold for air-bag deployment. However, that recalibration did not have anything to do with the SDM's data-recording function or the reliability of its recorded data. He also stated that in the reported inadvertent, non-crash deployment events, the SDMs recorded only a small change in velocity (delta-v or deltavelocity) or deceleration of the vehicles.

John Sprague, a Delphi systems engineer who worked at General Motors in Warren, Michigan, testified that from 1993 through 1996, he was a sensing application engineer for several vehicles, including the 1996 Cavalier. He conducted development testing of the SDM and investigated actual field deployments. The SDM on the 1996 Cavalier was designed to sense longitudinal deceleration of the vehicle. A competent and knowledgeable engineer could convert and read the SDM data using General Motors documents and a basic calculator. He acknowledged that the 1996...