Hughes v. Kia Motors Corp.

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit
• Writing for the Court: TJOFLAT
• Citation: Hughes v. Kia Motors Corp., 766 F.3d 1317 (11th Cir. 2014)
• Decision Date: 12 September 2014
• Docket Number: No. 13–10922.,13–10922.
• Parties: Patricia HUGHES, Mother and Administratrix of the Estate of Allene J. Hughes, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. KIA MOTORS CORPORATION, Kia Motors America, Inc., Defendants–Appellees.

766 F.3d 1317

Patricia HUGHES, Mother and Administratrix of the Estate of Allene J. Hughes, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.KIA MOTORS CORPORATION, Kia Motors America, Inc., Defendants–Appellees.

No. 13–10922.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Sept. 12, 2014.

Mario Bernard Williams, Williams Oinonen, LLC, Eliza Poyner Bartleet, Betts & Associates, Edward T.M. Garland, David E. Tuszynski, Garland Samuel & Loeb, PC, Atlanta, GA, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

Andrew T. Bayman, Franklin P. Brannen, Jr., Anneke Janette Shepard, King & Spalding, LLP, Atlanta, GA, for Defendants–Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. D.C. Docket No. 1:11–cv–02733–JOF.

Before TJOFLAT and WILSON, Circuit Judges, and BUCKLEW,^* District Judge.

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:

On May 2, 2005, Allene Hughes was involved in a vehicle collision with a Mack truck in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The collision sent her Kia Optima pinballing about, colliding with two parked cars, a fence, a tree, three metal posts supporting a carport awning, and a flag pole before ultimately coming to rest against a house. On May 3, Allene was declared dead from traumatic brain injury.

Patricia Hughes, Allene's mother and the administratrix of her estate, filed suit against Kia Motors Corporation and Kia Motors America, Inc. (collectively, “Kia”) in Georgia Superior Court, alleging that Kia's failure to equip the Optima with a fuel shut-off switch led to Allene's death. Kia removed the case to federal court,¹and discovery commenced. When discovery closed, Kia moved to exclude the testimony of Hughes's causation expert, Dr. Joseph L. Burton, and also moved for summary judgment. The District Court granted both of Kia's motions. Hughes now appeals. Because the court did not abuse its discretion in excluding Burton's testimony and did not improperly grant summary judgment in Kia's favor, we affirm.

I.

Allene Hughes died as a result of injuries she incurred from a vehicle collision in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at 2:45 a.m. on May 2, 2005. That night, Allene drove her 2004 Kia Optima out of a Waffle House parking lot onto Club Drive, a one-way street. However, Allene exited the parking lot in the wrong direction, and ended up traveling against the correct direction of traffic (no other cars were on the Club Drive at the time). Upon realizing her mistake and reaching the intersection of Moore and Brainerd Roads, Allene entered the through lanes of Brainerd Road and was struck by the front of a westbound Mack truck pulling a loaded fuel tanker trailer.

After impact, the Mack truck came to a stop in the intersection. The Optima traveled farther. The Optima initially traveled south, entering the property of a gas station and convenience store. It then turned back toward the north, crossing all the lanes of Brainerd Road and entering the parking lot of the Waffle House. In the parking lot, the Optima struck a parked Geo Tracker and a parked Toyota Corolla. It then ran through a fence to the north of the Waffle House, entering Club Drive, and traveled east onto residential property. There, the Optima sideswiped a tree in the front yard and struck three support posts of a carport awning and a flagpole. The Optima came to a rest against the house.

The diagram below, which the police officers who arrived on the scene created, indicates the Optima's movement from the moment it left the Waffle House until it came to a rest against the house. In the diagram, Allene's vehicle is indicated with the number 1, the Mack truck is number 2, and the Geo Tracker and Toyota Corolla are indicated with numbers 3 and 4.

IMAGE

When the Emergency Medical Service (“EMS”) arrived on the scene, Allene had already been removed from the Optima. She was unresponsive, but was breathing four to six times per minute with the assistance of a bag-valve mask. EMS reported that her only obvious injury was an abrasion to the left knee.

EMS transported Allene to Erlanger Medical Center, where doctors discovered evidence of traumatic brain injury, left frontal subdural hematoma, and epidural right pulmonary contusion. She also had suffered a pelvic fracture. An emergency craniotomy and implantation of a Scott cannula to drain the blood from subdural cavity was unsuccessful. Allene was brain dead. At 2:30 p.m. on May 3, Allene was declared dead.

II.

On July 15, 2011, Patricia Hughes, Allene's mother and the administratrix of her estate, filed a wrongful death action against Kia in the Superior Court of Gwinnet County, Georgia. The complaint included two theories of liability: strict liability for the inherently dangerous design of the Optima and negligence based on alleged defects in the Optima's airbag deployment system, its lack of a fuel flow shut-off device, Kia's failure to warn of the unreasonable dangers inherent in the design of the Optima, and Kia's failure to remedy the defective condition of the Optima.

Kia filed a timely notice of removal, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b), in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. After Kia filed its answer to the complaint's allegations and affirmative defenses, the case proceeded to discovery.

A.

Hughes hired Ralph Cunningham, an accident reconstructionist,² who prepared a report on the collision between the Optima and the Mack truck. According to the Mack truck's Engine Control Module, which makes a permanent record of a vehicle's speed before and shortly after a hard breaking event, the Mack truck approached the intersection where the collision occurred at 39 miles per hour (mph). When the driver applied the brakes, the truck began to rapidly decelerate at a steady speed until the truck came to a stop. Cunningham estimated that the truck was traveling at a speed of not less than 10 mph and not more than 24 mph when it struck Allene's Optima.

Cunningham's report indicates that the truck struck the Optima at 12 degrees forward of perpendicular to the left side. For point of reference, a collision that is perpendicular to the left side—a T-bone collision—would be 0 degrees. A head-on collision would be 90 degrees. Thus, the collision was closer to perpendicular than head-on.

When the vehicles collided, the Optima's driver's side airbag deployed. Although the Optima was originally equipped with a driver's front airbag, it had deployed at some point prior to the May 2 collision and was not replaced; the deployed airbag had been cut away from the steering wheel. The region of greatest permanent deformation coincided with the left “A” pillar and front-door hinge region, where the inward crush was 20 inches. The crush diminished toward the rear, and scrapes on the left rear door and back of the Optima indicated sliding contact, which Cunningham opined was likely from the vehicles separating from each other. The brake pedal jammed such that it could not be applied, and it deformed toward the right side of the vehicle, jamming the throttle pedal in an applied position.

Cunningham calculated the total delta-v—which represented the sudden change in velocity that occurred during the contact phase of the collision with the Mack truck—as 37.5 mph. Because the collision was neither head-on nor perfectly perpendicular, the total delta-v could be separated into its longitudinal and lateral components. Cunningham calculated the longitudinal delta-v using the total delta-v, the 12 degree angle of impact, and simple trigonometry.³

From his calculations, Cunningham concluded that the longitudinal delta-v, the sudden change in velocity in the longitudinal direction during the contact phase of the collision, equaled approximately 8 mph. Cunningham did not calculate lateral delta-v—the change in velocity along the perpendicular plane—because Hughes's attorneys did not request that he do so.

Cunningham estimated the Optima's probable post-impact travel if it had been equipped with a fuel shut-off device by using two estimated speeds at which the Optima could have been traveling when it collided with the Mack truck—38 mph and 26 mph.⁴ Based on these two speeds, Cunningham predicted that the Optima would have traveled between 69 and 98 feet if it had been traveling 38 mph, and between 32 and 46 feet if it had been traveling at 26 mph. Had it traveled the longer distance, the Optima would have stopped roughly on the curb of the northwest corner of the gas station and convenience store. Had the Optima been traveling at 26 mph, it would have come to a rest on Brainerd Road in the eastbound lanes.

B.

Hughes also hired a medical expert, Dr. Joseph Burton,⁵ to determine Allene's cause of death. His report concluded that Allene “died of blunt force trauma that occurred predominantly to the left side of her head.” DE 63–2, at 4. He further concluded, based extensively on Cunningham's report, that

the fact that the [Optima] did not stop operating in a timely manner after the initial impact with the Mack Truck was contributory or causative of [Allene's] brain injuries.... [H]ad the [Optima] stopped in a timely manner and did not have the additional impact it is more to a reasonable degree of forensic, medical, and scientific probability that [Allene] would not have sustained a fatal brain injury.

DE 63–2, at 10. Burton suggested that “[t]he dynamics of the left/frontal collision with the Mack Truck combined with the deploying side airbag would have caused [Allene's] body to move forward towards the intrusion [at the A-pillar] and leftward interacting with the side impact airbag.” DE 63–2, at 9. Based on these dynamics, Burton opined that “[i]t is possible that [Allene] sustained her left sided brain injury in this impact due to her body moving forward past the deployed torso bag and her head interacted with the intruding structures of the [Optima].” DE 63–2, at 9. As the Optima impacted other objects and the various curbs, Allene's body “would have the opportunity to have interaction of her head with the...