Jeng v. Witters, Civ. A. No. 70-421.

• Decision Date: 26 June 1978
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 70-421.
• Citation: 452 F. Supp. 1349
• Parties: Bih-Jing JENG et al., Plaintiffs, v. Joseph E. WITTERS and General Motors Corp., Defendants, v. Ying-Che CHENG, Additional Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Pennsylvania

452 F. Supp. 1349

Bih-Jing JENG et al., Plaintiffs, v. Joseph E. WITTERS and General Motors Corp., Defendants, v. Ying-Che CHENG, Additional Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 70-421.

United States District Court, M. D. Pennsylvania.

June 26, 1978.

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Hepford, Zimmerman & Swartz, Harrisburg, Pa., Keith Erbstein, Beasley, Albert, Hewson, Casey, Kraft & Colleran, Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiffs.

George P. Williams, III, of Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis, Philadelphia, Pa., Wilhelm E. Shissler, Nauman, Smith, Shissler & Hall, Harrisburg, Pa., for defendant General Motors.

Metzger, Wickersham, Knauss & Erb, Harrisburg, Pa., for Joseph E. Witters.

F. Lee Shipman, of Goldberg, Evans & Katzman, Harrisburg, Pa., for Ying-Che Cheng.

OPINION

HERMAN, District Judge.

Bih Jing Jeng, on his own behalf, and in his capacity as administrator of the estate of his deceased wife, Su-Jen Jeng, brought this diversity suit to recover damages for injuries he sustained, and for the death of his wife, resulting from a motor vehicle collision which occurred around 9:30 p. m. on August 23, 1969.

Bih Jing Jeng and his wife, hereinafter referred to as Plaintiffs, were passengers in the rear seat of a 1963 Buick Wildcat four-door hardtop sedan owned and operated by one Ying-Che Cheng. The Buick was involved in a collision with a 1966 Ford Thunderbird operated by Joseph E. Witters. Plaintiffs sued Witters, claiming that Witters had been negligent in the operation of the Thunderbird, and Plaintiffs also sued General Motors, claiming liability under Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts for a defective door latch which allegedly caused a "second collision" type accident during the collision with the Witters' vehicle when a rear door of the Jeng vehicle flew open and both Plaintiffs were thrown to the highway. General Motors and Witters asserted third party claims against the driver of Plaintiffs' vehicle, Ying-Che Cheng, and General Motors and Witters also asserted claims against each other. A jury returned a verdict for the Defendants, and the case is now before us on motions by Plaintiffs for judgment n. o. v. or a new trial.

The accident occurred at the intersection of U.S. Route 15 and Pennsylvania Route 114 in Upper Allen Township, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Route 15 is a four-lane concrete highway divided by a medial strip. The road runs generally north and south. Route 114 is a two-lane macadam road running generally east and west. At the time of the accident there was no traffic light at the intersection of Route 15 and Route 114, but Route 114 was controlled by stop signs. The night of the accident was dark, the weather was clear, and the roads were dry.

The Cheng Buick was in the process of crossing Route 15 on Route 114 from east to west when it was struck in the right rear fender, just behind the right rear wheel, by the right front headlight and fender area of the Witters' Thunderbird. Immediately prior to the accident, the Witters' vehicle was proceeding south in the righthand, or westernmost, lane of Route 15. Testimony at trial indicated that Defendant Witters was traveling at approximately 60 miles per hour when he applied his brakes just before the collision. (N.T. 765). The force of the collision spun the Buick in a clockwise direction, damaged the structure of the vehicle, bent the frame, and caused the right rear door opening to enlarge. (N.T. 277, 281).

A jury trial was held in March of 1975 before the late Judge Michael Sheridan, then chief judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. In response to special interrogatories, the jury found that Defendant Witters was not negligent in the operation of his automobile and that the 1963 Buick door latch was not defective and unreasonably dangerous at the time of the accident. (N.T. 1545). Plaintiffs have moved for judgment n. o. v. and for a new trial pursuant to Rules 50(b) and 59 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, against both Witters and General Motors, alleging some fourteen different grounds including alleged evidentiary errors and alleged errors in the judge's charge to the jury. Five of the points raised deal with the liability of Defendant Witters, and nine of the points concern the liability of Defendant General Motors.

The pending post trial motions were assigned to us pursuant to Rule 63 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure after the untimely death of Judge Sheridan. Having reviewed the trial transcript and relevant file documents, and after hearing oral argument, we are now in a position to rule on the pending motions.

THE CASE AGAINST GENERAL MOTORS

Sufficiency of the evidence.

In answers to special interrogatories, the jury found that the right rear door latch in the Buick automobile was not defective and unreasonably dangerous at the time of the accident, thus finding in favor of General Motors on the products liability claim. Plaintiffs have alleged nine trial errors in the manufacturer's portion of the case. Defendant General Motors argues that any trial errors are purely academic because there was insufficient evidence to submit the strict liability issue of a defect in design to the jury. From a careful review of the record, we are satisfied that there was not sufficient evidence to permit a jury to decide whether the door latch mechanism had a defect in design.

Pennsylvania has adopted the doctrine of strict liability in tort as expressed in the Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 402A.¹Webb v. Zern, 422 Pa. 424, 220 A.2d 853 (1966). A manufacturer may be held liable if it manufactured a product in such a manner that it was in a defective condition and unreasonably dangerous and the defect caused injuries, regardless of the degree of care exercised by the manufacturer.² The design of a product may make it defective and unreasonably dangerous. Bowman v. General Motors Corp., 427 F.Supp. 234 (E.D.Pa.1977).

In the instant case the issues revolve around a "second collision" and the crashworthiness of the design of a door latch on a 1963 Buick. Crashworthiness means the protection that a passenger motor vehicle affords its passengers against personal injury or death as a result of a motor vehicle accident. See, 15 U.S.C. § 1901(14). The term "second collision", as used in definitions of crashworthiness of a motor vehicle in products liability cases generally refers to the collision of the passenger with the interior part of the automobile after the initial impact or collision. Dreisonstok v. Volkswagenwerk, A. G., 489 F.2d 1066 (4th Cir. 1974). In the type of case where a car door opens allowing an occupant to not be retained within a motor vehicle in a collision, we believe the "second collision" concept is still applicable, although in such a situation the person has not collided with the interior of the vehicle. The principle behind the "second collision" concept is that because of the way the vehicle has been manufactured a passenger's injuries have been aggravated unnecessarily, and such a concept has equal applicability whether the person's second collision is with the interior of the vehicle or, as in this case, the highway.

There has been some controversy over whether a manufacturer should be held liable for a second collision type accident, mainly because some courts have not regarded an automobile accident as a contemplated use of the manufacturer's product. There have been no authoritative Pennsylvania cases adopting or rejecting the concept, and so we must determine how we believe the Pennsylvania courts would react when faced with the question. In Dyson v. General Motors Corp., 298 F.Supp. 1064 (E.D.Pa.1969), the Court determined that Pennsylvania would follow the second collision approach outlined in Larsen v. General Motors Corp., 391 F.2d 495 (8th Cir. 1968) rather than that of Evans v. General Motors Corp., 359 F.2d 822 (7th Cir. 1966). See generally, Comment, "Automobile Crashworthiness, EVANS Takes a Backseat", 21 Vill.L.Rev. 72 (1975-76). We agree.

It was stated in Larsen that:

"The manufacturer should not be heard to say that it does not intend its product to be involved in any accident when it can easily foresee and when it knows that the probability over the life of its product is high, that it will be involved in some type of injury-producing accident. . . . We perceive no sound reason either in logic or experience nor any command in precedent why the manufacturer should not be held to a reasonable duty of care in the design of its vehicle consonant with the state of the art of minimizing the effect of accidents."

Larsen v. General Motors Corp., supra, at 502-503.

Strict liability in tort requires that the product be used in a foreseeable manner, and the Larsen approach concludes that an accident is a foreseeable use of an automobile. That is not to say a manufacturer has a duty to design a car to withstand all collisions under any and all circumstances, but rather that passengers must be provided with a reasonably safe container within which to make a journey. Dyson v. General Motors Corp., 298 F.Supp. 1064 (E.D.Pa.1969). A jury should take into account the circumstances of the accident in which the car is involved, and where a door latch fails to hold under the stress of an accident, a major consideration must be the severity of the physical forces which were placed on the car as a whole and the door latch in particular. As outlined in Polk v. Ford Motor Co., 529 F.2d 259 (8th Cir. 1976), a manufacturer may be held liable for only those injuries shown to have been caused or enhanced by a defective condition of a product in the course of or following an initial accident brought about by some independent cause.

One of the fundamental questions touching on many aspects of proof in this products liability case is whether the unreasonably dangerous requirement contained in § 402A...