Habecker v. Clark Equipment Co., Civ. A. No. 1:CV-86-0352.

• Decision Date: 25 August 1992
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 1:CV-86-0352.
• Citation: 797 F. Supp. 381
• Parties: Connie L. HABECKER, Individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of John R. Habecker, Deceased; and John Michael Habecker, Minor, by Connie L. Habecker, his Parent, Natural Guardian and Next Friend, Plaintiffs, v. CLARK EQUIPMENT COMPANY and Forklifts, Inc., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Pennsylvania

797 F. Supp. 381

Connie L. HABECKER, Individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of John R. Habecker, Deceased; and John Michael Habecker, Minor, by Connie L. Habecker, his Parent, Natural Guardian and Next Friend, Plaintiffs, v. CLARK EQUIPMENT COMPANY and Forklifts, Inc., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 1:CV-86-0352.

United States District Court, M.D. Pennsylvania.

March 31, 1992.

On Motion to Reconsider August 25, 1992.

Stephen M. Greecher, Jr., Hepford, Swartz, Menaker & Morgan, Harrisburg, Pa., Samuel Posner, Gerald F. Posner, Posner, Posner & Posner, Detroit, Mich., Hy Mayerson, Norristown, Pa., for Connie L. Habecker and John Michael Habecker.

Susan L. Parsons, Clark, Ladner, Fortenbaugh & Young, Philadelphia, Pa., Stanley Boychuck, Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon, Chicago, Ill., Richard W. Hollstein, Clark, Ladner, Fortenbaugh & Young, Philadelphia, Pa., for Clark Equipment Co.

Stanley Boychuck, Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon, Chicago, Ill., F. Lee Shipman, John Andrew Statler, Goldberg, Katzman & Shipman, Harrisburg, Pa., for Forklifts, Inc.

MEMORANDUM

RAMBO, District Judge.

Before the court are six motions filed in anticipation of the retrial of this strict products liability action — five by plaintiffs and one by defendants — addressing a farrago of issues. These motions are fully briefed and ripe for disposition.

Background

This action arises from the death of John Habecker in 1984. Mr. Habecker, a civilian employee at the New Cumberland Army Depot, was killed when a forklift he was attempting to back down a ramp slipped off the side of the ramp. The mishap threw Mr. Habecker out of the cab, and he was crushed beneath the falling forklift. The forklift involved in the incident was manufactured by defendant Clark Equipment Company ("Clark") and leased to the Army by defendants Forklifts, Inc. ("Forklifts").

In March 1986, Mr. Habecker's estate, his wife, and his son brought suit in negligence, breach of warranty and strict liability against several defendants, including Clark and Forklifts. Prior to the first trial, plaintiffs dropped the warranty and negligence claims. As only the strict liability claim remained, and Forklifts was indemnified by Clark in such a circumstance, the parties signed a stipulation dismissing with prejudice Forklifts' third party claim against the Department of the Army and the United States.

At the first trial, this court granted a directed verdict against plaintiffs on the issue of whether the throttle was defective. Thus, the only issues which were considered by the jury were whether Clark and Forklifts were strictly liable due to the forklift's lack of an operator restraint system. The jury brought in a verdict for defendants.

Plaintiffs appealed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The Third Circuit found that this court had committed prejudicial error in excluding the testimony of one of plaintiff's expert and remanded the case for a new trial "on the operator restraints issue." Habecker v. Copperloy Corp., 893 F.2d 49, 54 (3d Cir.1990) (hereinafter Habecker I). The directed verdicts were upheld. Id.

At the first trial, plaintiffs had pursued only the theory that the forklift was defective when manufactured in 1977, and not when it was leased to the Army by Forklifts in 1983 and again in 1984. In a series of letters in April 1990 defendants and plaintiffs traded arguments before the court as to whether the additional theory should be permitted or not. On April 27, 1990, this court issued an order stating "the sole issue for retrial is whether the forklift was defective when it left Clark Equipment in 1977 because it lacked a seat-belt or operator restraint system."

A second jury trial was held in June 1990, and addressed only issue of whether the lack of restraints made the forklift unreasonably dangerous when manufactured in 1977. Again the jury returned a verdict for defendants.

Plaintiffs appealed once more, this time asserting that this court erred in admitting evidence of what was known in the industry at the time about the efficacy of operator restraints in forklifts in 1977 — information which they claimed was irrelevant in a strict liability case. They also argued that this court had taken too narrow a view with regard to its ability to permit the new legal theories to be pursued at retrial.

The Third Circuit again reversed and remanded the case for a new trial. The circuit panel held that this court erred in permitting the testimony establishing the desirability or undesirability of the restraints in 1977, noting

the only question for the jury was whether an operator restraint system is an `element' necessary to make a forklift safe for its intended use.... Evidence about what Clark knew or could have known about the desirability of operator restraint systems at the time of manufacture is not relevant to that question.

Habecker v. Clark Equipment Co., 942 F.2d 210, 216 (3d Cir.1991) (citation omitted) (hereinafter Habecker II). The panel found that the admission of this evidence may have improperly focused jury attention on Clark's conduct, and not on the forklift itself and was therefore prejudicial. Id. at 216-17.

In addition, the panel wrote that this court's view of the scope of its discretion to allow in new theories upon retrial was too narrow. According to the Third Circuit, a district court is not bound by the Circuit's previous mandate outside of the specific holdings in the opinion.

The third trial in this matter had been scheduled for April 1992 and will be scheduled for some time this spring or in the early summer. Plaintiffs have filed five motions attempting to clarify the issues for trial and to reopen discovery.¹ Defendants have filed a joint "Motion to Limit Issues During Trial."

As the court reads the various motions, it becomes apparent that disposing of some issues will moot related issues raised in other motions. The court will therefore endeavor to consider the motions featuring the dominant issues first, and then address any remaining issues in the following motions.

Discussion

I. "Motion to Allow Issues to be Raised Upon Retrial" and "Motion to Limit Issues During Trial"

The court will first address the motions filed by defendants and plaintiffs attempting to limit or expand (depending on the party's position) the legal theories which may be raised at the third trial. The issues in contention are two:

1) Should plaintiffs be able to claim that the forklift was defective when placed into the stream of commerce by the series of leases between the Army and Forklifts in 1983 and 1984?

2) Should plaintiff be permitted to pursue the theory that the forklift was defective due to a lack of post-sale warnings?

As stated earlier, this court erroneously ruled prior to the second trial that the Third Circuit mandate deprived it of the ability to allow new issues to be pursued upon retrial. The Habecker II panel corrected this assumption, stating:

A district court's discretion ... includes the authority to allow any theory that would be supported by the complaint and that was not eliminated either by its earlier orders, not pursued on appeal, or by this court's mandate.... We express no view on whether the district court should permit a new theory of liability to be pursued at this stage of the proceeding. The district court may well determine that allowing the Habeckers to determine liability not raised until after the close of discovery and the completion of an entire trial would result in undue prejudice to the defendants. Moreover, the district court may conclude that Forklifts — which has dismissed its third-party claim against the Army — would be unfairly prejudiced by permission to litigate a new theory. We hold only that the decisions on whether to allow new claims, whether to permit further discovery, and whether to hear additional evidence were all within the district court's discretion.

Habecker II, 942 F.2d at 218. The Third Circuit clearly states, and both parties appear to agree, that whether to permit new issues on retrial is a matter committed to the discretion of the trial court. See Plaintiffs' Reply Brief at 2.

With the guidance of Habecker II in mind, the court will address whether plaintiffs should be permitted to go forward with these additional theories or not.

A. The 1983 and 1984 Leases

Plaintiffs argue that this issue was pled in their First Amended Complaint, in ¶¶ 7-8 ("Forklifts was engaged in ... the rental, leasing, and maintenance of forklifts") and ¶ 15 ("The defect(s) in said forklift existed at the time it left defendant Forklifts's control"). Citing Francioni v. Gibsonia Truck Corp., 472 Pa. 362, 372 A.2d 736 (1977), plaintiffs point out that Pennsylvania law extends strict liability to all suppliers of a product engaged in the business of supplying products for consumption by the public — a group which would include, in the present circumstances, Forklifts. Plaintiffs then argue that

it would be highly prejudicial to plaintiffs if they were not permitted to raise this issue upon retrial, as the facts now known and established show clear liability against Forklifts under Pennsylvania products liability law, and it is clearly in the interests of justice to allow plaintiffs to raise this issue upon retrial.

Plaintiffs' Brief in Support of Motion to Allow Issues to Be Raised Upon Retrial at 18.²

Defendants contend 1) that plaintiffs withdrew with prejudice the leases issue prior to the first trial and that 2) Forklifts relied on that withdrawal to its detriment by voluntarily dismissing the United States and the Army as third party defendants when it appeared that Forklifts would have no independent liability.

Plaintiffs dismiss this assertion as "patently false," and states that "all plaintiffs did ... was to withdraw their negligence claims against all defendants and elect to proceed on their strict liability claims only.... Forklifts then, on its own, a few...