Darnell v. Yamaha Motor Corp.
| Decision Date | 04 August 2020 |
| Docket Number | Case No.: 2:17-cv-00202-MHH |
| Citation | 476 F.Supp.3d 1170 |
| Parties | Dominique DARNELL, Plaintiff, v. YAMAHA MOTOR CORPORATION, USA, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Alabama |
Bruce J. McKee, James R. Moncus, III, Ralph D. Cook, John Wade Haley, Michael D. Ermert, Hare, Wynn, Newell & Newton, LLP, Birmingham, AL, Robert L. Parks, Law Offices of Robert L. Parks PL, Miami, FL, for Plaintiff.
David L. Brown, Jr., Watkins & Eager, PLLC, Eugene D. Martenson, Stewart W. McCloud, Huie Fernambucq & Stewart LLP, Birmingham, AL, Richard A. Mueller, Pro Hac Vice, Thompson Coburn LLP, St. Louis, MO, for Defendants Yamaha Motor Corporation, USA, Yamaha Motor Manufacturing Corporation of America.
Eugene D. Martenson, Stewart W. McCloud, Huie Fernambucq & Stewart LLP, Birmingham, AL, Richard A. Mueller, Pro Hac Vice, Thompson Coburn LLP, St. Louis, MO, for Defendant Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd.
The plaintiff in this products liability case, Dominique Darnell, suffered injuries when she fell off the back of a Yamaha WaveRunner personal watercraft. Ms. Darnell contends that the WaveRunner was unmerchantable because it lacked devices that would prevent a passenger from falling backwards or stop the engine in the event of a fall. She seeks damages from defendants Yamaha Motor Corporation, USA, Yamaha Motor Manufacturing Corporation of America, and Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd., for breach of the implied warranty of merchantability under Alabama Code § 7-2-314. Pursuant to Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Yamaha has moved for summary judgment on Ms. Darnell's claim. (Doc. 48). For the reasons explained below, the Court will grant the motion. (Doc. 48).1
"The court shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." FED. R. CIV. P. 56(a). To demonstrate that there is a genuine dispute as to a material fact that precludes summary judgment, a party opposing a motion for summary judgment must cite "to particular parts of materials in the record, including depositions, documents, electronically stored information, affidavits or declarations, stipulations (including those made for purposes of the motion only), admissions, interrogatory answers, or other materials." FED. R. CIV. P. 56(c)(1)(A). "The court need consider only the cited materials, but it may consider other materials in the record." FED. R. CIV. P. 56(c)(3).
When considering a summary judgment motion, a district court must view the evidence in the record and draw reasonable inferences from the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Asalde v. First Class Parking Sys. LLC , 898 F.3d 1136, 1138 (11th Cir. 2018). Accordingly, he Court views the evidence in the light most favorable to Ms. Darnell.
The relevant facts concerning Ms. Darnell's accident are not in dispute. On July 4, 2016, Ms. Darnell was riding as a rear passenger on a Yamaha WaveRunner jet ski at Logan Martin Lake in Alabama. . The seat of the WaveRunner is designed to carry up to three people: the driver and one or two back passengers. (See Doc. 47-8). The WaveRunner does not have handles, straps, or a bar for back passengers to grasp; it has handlebars only for the driver. (See Doc. 47-8).
Several warning labels are affixed to the WaveRunner. For example, the label under the front handlebars states:
(Doc. 47-8, p. 6). The label on the rear of the WaveRunner provides:
(Doc. 47-8, p. 4). Ms. Darnell was not wearing a wetsuit on the day of her accident. .
At the time of the accident, Ms. Darnell was seated behind the driver, Thomas Moland, holding on to the straps of his lifejacket. . At some point, while the WaveRunner was travelling across the water, Ms. Darnell fell in the lake. (Doc. 47-9, p. 16, tp. 57). She testified: (Doc. 47-9, p. 16, tp. 57). Mr. Moland testified that he does not know how Ms. Darnell fell; he simply "turned around and looked" and saw her in the water. (Doc. 47-1, p. 21, tp. 77).
After the fall, Ms. Darnell needed medical attention. An ambulance took her to UAB Hospital. (Doc. 47-9, p. 19, tp. 70). She stayed at the hospital for seven days to receive treatment for gastrointestinal injuries
, went home for a week, and then returned to the hospital for a 12-day stay for more treatment. . At her deposition, she testified that she needed physical therapy and surgery for a hernia and a diastasis recti (separation of the abdominal muscles) that had developed as a result of the trauma she suffered in the accident. .
Seeking compensation for her injuries, Ms. Darnell sued Yamaha for breach of the implied warranty of merchantability under Alabama Code § 7-2-314. (Doc. 1, pp. 4–5). In her complaint, Ms. Darnell contends that Yamaha breached the implied warranty of merchantability for the WaveRunner because "[t]he jet ski was defective and not fit for the ordinary purposes for which the jet ski was to be used." (Doc. 1, p. 4, ¶ 22). She asserts that the WaveRunner (Doc. 1, pp. 4–5, ¶ 23).
Yamaha contends that the defendants are entitled to judgment as a matter of law on Ms. Darnell's implied warranty of merchantability claim because the Alabama Extended Manufacturer's Liability Doctrine – the AEMLD -- subsumes or forecloses Ms. Darnell's breach of warranty claim, and she lacks evidence to prove causation. (Doc. 48, pp. 1–2).2
When a consumer is injured while using a manufacturer's product, the consumer frequently will assert tort claims against the product manufacturer or distributor to recover damages for her injuries. Under Alabama law, those tort claims include design or manufacturing defect claims or failure to warn claims under the AEMLD and common law claims for negligent or wanton design or manufacture. Spain v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. , 872 So. 2d 101, 106 (Ala. 2003).3 Those tort claims likely were not appealing to Ms. Darnell because of the defenses that a manufacturer may raise to those claims. For example, a manufacturer may defend against an AEMLD claim by showing that it warned against the injury that the plaintiff suffered, and the plaintiff failed to heed the warning. (Doc. 44).
Tort defenses are not available to a manufacturer when an injured consumer brings a claim against the manufacturer under the Uniform Commercial Code or U.C.C. (Doc. 44). Under the U.C.C., merchants may be subject to liability for selling goods that breach the implied warranty of merchantability, a guarantee that the goods are "fit for the ordinary purposes for which such goods are used." Ala. Code § 7-2-314(1), (2)(c).
The Alabama Supreme Court has issued several decisions that explain the distinction between the tort standard and the warranty standard for manufactured goods. The Alabama Supreme Court first described the relationship between AEMLD claims and U.C.C. breach-of-implied-warranty claims in Shell v. Union Oil Co. , 489 So. 2d 569 (Ala. 1986). That case was before the Alabama Supreme Court on an appeal from a summary judgment order.
The evidence in Shell indicated that, while working in a Goodyear plant, Mr. Shell was exposed to a naphtha product supplied to Goodyear by the defendants. The naphtha product contained benzene, a carcinogen. Mr. Shell sued the defendants for breach of the implied warranty of merchantability of the naphtha product under Ala. Code § 7-2-314. Mr. Shell asserted that, "because the substance supplied by Defendants caused cancer
, it could not be ‘fit for the ordinary purposes for which such goods are used’; that is, because this is a cancer-causing substance, it is unreasonably dangerous, and, therefore, cannot be merchantable." Shell , 489 So. 2d at 571.
The Alabama Supreme Court disagreed. The Alabama Supreme Court explained that the U.C.C. governs a claim that a product breached the implied warranty of "commercial fitness and suitability"—i.e. , the warranty that the " ‘[product was] fit for the ordinary purposes for which such goods are used.’ " Shell , 489 So. 2d at 571–72 (emphasis and alterations in original) (quoting Ala. Code § 7-2-314 ). The Alabama Supreme Court recognized that the naptha product contained an "inherently dangerous chemical compound," 489 So. 2d at 570, and looked to the warnings that accompanied the product to evaluate...
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...The decisions upon which Defendant relies— Shell v. Union Oil Co. , 489 So. 2d 569 (Ala. 1986), and Darnell v. Yamaha Motor Corp., USA , 476 F. Supp. 3d 1170, 1172 (N.D. Ala. 2020) —are distinguishable; they were decided on summary judgment after discovery, not on a motion for judgment on t......