Busch v. Busch Const., Inc.
| Decision Date | 09 December 1977 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 47231,47361,s. 47231 |
| Parties | Angeline BUSCH, Respondent, v. BUSCH CONSTRUCTION, INC., et al., defendants and third party plaintiffs, Respondents. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, defendant and third party plaintiff, Appellant, v. MAHOWALD MOTORS, INC., third party defendant. Francis VOHNOUTKA, as Father and Natural Guardian of Mitchell Vohnoutka and Tracy Vohnoutka, et al., Respondents, v. Lando Andrew BUSCH, et al., defendants and third party plaintiffs, Respondents, GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, defendant and third party plaintiff, Appellant, v. MAHOWALD MOTORS, INC., third party defendant. Lando Andrew BUSCH, Respondent, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Appellant, Mahowald Motors, Inc., Defendant. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
1. The doctrine of curative admissibility allows a party to introduce otherwise inadmissible evidence where the opposing party has introduced evidence which is (a) similarly inadmissible; (b) prejudicial; and (c) relevant to the same evidential fact.
2. The admission of evidence of unrelated product defects is erroneous but under the facts of this case was not prejudicial.
3. Where there is conflicting competent expert testimony on the issue of whether a product is defective, the jury's resolution of the issue must be allowed to stand.
4. The comparative negligence statute, Minn.St. 604.01, applies to products liability actions under Restatement, Torts 2d, § 402A, but a plaintiff's negligent failure to inspect a product or to guard against the existence of a defect is not a defense.
5. Expert testimony regarding inflation rates is admissible for purposes of determining ultimate damages to be awarded.
6. Where the trial court instructs the jury that an award for future damages must be discounted to present cash value and witnesses testify on applications of the discount formula, it is not prejudicial error to omit that part of the standard instruction which states that the award must be a "lesser sum" than the actual amount determined.
7. The trial court may not consider the investment return on awards of general compensatory damages in determining the reasonableness of a jury verdict, overruling Hallada v. G. N. Ry. Co., 244 Minn. 81, 69 N.W.2d 673 (1955), to the extent it is inconsistent.
8. Where the record discloses the existence of proper grounds for a remittitur, the Supreme Court will uphold the trial court's remittitur order even though based on unclear or untenable grounds.
9. A wife is entitled to sue for necessary future medical expenses as part of her personal injury cause of action, but her husband remains secondarily liable for those expenses in the event of the wife's default, overruling Boland v. Morrill, 275 Minn. 496, 148 N.W.2d 143 (1967), and Janke v. Janke, 292 Minn. 296, 195 N.W.2d 185 (1972), to the extent they are inconsistent.
Gray, Plant, Mooty, Mooty & Bennett and Richard A. Bowman, Jeffrey R. Brooke and Stephen J. Snyder, Minneapolis, for appellant; Frazer F. Hilder, Gen. Counsel, Thomas W. Watkins, General Motors Corp., Detroit, Mich., of counsel.
Loren M. Barta, New Prague, for Angeline Busch.
Reding & Votel and James Reding, St. Paul, for Busch Const.
Rider, Bennett, Egan, Johnson & Arundel and David F. Fitzgerald and William J. George, Minneapolis, for Vohnoutka.
John M. Smith, Owatonna, for Lando Busch.
Considered and decided by the court en banc.
Consolidated appeals from orders denying post-trial motions and from judgments in six personal-injury actions which were tried together arising out of a single-vehicle accident on September 2, 1973. All the plaintiffs were riding in a vehicle driven by Lando Busch, who was both a plaintiff and a defendant in the actions. After a trial of 12 weeks duration, the jury found by special verdict that the product of defendant General Motors Corporation (GM) was defective and that it was an 85-percent cause of the accident and injuries. The jury further found that Lando Busch was negligent and that his negligence was a 15-percent cause of the accident.
Defendant GM filed post-trial motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, or a new trial, or damage remittiturs. Defendants Lando Busch and Busch Construction, Inc. 1 filed a post-trial motion for amended findings of fact, conclusions of law and order for judgment and damage remittiturs. The trial court granted new trials on the issue of damages as to three plaintiffs unless they consented to remittiturs. These plaintiffs, Angeline Busch, Lando Busch, and Francis Vohnoutka, consented to the remittiturs, and the motions of defendants GM and Busch were denied.
Defendants appeal from the orders denying their post-trial motions and from the judgment entered October 4, 1976. The three plaintiffs seek review of the order conditionally granting a new trial on the issue of damages unless they consented to remittiturs and the denial of their motions for amended findings of fact, conclusions of law and order for judgment. We affirm.
On September 2, 1973, on Interstate Highway No. 94 (I-94), approximately 12 miles south of Fergus Falls, Minnesota, at about 4:10 p. m., a single vehicle accident occurred. The weather was clear and hot; and the sun had been shining for some time prior to the accident. The eight occupants of the vehicle, a 1973 Chevrolet Suburban Cheyenne Super Ten, were seated in the following positions: Lando Busch was the driver; Dale Busch was in the center-front seat; Francis Vohnoutka was in the front-right seat; Kathleen Vohnoutka was in the center-rear seat; Tracy Vohnoutka was in the right-rear seat; Angeline Busch was in the left-rear seat; and Diane Busch and Mitchell Vohnoutka were in the back, behind the rear seat.
The vehicle was designed and manufactured by GM and owned by Busch Construction, Inc. It is larger than a stationwagon and is sold as a combination passenger-cargo carrier. At the time of the accident, the vehicle was towing a trailer which held an aluminum fishing boat and motor. The odometer read approximately 12,029 miles.
I-94, a four-lane divided highway with a grass median, has a concrete roadway with 12-foot-wide lanes and 10-foot-wide tar shoulders. It runs east and west at the accident site. The Busch vehicle was traveling in the east bound lane of I-94. The highway curves four or five times, both to the right and left, just before the accident site. The vehicle was entering a curve to the left when it drifted to the right, crossed the shoulder, and struck a paddle marker (a reflector indicating a curve in the road). It then traveled down an embankment, plunged through a freeway fence and landed in a cattail swamp below the highway. The car rolled at least 1 1/2 times and came to rest on its top, having traveled 506 feet from the place where the first marks off the highway appeared.
Plaintiffs and defendant Busch contend that the accident was caused by a defect in the plastic yoke of the turn-signal switch, the part which holds the turn-signal lever. When the lever is moved, the switch, which is inside the steering column, moves. The switch is made of acetal resin plastic (Delrin 500). The turn-signal lever is put into the yoke with a pneumatic screwdriver at the same time the steering-column assembly is completed. Once assembly is completed the turn-signal switch is not accessible without removal of the steering wheel and some other component parts.
When plaintiffs' engineers disassembled the steering column after the accident, a plastic particle was found lodged in the lock-plate housing above the lockpin. It was found to have fractured from the Delrin 500 yoke component of the turn-signal switch. Plaintiffs' expert witnesses claim the plastic particle caused the steering wheel to "lock" or "bind" in the same manner as if the ignition lock had been engaged.
Defendant GM contends that there was no defect and that the accident was caused by the driver's inattention, drowsiness, falling asleep, or failure to brake in time. GM's experts testifying on the issue of defect described tests they performed on the plastic and gave their opinions that the fracture in the Delrin 500 plastic yoke was an impact fracture caused by the accident and not a fatigue fracture and that even if a piece of plastic was lodged in the steering mechanism, it would not bind the steering. The testimony offered by GM, through the investigating highway patrol troopers Kunz and Kamrowski, and GM's expert on single-car, "fall-asleep" accident characteristics, was rejected by the trial court, ruling that falling asleep at the wheel was a matter of common knowledge. The investigating troopers testified that they found none of the characteristic markings made by a braking vehicle. Further, part of the testimony of one of GM's experts on braking times and distances was rejected.
The jury found by special verdict as follows:
Taking the combined fault that caused the accident at 100%, what percentage of the fault is attributable to:
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