Daimlerchrysler Corp. v. Inman

• Decision Date: 01 February 2008
• Docket Number: No. 03-1189.,03-1189.
• Citation: 252 S.W.3d 299
• Parties: DAIMLERCHRYSLER CORPORATION, Petitioner, v. Bill INMAN, David Castro, and John Wilkins, Each Individually and on Behalf of all others Similarly Situated, Respondents.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

252 S.W.3d 299

DAIMLERCHRYSLER CORPORATION, Petitioner, v. Bill INMAN, David Castro, and John Wilkins, Each Individually and on Behalf of all others Similarly Situated, Respondents.

No. 03-1189.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Argued January 6, 2005.

Decided February 1, 2008.

Rehearing Dismissed April 4, 2008.

William V. Dorsaneo III, Richard A. Smith, Lynn Tillotson & Pinker, L.L.P., Dallas, Mike A. Hatchell, Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell, LLP, Molly H. Hatchell, Locke Liddell & Sapp LLP, Austin, TX, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher, LLP, Washington, DC, Audrey Mullert Vicknair, Law Office of Audrey Mullert Vicknair, Corpus Christi, Roberta J. Hegland, Bracewell & Giuliani, LLP, Austin, Oscar Rey Rodriguez, Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P., Dallas, TX, Charles A. Newman, Bryan Cave, LLP, Kathy A. Wisniewski, St. Louis, MO, Suellen Ratliff and Mark S. Whitburn, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, LLP, Dallas, TX, for Petitioner.

William R. Edwards III, John Blaise Gsanger, The Edwards Law Firm, Corpus Christi, TX, Carol V. Gilden, Steven A. Kanner and William H. London, Much Shelist Freed Deneberg Ament Bell & Rubenstein, Douglas A. Millen, Chicago, IL, Vernon N. Reaser Jr., Law Office of Vernon N. Reaser, Jr., Victoria, and J. Mitchell Clark, Law Offices of J. Mitchell Clark, Corpus Christi, TX, for Respondent.

Deborah J. La Fetra, Pacific Legal Foundation, Sacramento CA, James J. White, Ann Harbor MI, John H. Beisner, O'Melveny & Myers LLP, Washington DC, for Amicus Curiae.

Justice HECHT delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice WAINWRIGHT, Justice BRISTER, Justice MEDINA, and Justice WILLETT joined.

NATHAN L. HECHT, Justice.

Three plaintiffs have sued for themselves and a nationwide class of some ten million owners and lessees of Daimler-Chrysler vehicles, equipped with Gen-3 seatbelt buckles, and sold over the course of a decade. They allege that it is too easy to press the release button on the buckle and unlatch it without intending to do so. They do not contend that this is unavoidable, probable, or even eventual, only that it is possible. Two of the plaintiffs have never experienced anything like what they claim might happen, and the third is not sure whether he has or not, but he has never been injured. They have sued to have the buckles replaced with ones that are harder to unlatch. At least two similar class actions have been brought in other states without success.¹

Of course, the risk that seatbelt buckles will be unlatched accidentally can be eliminated by making them more difficult to operate, but that would discourage people from using them at all, resulting in more injuries. In designing seatbelt buckles, the risk of injury from accidental release of easy-to-unlatch buckles must be balanced against the risk of injury from non-use of hard-to-unlatch buckles, for either way, there is risk. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is charged with being sure that balance is struck in the right place for vehicles sold throughout the country. The decision is not one for a jury in one state or another to make for the rest of the nation. NHTSA has never required that the Gen-3 buckles be recalled and replaced.

The trial court granted class certification. The court of appeals reversed and remanded for further proceedings, holding that "the trial court still has significant pre-certification work to do" to determine which jurisdictions' laws would govern class members' claims.² But the court of appeals rejected DaimlerChrysler's broader argument: that the plaintiffs' fear of possible injury from an accidental release of a seatbelt is so remote that they lack standing to assert their claims.³ That is, DaimlerChrysler argues not merely that the plaintiffs' claims will fail but that the court lacks jurisdiction to hear them. We agree, reverse the judgment of the court of appeals, and order the case dismissed.

I

Three Nueces County residents, Bill L. Inman, David Castro, and John Wilkins, bought Dodge vehicles manufactured by DaimlerChrysler Corp., equipped with Gen-3 seatbelt buckles — respectively, a new 1997 Dodge Caravan, a new 1995 Dodge Ram 1500, and a used 1999 Dodge Intrepid. Castro and Wilkins testified that they had never experienced any problems with the buckles and had never heard of anyone who had. Wilkins had been in one accident and the seatbelt worked properly. Inman testified that his seatbelt might have released twice when it should not have, but he was "not a hundred percent sure of this because [he] didn't pay any attention at the time". The first time, he did not know how he hit the release button, but "all at once" his seatbelt was loose. The second time, he said, he thought he bumped the button while trying to replace the lid on a cooler sitting between the seats of his van. He was not hurt or endangered either time, and he does not know of anyone who was ever harmed because of a Gen-3 buckle.

In June 2000, Inman sued DaimlerChrysler in the county court at law in Nueces County, alleging that the Gen-3 buckles were defective. Castro and Wilkins joined as plaintiffs in January 2002. In depositions, the plaintiffs explained why they decided to sue even though they had never been hurt because of their seatbelts. Inman testified that he had run into his lawyer on the street, who told him "there could be a problem with the seatbelt", and "some way or another [they] got around to sort of discussing a lawsuit." According to Castro's testimony, he became involved in this lawsuit after hearing that the seatbelts in his Dodge truck were defective from his cousin, an investigator working for the law firm representing Inman. Wilkins testified that he was informed by a friend who worked for the same firm that there was litigation over whether the Gen-3 buckle was defective. And so the three decided to sue on behalf of ten million vehicle owners and lessees across the nation.

In their seventh amended petition, the plaintiffs alleged that the Gen-3 buckle is "dangerously subject to accidental release, far more dangerous than other buckle designs", that it is "subject to release at any time, and especially in the event of a collision", and that the buckle "design does not minimize the possibility of accidental release". The plaintiffs do not contend that the buckle will release by itself; it must be pressed. They contend only that it is too easy for the button to be pressed inadvertently, either by the wearer or something else in the vehicle. The plaintiffs allege negligence, negligent misrepresentation, breach of express warranty that the vehicles are safe and meet all safety requirements,⁴ breach of the implied warranties of merchantability⁵ and fitness for a particular purpose,⁶ and violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act.⁷ They do not contend that the Gen-3 buckles made their vehicles worth less than they paid for them, and they expressly "do not seek damages for personal injury, property damage or death." They claim damages only for the cost of replacing the buckles with ones that are harder to unlatch, which they "believe[ ] to be not in excess of $75 per buckle", and any lost use while repairs are made, "believed not to exceed $500.00 per vehicle." Thus, if we assume four seatbelts per vehicle, plaintiffs claim no more than $2,400 for themselves and no more than $8 billion for the class.

DaimlerChrysler moved for summary judgment on the ground that the plaintiffs' pleadings failed to state a viable cause of action. The plaintiffs offered evidence of the defect they allege in the Gen-3 buckles. They contended that the buckle design violates a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard requiring that a "[b]uckle release mechanism shall be designed to minimize the possibility of accidental release."⁸ The plaintiffs offered evidence that the buckles failed "ball tests" used by the industry to determine the force required to press the release button, but they offered no evidence that there was any governmental requirement that the buckles pass such tests. They also offered evidence that DaimlerChrysler received fifty complaints documenting over one hundred instances when Gen-3 buckles unlatched, and that the buckles unlatched in two NHTSA crash tests and in crash tests conducted by the Canadian government and DaimlerChrysler itself, but they offered no evidence that any determination has ever been made that the buckles unlatched more easily than they should. The trial court denied DaimlerChrysler's motion. In certifying the class, the court found:

Plaintiffs' claims are not based on any hypothetical defect in the Gen-3 buckle that may, or may not, manifest itself in the future. Instead, Plaintiffs' allege that the sale of Gen-3 buckles breached warranties and consumer remedies because each buckle was sold in violation of federal standards, industry standards, and Defendant's internal standards and that each Gen-3 buckle has manifested this breach from the moment it was sold until the present.

The trial court certified two classes. One was for:

All United States resident persons (except residents of California or Nevada) who own or lease new vehicles, model year 1993-2002, manufactured and/or sold by Daimler/Chrysler and equipped with Gen-3 seat belt buckles ... [excluding] any person who has an action for damages for personal injury or death or property damage against Defendants.

The other class was identical except for the word "used" in place of "new". On appeal, Daimler-Chrysler argued that the case should be dismissed because the plaintiffs had not sustained any legally cognizable injury and therefore lacked standing to assert their claims. Alternatively, Daimler-Chrysler argued that the class should be decertified because the trial plan adopted by the trial court was flawed and incomplete, the plaintiffs were inadequate class representatives, and they had not satisfied the predominance, superiority, and manageability...