Kia Motors Corp.. v. (individually

Decision Date05 August 2011
Docket NumberNo. 05–10–00198–CV.,05–10–00198–CV.
PartiesKIA MOTORS CORPORATION and Kia Motors America, Inc., Appellants,v.Lawrence RUIZ (Individually and as Representative of the Estate of Andrea Ruiz), Shenequa Ruiz, Christopher Ruiz, and Suzanna Ruiz, Appellees.
CourtTexas Court of Appeals

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Scott P. Stolley, Richard B. Phillips, Jr., Thompson & Knight, L.L.P., Kurt C. Kern, Cary A. Slobin, Bowman and Brooke, LLP, Melissa Anne Dorman, Hartline, Dacus, Barger, Dreyer & Kern, L.L.P., Dallas, for Appellants.Mary Alice McLarty, The McLarty Firm, P.C., Jeffrey S. Levinger, Hankinson Levinger LLP, Phillip Lee Brown, Eric B. Porterfield, The Brown Law Firm, Dallas, for Appellees.Before Justices MARTIN RICHTER, LANG, and FILLMORE.

OPINION

Opinion By Justice MARTIN RICHTER

In this negligent design products liability case, Kia Motors Corporation and Kia Motors America, Inc. (Kia) challenge the judgment entered upon a jury verdict in favor of Lawrence Ruiz, individually and as representative of the estate of Andrea Ruiz, Shenequa Ruiz, Christopher Ruiz, and Suzanna Ruiz. In six issues, each with multiple sub-parts, Kia asserts it was entitled to a statutory presumption of no liability that was not rebutted, and there is no evidence of negligent design. Kia also challenges the admission and exclusion of evidence and the manner in which jury deliberations were conducted. Finally, Kia asserts the judgment should be reversed because of cumulative error. In a cross-point, Ruiz contends the trial court erred in failing to render judgment on the jury's unanimous verdict for exemplary damages. We conclude Kia was not entitled to a presumption of “no liability” and the evidence was legally sufficient to support the jury's finding of negligent design. We further conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion in the admission or exclusion of evidence. Finally, we conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing a jury view or in its monitoring and conduct of the jury during its deliberations. Because there is no error, there is no cumulative error.

With regard to Ruiz's cross-point, because the jury did not unanimously find against Kia on the underlying theory of liability, we conclude the trial court did not err in refusing to award exemplary damages. In light of these conclusions, we affirm the trial court's judgment.

Background

Andrea Ruiz was fatally injured when the 2002 Kia Spectra she was driving was hit head-on by a pick-up truck driven by Harvey Ray Tomlin. When the vehicles collided, the Kia's passenger-side airbag deployed, but the drivers-side frontal airbag did not deploy. Ms. Ruiz's death was caused by two dislocated vertebrae in her neck that resulted from a severe front-to-back movement of her head.

Eight days prior to the accident, Larry Ruiz, Andrea Ruiz's husband, had installed a new radio/cd player in the Kia. After the installation, he noticed that the airbag warning light was illuminated. The warning light remained on until the accident.

Ms. Ruiz's survivors (collectively Ruiz) sued Kia claiming that the Kia Spectra was defective because the drivers-side frontal airbag failed to deploy in the collision. Ruiz also sued Tomlin for negligence. Following a settlement with Tomlin, Ruiz tried the design defect case against Kia to a jury. Although the design defect was originally plead as both a strict liability and a negligence claim, only the negligence theory was submitted to the jury. After some confusion and four attempts to reach a verdict, the jury found that: (1) Tomlin negligently caused the collision; (2) Kia negligently designed the Spectra; (3) Larry Ruiz was not negligent; (4) Kia was grossly negligent; and (5) responsibility should be apportioned 55% to Tomlin and 45% to Kia. The jury awarded $1,972,000 in actual damages and $2,500,000 in exemplary damages. The trial court accepted the verdict over Kia's objection, and subsequently denied Kia's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (“JNOV”). In the final judgment, the actual damages to be recovered from Kia were reduced by Kia's percentage of responsibility to $887,400. The judgment also awarded Ruiz pre-and post-judgment interest and costs, but the trial court disregarded the jury's gross negligence and punitive damage findings because the jury was not unanimous in finding Kia negligent. This appeal followed.

Discussion
I. Statutory Presumption

In its first issue, Kia asserts it was entitled to a statutory “presumption of no liability” because the vehicle complied with government standards for crashworthiness. Kia claims it is entitled to a take-nothing judgment as a matter of law because Ruiz failed to rebut the presumption or obtain jury findings on the issue. Ruiz responds that the presumption of no liability does not apply in this case because the government standards do not govern the product risk that actually caused the harm. Therefore, Ruiz contends he was not required to rebut the presumption. In the alternative, Ruiz argues that he did rebut the presumption, and thus, there was no presumption issue for the jury to decide.

Although both parties allude to the trial court's pre-trial ruling on Kia's motion for summary judgment as the basis for this alleged error, the parties also reference the trial court's denial of Kia's motion for JNOV. It is well-established that if the trial court denies a motion for summary judgment and the case is tried on the merits, the order denying the summary judgment is not reviewable on appeal. See Ackermann v. Vordenbaum, 403 S.W.2d 362, 365 (Tex.1966); Reese v. Duncan, 80 S.W.3d 650, 665 (Tex.App.-Dallas 2002, pet. denied). Therefore, we consider the complained-of error in the context of the denial of the motion for JNOV.

We review the denial of a motion for JNOV under a legal sufficiency standard. See Brown v. Zimmerman, 160 S.W.3d 695, 702 (Tex.App.-Dallas 2005, no pet.). We review the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury's findings, considering only the evidence and inferences that support them and disregarding all evidence and inferences to the contrary. See Quaker Petroleum Chems. Co. v. Waldrop, 75 S.W.3d 549, 553 (Tex.App.-San Antonio 2002, no pet.). If there is more than a scintilla of evidence to support the jury's findings, the motion for JNOV was properly denied. Id.

In the motion for JNOV, Kia challenged the jury's negligence finding, claiming the undisputed evidence established Kia complied with all Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and “this creates a presumption of no negligence.” According to Kia, because “there is no evidence to rebut this presumption ... Kia cannot be liable for negligence.”

The statute under which Kia claims the presumption arises states in pertinent part:

In a products liability action brought against a product manufacturer or seller, there is a rebuttable presumption that the product manufacturer or seller is not liable for any injury to a claimant caused by some aspect of the formulation, labeling, or design of a product if the product manufacturer or seller established that the product's formula, labeling, or design complied with mandatory safety standards or regulations adopted and promulgated by the federal government, or an agency of the federal government, that were applicable to the product at the time of manufacture and that governed the product risk that allegedly caused the harm.

Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code Ann. § 82.008(a) (West 2005) (emphasis added). The government standard at issue here is Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (“FMVSS”) 208. The parties agree that section 82.008 applies only if FMVSS 208 “governed the product risk that allegedly caused the harm.” Id. The point of contention arises in the construction of this phrase. Kia maintains that compliance with FMVSS 208 triggers the section 82.008 presumption because the standard covers the risk of occupant injury in a crash. In other words, the federal standard is one of crashworthiness, and the product risk is broadly defined to include all injuries resulting from noncrashworthy vehicles. Kia asserts that a restrictive application of the standard governing the product risk would render the governmental-standards defense wholly ineffective. According to Kia, under a narrowly defined standard, a plaintiff could always avoid the presumption by focusing on minute aspects of a design outside the scope of the regulation. Conversely, Ruiz argues the product risk is more narrowly defined. Ruiz asserts that section 82.008 requires a close relationship between the design, the safety standard, and the product risk; otherwise, the presumption of “no defect” would apply in every crashworthiness case. Ruiz contends the product risk at issue here is not crashworthiness but rather the failure of a frontal airbag to deploy. Because the federal standard does not require a particular design for airbag circuitry, Ruiz insists the standard is a performance rather than a design standard, and as such, the presumption does not apply.

We begin our inquiry by determining whether FMVSS 208 is a performance or a design standard. FMVSS 208 is promulgated under the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 (the “Safety Act”). See 49 C.F.R. § 571.208 (2010). The Safety Act was enacted to reduce traffic accidents and deaths and injuries to persons resulting from traffic accidents, and gave the Department of Transportation the power to enact safety standards regulating many facets of automotive design.1 15 U.S.C. § 1381 (1966) ( 15 U.S.C. §§ 1381 through 1431 recodified as 49 U.S.C. §§ 30101 through 30169 (1994)). To this end, the statutory scheme authorizing promulgation of FMVSS 208 directed the Secretary of Transportation to establish “appropriate Federal motor vehicle safety standards.” 15 U.S.C. § 1392(a) (repealed 1994). These standards were further defined as minimum standard[s] for ... motor vehicle equipment performance. 15 U.S.C. §§...

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