Bohannon v. CHRYSLER MOTORS CORPORATION, Civ. A. No. 4280.
| Decision Date | 24 October 1973 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 4280. |
| Citation | 366 F. Supp. 802 |
| Parties | Julia C. BOHANNON, Plaintiff, v. CHRYSLER MOTORS CORPORATION et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Mississippi |
Bobby G. O'Barr, Biloxi, Miss., for plaintiff.
Thomas D. Bourdeaux, Meridian, Miss., and Ronald G. Peresich, Biloxi, Miss., for Chrysler Motors Corp., and Chrysler Corp.
Mrs. Julia C. Bohannon, an adult resident citizen of Gulfport, Mississippi, originally filed this diversity cause of action against Chrysler Motors Corporation, chartered in Delaware with its principal place of business in Detroit, Michigan, but authorized to do business in Mississippi, and against Allstate Insurance Company, chartered in Illinois, and also qualified to do business in Mississippi. In her original complaint plaintiff charged Chrysler Motors Corporation, herein called Chrysler Motors, with negligently manufacturing her 1965 Plymouth Fury III with defective brakes, negligently failing to inspect and discover the defective brakes, and with placing on the market a vehicle in an inherently dangerous condition which could not and would not have been discovered by plaintiff upon a reasonable inspection; and that each of the charged acts of negligence was a direct and proximate cause or contributing cause of her injuries resulting from an accident.
Plaintiff alleged that on August 2, 1965, she purchased new the aforesaid Plymouth from Sevier-Folk Motor Co., Inc., Tallulah, Louisiana, for her personal use as well as for use in her employment. On October 30, 1965, the date of her accident, plaintiff and two passengers were returning to Gulfport from a church conference in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. They left Tuscaloosa in the afternoon and were a few miles south of Tuscaloosa going south on U. S. Highway 11, a paved, two lane highway, when one James Odwin Styes of Tuscaloosa, in a vehicle owned by him and traveling in the same direction, attempted to over-take plaintiff's car, ran off the paved portion of the left lane, lost control, and skidded into the left rear of plaintiff's vehicle. Styes continued on a collision course and struck plaintiff's vehicle a second time, then passed her on the right and stopped suddenly and without warning in front of plaintiff. Plaintiff vigorously applied her brakes to avoid colliding with the rear of Styes' vehicle, and, as she did so, her braking action caused her vehicle to veer suddenly to the left, skid across the north bound lane and proceed down an embankment; that, in order to avoid a tree in her path, she again applied her brakes, the car again veered sharply and came to rest parallel and adjacent to a fence, the front of her car facing north. Alabama state troopers were called to the scene, made an investigation, trailed Styes' car from a wheel rim mark for several miles to where he abandoned it, and later arrested him on charges of drunk driving.
Styes having been found to be an uninsured motorist, plaintiff joined Allstate Insurance Company as a defendant, making a claim for the limit of her policy with respect to uninsured motorist coverage. By stipulation of the parties and an Order of this Court, Allstate has been dismissed from the action.
As a result of interrogatories addressed to Chrysler Motors, plaintiff learned that Chrysler Motors, a subsidiary of Chrysler Corporation, sold the car to Sevier-Folk Motor Co., Inc., and that Chrysler Corporation herein called Chrysler, was actually the manufacturer. With leave of the Court, plaintiff added Chrysler as a defendant and amended her complaint, charging Chrysler with negligently designing and manufacturing her vehicle with defective brakes, and charging both Chrysler defendants with negligently failing to inspect and discover the defective brakes, and with negligently placing on the market a vehicle in an inherently dangerous condition which could not and would not have been discovered by plaintiff in a reasonable inspection.1
The case was tried to the Court without a jury.
Numerous answers of both Chrysler defendants to plaintiff's interrogatories, correspondence between both defendants' and plaintiff's former attorneys and inter-corporate correspondence were introduced as exhibits, primarily for the purpose of showing that Chrysler, as the manufacturer of the vehicle, knew or should have known, but, for a mistake, that the action would have been brought against it before the running of the Mississippi six year statute of limitations. As stated above, the Court has previously ruled on this point in its opinion of July 3, 1973, and finds it unnecessary to consider the issue again.
As a witness on her own behalf, plaintiff testified, as alleged in her complaint, that, while employed by a federal agency in Louisiana, she, on August 2, 1965, bought new a 1965 Plymouth Fury III from a dealer, Sevier-Folk Motor Co., Inc., of Tallulah, Louisiana. She identified her invoice and a Manufacturer's Statement of Origin to a Motor Vehicle in which Chrysler certified that the vehicle was transferred to the dealer new. She identified vouchers reflecting that her employment, on a contract basis, paid her $60.00 per day, $16.00 per diem for subsistence, and 10¢ per mile travel expense by private automobile. She completed her contract in August with every intention of accepting similar contracts in the future, being temporarily delayed by the illness of her husband. Her previous employment included clerical work in accounting, and being an office manager for a lumber supply and motor company respectively. She conducted her own lumber and construction company for approximately eleven years before closing it.
Plaintiff testified that she was a conservative, defensive driver. That although not required to, she nevertheless drove her new car at conservative speeds, slowing for traffic and in anticipation of traffic signals with as little braking as possible. That, nonetheless, she began to have difficulty with her brakes which she described as a "chatter", and, when she used a "soft brake", said that there was a hesitation, or a partial revolution of the wheels before the brakes became effective. She took her car to John Gimma, the local Chrysler-Plymouth dealer in Gulfport, for a 500 mile check-up and at other times as required by the conditions of her warranty. At the first check-up she complained about the brakes and poor gas mileage. At that time she said that Gimma's service manager, Grover McGee, kidded her about not being used to a new car, in contrast to her old Oldsmobile, and said the brakes would "seat in" after a time.
On October 30, 1965, when the Plymouth had about 5000 miles registered on its speedometer, plaintiff stated that she and two friends, Reverend A. H. Lambright, a retired Congregationalist minister, and his wife, Grace Lambright, were returning to Gulfport from a Unitarian church conference in Tuscaloosa. They had reached a point on U. S. Highway 11 about 3½ miles south of Tuscaloosa, when plaintiff, driving between 45 and 50 miles an hour, saw a car, driven by whom she later learned was Styes, approaching rapidly from the rear. Styes struck plaintiff's vehicle on the left rear, plaintiff accelerated to get out of his way, and her vehicle was nonetheless struck again, more forcefully, on the left rear quarter panel. Styes dropped back momentarily, and then passed plaintiff's vehicle to her right on the shoulder of the highway, and, as he pulled over in front of plaintiff, proceeded to brake his car. Plaintiff said she then made a vigorous application of her brakes in order to avoid striking Styes from the rear. As she did, her car lurched violently to the left heading across the on-coming traffic lane of Highway 11. Plaintiff said she retained control of her car and withdrew pressure from her brakes but realized she was headed off the road down an embankment toward a tree. She again applied her brakes vigorously, the car again lurching to the left. As the car skidded sideways down the embankment, plaintiff lost her grip on the steering wheel, one hand brushing against and releasing her seat belt. As the car rocked back and forth before coming to rest parallel to a fence and headed back north toward Tuscaloosa, plaintiff was tossed violently about in the car, and remembers that she felt her bones cracking. A Mrs. Stillwood, driver of a car ahead, saw the accident in her rear view mirror, came back and took plaintiff to a nearby house, where the resident, a Mrs. Smallwood, said she had already called the Alabama Highway Patrol. Plaintiff returned to her car and waited for the officers to arrive. When Officers Wheat and Curtis arrived, she talked to them up on the highway. Wheat pointed out from debris where the Styes' car had hit plaintiff's twice, and proceeded onward. He was puzzled as to why plaintiff's car had traveled from the right or west lane of the highway abruptly across the left or north bound lane and down the embankment, a distance of 222 feet before coming to rest against a fence, with plaintiff's car headed in the reverse direction. Plaintiff admitted that she said nothing to the officers about her brakes, but said that she and the patrolmen were more interested in the conduct of the other driver, Styes, whom the officers later apprehended. On cross-examination, plaintiff denied, in order to avoid Styes when he proceeded in front of her, that she turned the car to the left. She said that if she ever ditched a car it would be to the right and not to the left in the face of oncoming traffic. When shown a copy of the officers' official report of the accident, plaintiff was non-plused as to why the report indicated she had lost control after the second collision from Styes' car. Continuing with her testimony, plaintiff stated that Rev. Lambright drove her car up the embankment to the highway, where she drove the three of them back to Tuscaloosa. They had the right front...
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