Ducharme v. Hyundai Motor America

• Decision Date: 28 August 1998
• Docket Number: No. 96-P-1642,96-P-1642
• Citation: 45 Mass.App.Ct. 401,698 N.E.2d 412
• Parties: , Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 15,333 Dana DUCHARME v. HYUNDAI MOTOR AMERICA & others. 1
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

Page 412

698 N.E.2d 412

45 Mass.App.Ct. 401, Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 15,333

Dana DUCHARME v. HYUNDAI MOTOR AMERICA & others. ¹

No. 96-P-1642.

Appeals Court of Massachusetts Worcester.

Argued June 2, 1998.

Decided Aug. 28, 1998.

James A. Swartz, Boston, for the plaintiff.

Daniel J. Gleason, Boston (Nelson G. Apjohn with him) for the defendants.

Before WARNER, C.J., and ARMSTRONG and PORADA, JJ.

WARNER, Chief Justice.

The plaintiff, Dana Ducharme, brought this action to recover damages for injuries he sustained in an automobile accident that occurred on the morning of December 23, 1986. Ducharme, who was a nineteen year old college student at the time, suffered multiple injuries, including massive facial injuries and head trauma resulting in total, permanent blindness, when the 1986 Hyundai Excel he was driving left the road traveling at more than forty miles per hour and struck a tree head on.

At trial, Ducharme maintained that he was injured more severely than he would otherwise have been as a result of the alleged negligence and breach of warranty of the defendants, Hyundai Motor America, Hyundai Motor Company, and Hyundai Corporation (collectively referred to as Hyundai), in designing and manufacturing the vehicle. Specifically, Ducharme claimed that the Excel's steering column, A-pillar welds, ² and seat belt assembly were defectively designed and manufactured. Hyundai maintained that the Excel was properly designed and manufactured in all respects and that it provided as much protection as could reasonably have been expected in an accident of such magnitude. Hyundai further argued that Ducharme would likely have sustained serious injuries in such a crash even in the absence of any defect and that he was negligent for failing to keep the Excel on the road and failing to take evasive measures to avoid striking the tree. Finally, Hyundai claimed that although Ducharme was wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident, he was out of position as a result of falling asleep or some other "significant inadvertence."

After a trial that lasted approximately four weeks, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Hyundai on all counts. In response to special questions, the jury found that Hyundai was not negligent in the design or manufacture of the Excel and that Hyundai did not breach the implied warranty of merchantability. Ducharme subsequently filed a motion for a new trial, which was denied. He now appeals from the judgment entered in favor of Hyundai and from the denial of his motion for a new trial. He challenges the sufficiency of three separate jury instructions, and argues that the judge abused her discretion in ruling on several evidentiary issues. We affirm.

1. Jury Instructions. (a) Causation. Ducharme first challenges the adequacy of the instruction on causation. He argues that the judge erred in instructing the jury that he was required to prove some enhanced injury in order to recover because his injury, that is, his blindness, is indivisible. The question of causation, however, was never addressed by the jury in light of their findings that Hyundai was not negligent and did not commit a breach of the implied warranty of merchantability. Thus, "any error in the instruction was rendered harmless." Pemberton v. Boas, 13 Mass.App.Ct. 1015, 1017, 433 N.E.2d 490 (1982).

(b) Foreseeable product use. Ducharme next contends that the instructions erroneously misled the jury into believing that the circumstances surrounding the accident in which he was injured were unforeseeable. In this regard, he first contends that the breach of warranty instruction runs afoul of the Supreme Judicial Court's decision in Back v. Wickes Corp., 375 Mass. 633, 640, 378 N.E.2d 964 (1978). We disagree.

With respect to the breach of warranty claim, the judge instructed the jury that Ducharme had the burden of proving "that at the time of his injury, he was using the [Excel] in a manner that the defendant intended or reasonably could have foreseen." She further stated:

"With respect to automobiles, collisions are considered to be reasonably foreseeable uses of the product. The requirement that the plaintiff's use of the product was reasonably foreseeable means that the manufacturer is not obliged to design against bizarre, unforeseeable accidents, but the manufacturer is obliged to anticipate the environment in which its product will be used, and it must design against the reasonably foreseeable risks attending the product's use in that setting."

Ducharme maintains that the use of the word "bizarre" suggested to the jury that the accident was somehow unusual and, therefore, unforeseeable to the defendants. We think the instruction accurately conveyed to the jury the elements required to establish a plaintiff's prima facie case in a breach of warranty action. See Allen v. Chance Mfg. Co., 398 Mass. 32, 34, 494 N.E.2d 1324 (1986) ("to prove his case a plaintiff asserting a ... claim based on a breach of an implied warranty of merchantability must prove that at the time of his injury he was using the product in a manner that the defendant seller, manufacturer, or distributor reasonably could have foreseen"). Indeed, the challenged language was taken directly from Back v. Wickes Corp., 375 Mass. at 640-641, 378 N.E.2d 964, the case upon which Ducharme relies in support of his claim. Moreover, we discern no risk that the judge's use of the word "bizarre" could have misled the jury into concluding that the accident was unforeseeable in light of the judge's express instruction to the contrary.

Ducharme also contends that the negligence instruction was prejudicial and misleading. "A manufacturer is under a duty to use reasonable care to design a product that is reasonably safe for its intended use." Everett v. Bucky Warren, Inc., 376 Mass. 280, 287, 380 N.E.2d 653 (1978), quoting from Prosser, Torts § 96, at 645 (4th ed. 1971). See Back v. Wickes Corp., supra at 643, 378 N.E.2d 964 (standard of care applicable to manufacturer in negligence claim is that "of the ordinary, reasonably prudent manufacturer in like circumstances"). Taken as a whole, the charge, which repeatedly emphasized Hyundai's duty to anticipate and evaluate the foreseeable risks associated with the Excel's use and to act reasonably to eliminate avoidable dangers, adequately explained this principle to the jury. ³ See Torre v. Harris-Seybold Co., 9 Mass.App.Ct. 660, 679, 404 N.E.2d 96 (1980) ("a good objection [to the charge] will lie only if a critical issue was not dealt with at all or was dealt with erroneously as a matter of law"). Contrast Yates v. Norton Co., 403 Mass. 70, 77, 525 N.E.2d 1317 (1988) ("judge's instruction injected confusion into the jury's deliberations on the negligence count by improperly instructing them that a finding of an unforeseeable, improper, or abnormal use of the [product] ... would, by itself, warrant a 'finding in favor of the [defendant]' " [citation omitted] ).

(c) Knowledge of the alleged defect. Ducharme next argues that the judge erred in instructing the jury that he could not recover on his breach of warranty claim if he knew that the Excel was defective or dangerous. He contends that the instruction should not have been given because nothing in the evidence suggested that he had such knowledge. Although not explicitly referenced in Ducharme's brief, the challenged instruction appears to be the following:

"[T]he warranty liability issue does not focus on the conduct of the user, but rather solely on the issue of whether the product was defective and unreasonably dangerous. Given this focus, the only duty imposed on the user in a warranty action as distinguished from a negligence action is to act reasonably with respect to the product which it [sic] knows to be defective or dangerous."

When considered in the context of the entire charge, the instruction was adequate. See Torre v. Harris-Seybold Co., 9 Mass.App.Ct. at 678, 404 N.E.2d 96 (adequacy of instruction must be determined by examining charge as a whole). Rather than constituting an improper instruction on the "Correia defense" as Ducharme contends, see Correia v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 388 Mass. 342, 355-356, 446 N.E.2d 1033 (1983), it appears that the judge included the challenged language only to illustrate to the jury the fundamental difference between the negligence claim, on which she had previously charged, and the breach of warranty claim: that "where [a] breach of warranty is shown, 'the user's negligence does not prevent recovery except when he unreasonably uses a product that he knows to be defective and dangerous.' " Hallmark Color Labs, Inc. v. Damon Corp., 20 Mass.App.Ct. 909, 911, 477 N.E.2d 1052 (1985), quoting from Correia, supra at 356, 446 N.E.2d 1033.

2. Evidentiary Issues. (a) Noncompliance with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208. Ducharme maintains that the judge abused her discretion in refusing to permit his expert, John Stilson, to testify that the Excel did not comply with the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208, 49 C.F.R. § 571.208 (1997) (FMVSS 208). In response to a motion in limine filed by Hyundai, the judge initially ruled that Stilson's testimony was admissible. She subsequently reversed her ruling, however, after reading a case recently decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Bammerlin v. Navistar Intl. Transp. Corp., 30 F.3d 898 (7th Cir.1994). Ducharme claims that the judge misconstrued Bammerlin, and that the resulting error was especially prejudicial to his case in light of testimony offered by Hyundai indicating that the Excel did comply with FMVSS 208. There was no error.

"The trial judge has a significant function to carry out in deciding on the admissibility of a scientific expert's opinion." Commonwealth v. Lanigan, 419 Mass. 15, 25, 641 N.E.2d 1342 (1994). "[B]efore admitting [such] expert testimony, [the judge should assure himself] ......