Coy v. Simpson Marine Safety Equipment, Inc., 83-1569

• Citation: 787 F.2d 19
• Decision Date: 28 March 1986
• Docket Number: No. 83-1569,83-1569
• Parties: 20 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 422, Prod.Liab.Rep.(CCH)P 10,952 Sharon COY, Administratrix of the Estate of Charles Coy, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. SIMPSON MARINE SAFETY EQUIPMENT, INC. d/b/a Simpson Sports, Defendant, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 19

787 F.2d 19

20 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 422, Prod.Liab.Rep.(CCH)P 10,952

Sharon COY, Administratrix of the Estate of Charles Coy Plaintiff, Appellee, v. SIMPSON MARINE SAFETY EQUIPMENT, INC. d/b/a Simpson Sports Defendant, Appellant.

No. 83-1569.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Argued Sept. 4, 1985.

Decided March 28, 1986.

Bartram C. Branch, Manchester, N.H., with whom Donald E. Gardner and Devine, Millimet, Stahl & Branch Professional Ass'n, Manchester, N.H., were on brief, for defendant, appellant.

Robert M. Larsen, with whom Edward M. Kaplan, Arthur W. Mudge and Sulloway, Hollis & Soden, Concord, N.H., were on brief, for plaintiff, appellee.

Before CAMPBELL, Chief Judge, BREYER, Circuit Judge, and CEREZO, ^* District Judge.

CEREZO, District Judge.

On June 30, 1979, Charles Coy had an accident at the Motor Sport Park track in Loudon, New Hampshire, which caused his death two days later. On that day he had been participating in a motorcycle race and lost control of his motorcycle while exiting turn two of the track. He was thrown off or fell from his motorcycle, hitting the pavement with his head, his right arm and his shoulder. Notwithstanding the fact that the helmet he wore was considered one of the best motorcycle helmets in existence at the time, Charles Coy suffered severe injuries to his brain which were the cause of his death. Thinking that the helmet, rather than protecting him, contributed to Charles Coy's injuries, his estate, administered by his widow, Sharon Coy, sued the manufacturer, Simpson Marine Safety Equipment, Inc., d/b/a Simpson Sports, in federal court alleging diversity jurisdiction and claiming that the helmet was defective. Applying the law of New Hampshire, a jury found in favor of plaintiff and awarded damages in the sum of $488,321.00. Simpson Sports filed this appeal after its motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, to set aside the verdict and for a new trial, and its motion for resubmission of the verdict or for remittitur were denied.

Appellant claims that the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire erred in denying its motion for judgment notwithstanding verdict where the verdict was so clearly against the weight of the evidence. We disagree.

Plaintiff presented the testimony of eyewitnesses and of an expert in motorcycle accident reconstruction to establish that the accident suffered by Charles Coy was within the limits of the protection capabilities of a helmet meeting the standards of the 1975 Snell Memorial Foundation Test (Snell 75) ¹ and that it would have been survivable accident had it not been for the defective helmet. ² Debra Lacey testified that on the date of the accident she was working at the racetrack as a corner marshal supervising other corner workers in the corner of turn two. She had been attending another rider who had had an accident. She was facing the track when she saw Charles Coy's motorcycle "fishtailing" and then saw him go over the handlebars, off the side of his bike, in a horizontal trajectory. She then saw him land with his head, arm and shoulders on the track and slide about seventy-five to one hundred feet, head first, until he came to a stop. She could not tell which part of his body, of the three mentioned above, hit the ground first, but he did not hit anything else, including his motorcycle, as he fell. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing unusual about Charles Coy's accident.

Samuel Walker testified that on the date of the accident he was one of the racers in the ill-fated race at the Loudon racetrack. Charles Coy had just passed him and was in front of him and exiting turn two at approximately sixty miles per hour when he saw his bike leaning far to the left and sparks coming from something on it that was scraping the ground. He then saw the bike start to wobble and develop into a "tank-slapper." ³ Suddenly the motorcycle changed from a sideways position into an upright position and threw Coy off. Samuel Walker could not recall the exact direction in which Charles Coy left his bike nor could he tell how high above the ground he was thrown. He did not see Coy's impact upon the ground. He observed, however, that the motorcycle slid down the track. He did not see it hit Coy. Walker had had a similar accident himself while driving his motorcycle at over one hundred miles per hour and received only minor injuries.

Plaintiff's expert witness, Professor Hugh Harrison Hurt, Jr., testified as to certain experiments he performed with different motorcycle helmets, dropping them from a height that, in his opinion, corresponded to the approximate impact velocity of Charles Coy's head upon the ground and having them strike a similar flat surface with essentially the same side as Charles Coy's helmet hit the ground. A special instrument connected to a head form inside the helmet measured and recorded the impact to the head form after the particular helmet had absorbed some of the impact. He then compared the results with the results of other experiments he had done to determine the maximum impact force a human head can withstand, thus determining whether the helmets tested would have offered protection in circumstances similar to those in Charles Coy's accident. He also compared the damage to the shell and to the lining with the damages on the accident helmet. All the helmets tested were either of the same date of manufacture of the accident helmet or met the Snell 75 standards. From the tests, Professor Hurt concluded that all but two of the helmets adequately reduced the impact forces upon the head form, which meant that a human head would not have suffered the type of injuries suffered by Charles Coy. The two that did not adequately reduce the impact force were not Snell 75 certified helmets. In addition, the damage shown by the shells and liners of the tested helmets was markedly different from that found in the accident helmet which showed a concentrated area of crushed liner immediately beneath a fracture in the shell whereas the tested helmets showed wide, flat areas of compression. Those helmets that met Snell 75 standards, except for one Simpson helmet, showed little or no shell fracture and no sign of "oil canning" or bending inward. According to Professor Hurt, it was this "oil canning" effect, of which he found evidence in the accident helmet, which caused the liner in the helmet to "bottom out" before it could spread the impact forces to a wider area, thus transmitting a concentrated force to Charles Coy's head.

Plaintiff's expert calculated the approximate impact velocity at which Charles Coy's head hit the ground based on the description of the accident given by some eyewitnesses and on his experience as a motorcycle accident reconstructionist. Based on his experiments with dummies, a motorcycle rider who loses control of the bike and who is flung-off in the same manner as Charles Coy was would fall as if he were being dropped from six or seven feet above the ground or at 13 or 15 miles per hour. According to the evidence, a helmet certified to meet Snell 75 standards should withstand a seventeen miles per hour impact. Professor Hurt explained, however, that in order to cover a possible increase of the impact force caused by rotation of the body the tests were conducted assuming the impact speed was twenty miles per hour.

He further testified as to the hardness or rigidness of the accident helmet's shell. He understood that the number of fiberglass cloth layers used in the make-up of a helmet has a "very serious" effect upon the rigidness of the shell. He stated that a good quality helmet should have at least four plies of glass cloth and that premium quality helmets usually take more. He further stated that the rigidness of a four-ply helmet may be almost doubled by the addition of a fifth layer, making it almost seventy to one hundred per cent more rigid. This helmet had been advertised as a premium helmet with a "five-layer, hand laid-up shell." According to Professor Hurt, however, the helmet had only four layers of glass cloth in the area of the impact, thus being too flexible. In his opinion, the oil canning effect which caused Charles Coy's death could have been prevented or delayed by that fifth layer of fiberglass.

Professor Hurt also testified that shortly after the accident he tested the helmet as to hardness by using an instrument known as a "Barcol" hand-held impressor which showed that the accident helmet was very soft as compared to the other helmets he tested. He tested the helmet again in 1983 and found that the Barcol readings had increased and were within the expected range. In his opinion, the softness of the shell could be due to the fact that the resin holding the fiberglass together had not completely hardened by the time Charles Coy had the accident. He explained that resin in its original state will harden with time, depending on the exposure to air, but that adding a promoter and a catalyst in appropriate proportions causes the resin to harden within a shorter period of time. On cross-examination, however, he could not specify the model of the Barcol tester he used to test the accident helmet, nor the year in which it was manufactured. He was not aware that other models were available and the only one he knew of was that which he used in his tests. He had tested helmets with Barcol testers since 1958.

Greg Gadbois, witness for the appellant, was a corner worker at the Loudon racetrack on the day of Charles Coy's accident. He testified that he saw Charles Coy lose control of his motorcycle and be thrown off when it straightened up after sliding and bending to the left at the exit of turn two. He saw when Charles Coy hit the pavement with his right arm, his shoulder and his head and then slid on his stomach for approximately seventy feet. In his opinion, Charles Coy tried to break the fall with his arm and the head hit the...