Duren v. Paccar, Inc., A01A0050.

• Decision Date: 30 May 2001
• Docket Number: No. A01A0050.,A01A0050.
• Citation: 549 S.E.2d 755,249 Ga. App. 758
• Parties: DUREN v. PACCAR, INC.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

549 S.E.2d 755
249 Ga. App. 758

DUREN
v.
PACCAR, INC

No. A01A0050.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

May 30, 2001.

Certiorari Denied October 9, 2001.

549 S.E.2d 756

Hicks, Casey & Barber, William T. Casey, Jr., Mark A. Barber, Marietta, Mark W. Wortham, Buzzell, Graham & Welsh, Timothy K. Hall, Doffermyre, Shields, Canfield, Knowles & Devine, Foy R. Devine, David S. Hagy, Atlanta, Catherine Smith-Jones, for appellant

Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough, Richard B. North, Jr., Donald L. Swift III, Atlanta, for appellee.

King & Spalding, Chilton D. Varner, Atlanta, Reynolds & McArthur, Charles M. Cork III, Macon, amici curiae.

549 S.E.2d 757

RUFFIN, Judge

Peyton Duren was killed when a tractor-trailer truck manufactured by Paccar, Inc. collided with his pickup truck. Duren's surviving spouse, Tammy Duren, sued Paccar, alleging the company is liable under state tort law for defectively designing and manufacturing the truck. Paccar moved for summary judgment, arguing that state law is preempted by federal law, which bars Duren's claim. The trial court granted Paccar's motion, and Duren appeals. For reasons that follow, we reverse.

[249 Ga. App. 759] Summary judgment is appropriate where the moving party establishes "that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the [movant] is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law."¹ On appeal from the grant of summary judgment, we review the trial court's judgment de novo to determine whether the evidence of record, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, demonstrates any genuine issue of material fact.²

Viewed in this light, the evidence shows that on the day of the incident, May 3, 1997, Mildred Anderson was driving a truck tractor pulling an empty trailer. Immediately before the fatal collision, Anderson applied her brakes to avoid hitting a car in front of her, causing the truck to suddenly jackknife and swerve into oncoming traffic. The truck ultimately collided with the car driven by Peyton Duren.

The truck Anderson was driving was made by Paccar and came off the manufacturing line on September 19, 1996. When Paccar manufactured the truck, it did not install any safety devices to prevent jackknifing during braking when the truck is pulling a lightly loaded trailer. At the time, there were three safety devices that Paccar could have installed on the truck to reduce the risk of jackknifing: an antilock braking system ("ABS"), a load sensitive proportioning valve ("LSV"), and a manual limiting valve ("MLV").

Although Paccar maintains that it offered an ABS as "standard" equipment on the truck driven by Anderson, her employer, who leased the truck, stated that he was never informed of the need for an ABS or that it was available on the truck he leased. Instead, it appears that the dealership that ordered the truck merely deleted the "standard" ABS as a feature for the truck, without informing Anderson's employer. According to Paccar's manager of product safety and compliance, the cost of the ABS was then "returned to the dealer for not ordering ABS."³ Thus, the truck was not equipped with an ABS, nor was it equipped with a LSV or a MLV, which were not available as either standard or optional features on the truck.

In her complaint, Duren alleged, among other counts, that Paccar is liable under state product liability law because the truck lacked a safety device to prevent it from jackknifing. In its motion for summary judgment, Paccar argued that the safety devices that it could have installed on the truck were not required under federal [249 Ga. App. 760] standards, which preempted state law. The trial court granted the motion, and on appeal Duren asserts that the trial court erred because the federal law concerning these safety devices did not preempt state tort law.

In addressing this issue, we note initially that as a general rule, "compliance with federal standards or regulations will not bar manufacturer liability for design defect as a matter of law."⁴ This is because under the risk-utility analysis applied to claims of design defects, compliance with federal standards or regulations is only one factor, among many, that the jury may consider in deciding the question of reasonableness.⁵ Where, however, Congress has expressed its

549 S.E.2d 758

intent, through federal laws or regulations, that federal law should preempt state law, any state law that conflicts with the federal law "is without effect."⁶ Federal law may preempt state law by: "(1) express preemption; (2) field preemption (regulating the field so extensively that Congress clearly intends the subject area to be controlled only by federal law); and (3) implied (or conflict) preemption."⁷ Here, Paccar contends that the federal law expressly and impliedly preempts state law.

1. Express Preemption. To determine whether Congress intended to expressly preempt state product liability law, we must review the federal regulatory history concerning braking standards for heavy trucks such as involved here. The standard at issue, Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 121, was originally promulgated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ("NHTSA") in 1970 with a proposed effective date of January 1, 1972.⁸ The standard generally required a braking system which would stop a truck within a certain distance without the truck leaving its lane of travel.⁹ That standard, however, received considerable opposition from the truck manufacturing industry, and the effective date was postponed to 1974.¹⁰ Because that standard required the installation of an ABS, and there were unforeseen problems developing the new braking system, in 1978 the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit suspended its implementation.¹¹

In the early 1990s NHTSA revisited braking standards for large trucks.¹² In 1992, NHTSA issued an Advance Notice of Proposed [249 Ga. App. 761] Rulemaking which discussed the brake designs and equipment under consideration.¹³ After noting the relative merits of several braking systems, including ABSs and LSVs, NHTSA found that ABSs appeared "to be the most reliable method of preventing loss of stability and steering control," and invited comment on its findings.¹⁴

In 1993, after the comment period, NHTSA proposed amending...