Fisher v. Ford Motor Co.

• Decision Date: 22 June 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-3012,99-3012
• Citation: 224 F.3d 570
• Parties: (6th Cir. 2000) Beverly M. Fisher and John B. Fisher, Sr., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Ford Motor Company, Defendant-Appellee. Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 570

224 F.3d 570 (6th Cir. 2000)

Beverly M. Fisher and John B. Fisher, Sr., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Ford Motor Company, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 99-3012

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH COURT

Argued: June 22, 2000

Decided and Filed: August 23, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio at Toledo. No. 97-07070--James G. Carr, District Judge.

Dennis R. Lansdowne, Robert A. Marcis, SPANGENBERG, SHIBLEY & LIBER, LLP, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellants.

Elizabeth B. Wright, THOMPSON, HINE & FLORY, LLP, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee.

Robert C. Sanders, PARENTS FOR SAFER AIR BAGS, Washington, D.C., Leslie A. Brueckner, TRIAL LAWYERS FOR PUBLIC JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Amici Curiae.

Before: NELSON, BOGGS, and DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

BOGGS, Circuit Judge.

Beverly M. Fisher appeals the district court's pre-trial grant of partial summary judgment to Ford Motor Co. ("Ford"), as well as rulings at trial, in her diversity lawsuit against Ford. Fisher sustained serious head injuries when the driver's-side air bag of her 1996 Ford Escort deployed during a collision. Due to her short stature, Mrs. Fisher was seated very close to the steering column in which the air bag is contained. She claims she did not see and did not read the warning sign posted on the sun visor cautioning drivers not to sit close to the air bag; nor did she read the driver's manual, which the visor sign advised motorists to read, containing additional information on air bags repeating that warning.

The district court granted partial summary judgment to Ford, ruling that Fisher's claim of failure to warn, due to the absence of more prominent and explicit warning signs, was impliedly preempted by the National Highway Transportation Safety Agency ("NHTSA") safety regulation requiring a uniform air bag warning sign on the sun visor. The court held that the regulatory scheme precluded alternative language on that sign or on other signs. It did, however, allow to go to the jury the question of whether Ford had a duty to post identical warning signs elsewhere in the vehicle to ensure their being observed. The court refused Fisher's request for a jury instruction regarding an alleged duty to provide still other forms of notice to drivers concerning the risks of air bags, such as by letters, leaflets, etc. A requested jury instruction concerning Ford's alleged knowledge of the added risks to short-statured drivers was also refused, on the ground that the evidence did not establish such knowledge. Fisher contends that each of the district court's adverse rulings was erroneous.

For the reasons that follow, we affirm the rulings of the district court.

I

Beverly Fisher is a woman in her seventies whose height is 5'1". In 1996, she purchased a new Ford Sable that was equipped with air bags on both the driver's and passenger's sides. She was injured on November 29, 1996, while driving, when her air bag deployed during a low-speed collision. Because of her short stature, in order to drive comfortably Mrs. Fisher would generally sit very close to the steering wheel, and had adjusted her seat almost to the maximum forward position permitted by the slide track on which the seat rides. The force of the air bag's deployment from the steering column into her face at such close range slammed her head back against the seat, causing a skull fracture and brain hemorrhaging, which resulted in lengthy hospitalization and rehabilitation, and continuing neurological damage. She also suffered a right-arm fracture. It is uncontested that her injuries were caused by the air bag's deployment, rather than by the impact of the collision.

Mrs. Fisher contends that Ford knew of the risk to short drivers who must sit close to the air bag, and should have warned her of the danger. The standard safety instructions on the federally mandated warning mounted on the sun visor cautions drivers not to sit too close to the air bag, but does not warn drivers who are short in stature of the special risk to them, nor was the warning displayed anywhere else, for example on the steering column, where she could have read it more easily. She contends that the lack of additional warnings located elsewhere in the vehicle, which could also warn short drivers of special risks to them, constituted tortious failure to warn, and product defect due to inadequate warning, under Ohio law.

The air bag warning required by Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard ("FMVSS") 208 reads as follows:

CAUTION, TO AVOID SERIOUS INJURY:

For maximum safety protection in all types of crashes, you must always wear your safety belt

Do not install rearward-facing child seats in any front passenger seat position

Do not sit or lean unnecessarily close to the air bag

Do not place any objects over the air bag or between the air bag and yourself

See the owner's manual for further information and explanations.

Fisher testified that she had never seen or read the visor warning sign, nor did she read the owner's manual's discussion of the proper use and dangers of air bags.

II

A

The district court granted partial summary judgment to Ford on the issue of partial preemption. Fisher had argued that Ford's compliance with federal standards, by posting the visor warning, fails to satisfy Ohio law on inadequate warning. Ford claimed that the federal standard preempts any additional state law standard, notwithstanding an explicit exemption from preemption for common law claims. The district court held that NHTSA's safety regulation, requiring a uniform warning sign on the sun visor, impliedly preempted any duty under state law to post additional signs with alternative or more expansive language.

We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. See, e.g., Hartsel v. Keyes, 87 F.3d 795, 799 (6th Cir. 1996). Such a judgment is affirmed "if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). Evaluating the judgment on appeal, this court views the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. See Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986).

The effect of FMVSS 208, which mandates sun-visor warning labels concerning air bags, as quoted supra, is governed by 49 U.S.C. § 30103(b)(1), which reads in relevant part:

When a motor vehicle safety standard is in effect under this chapter, a State or political subdivision of a State may prescribe or continue in effect a standard applicable to the same aspect of performance of motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment only if the standard is identical to the standard prescribed under this chapter.

The same section has a savings clause: "Compliance with a motor vehicle safety standard prescribed under this chapter does not exempt a person from liability at common law." 49 U.S.C. § 30103(e).

Accordingly, the district court held that state tort law, and Fisher's inadequate warning claim, were not expressly preempted. It then asked whether ordinary principles of implied preemption applied. Analyzing the purposes and regulatory commentary on the safety regulations in question, the district court held that state law could not require alternative warning labels containing different language than that mandated by NHTSA; any such state law duty to warn is, the court held, impliedly preempted.

To this extent, the district court's approach to this case anticipates, and comports with, the Supreme Court's recent decision in Geier v. American Honda Motor Co., 120 S. Ct. 1913 (2000). In that case the Court held that, absent express preemption by the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, and despite the safe harbor it creates for common law tort actions, ordinary preemption principles nevertheless can apply to bar a suit against a manufacturer who had adhered to, but did not go beyond, federal safety standards concerning air bags. Although Geier's holding, which dealt with the absence of an air bag, is not directly on point, the Court's preemption analysis supports the district court's decision in the instant case.

However, the district court's application of implied preemption to Fisher's claims, and its holding in favor of Ford on the motion for summary judgment, appealed by Fisher, was in fact quite limited. The district court found that although NHTSA policy does preclude placing any air bag warning labels with language different than FMVSS 208 requires on the obligatory sun visor label, it does not necessarily preclude the placement of additional warning labels elsewhere in the vehicle, so long as their language is identical to the sun visor's warning. The court ruled that it was for the jury to decide whether, by lack of such additional identical labels placed elsewhere, and/or by additional language in the owner's manual, Ford had failed to provide Fisher with adequate warning as required by Ohio Rev. Code 2307.76, and whether the lack of such labels was the proximate cause of Fisher's injury. The jury found against Fisher on that inadequate warning claim, and on the defective design claim as well.

The only issue on appeal with respect to the summary judgment motion partially granted to Ford is whether additional labels, placed elsewhere in the vehicle than on the sun visor, could contain language different than that mandated by FMVSS 208, e.g., to warn drivers of short stature about added risks to them. However, as the district court reasoned, echoing the published regulation, NHTSA policy indicated that NHTSA thought of its warning language as not simply the minimum, but as the sole language it wanted on the subject. NHTSA feared "information overload," i.e., that additional warnings would distract from the warnings it had...