Kuhar v. Thompson Mfg. Inc.
| Decision Date | 17 February 2022 |
| Docket Number | 20200584-CA |
| Citation | 506 P.3d 1200 |
| Parties | Nicholas KUHAR and Julie Kuhar, Appellants, v. THOMPSON MANUFACTURING INC. and XYZ Corporations, Appellees. |
| Court | Utah Court of Appeals |
Matthew Weng, Bridgeton, NJ, Colin P. King, and Paul M. Simmons, Salt Lake City, Attorneys for Appellants
Robert L. Janicki and Michael L. Ford, Salt Lake City, Attorneys for Appellees
Opinion
¶1 Nicholas and Julie Kuhar appeal the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Thompson Manufacturing Inc. (Thompson) on grounds of issue preclusion. We reverse and remand for further proceedings.
¶2 Nicholas Kuhar suffered serious injury when he fell thirty-seven feet onto crushed concrete after his safety harness system failed while he was cleaning rain gutters in New Jersey. Kuhar v. Petzl Co. (Kuhar I ), No. 16-0395, 2018 WL 7571319, at *1 (D.N.J. Nov. 27, 2018). The harness consisted of "three component parts: a ‘micrograb,’ a bolt, and a rope." Id. The Kuhars sued several companies involved in the design, manufacture, production, and distribution of the harness. These included Thompson, which designed and manufactured the micrograb, as well as the company that sold the micrograb and the companies that manufactured and sold a bolt included in the micrograb. Id. The Kuhars brought their lawsuit in federal court in New Jersey, where the accident took place.
¶3 Thompson's principal place of business is in Utah. Thompson moved to dismiss the Kuhars’ complaint, at least as stated against Thompson, on the ground that New Jersey lacked personal jurisdiction over Thompson. The New Jersey federal court granted the motion and dismissed Thompson from the case.
¶4 Subsequently, the Kuhars filed the present action against Thompson in Utah. In the meantime, the case in New Jersey proceeded against the other defendants.
¶5 The Kuhars submitted an expert report in the New Jersey case. The expert opined that the bolt failed as a result of two design defects and a manufacturing defect and that an improper rope was used with the micrograb kit. Id. at *2. Two of the other defendants moved to strike the report. Id. They alleged that the expert's report was not sufficiently reliable to be admissible under rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. , 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993). See Kuhar I , 2018 WL 7571319, at *2. The New Jersey court agreed and granted the motion to strike. Id. at *10.
¶6 The remaining New Jersey defendants then filed motions for summary judgment on the ground that, without expert testimony, the Kuhars could not establish their claims of design defect or failure to warn. Kuhar v. Petzl Co. (Kuhar II ), No. 16-0395, 2019 WL 6211544, at *2 (D.N.J. Oct. 21, 2019). The court agreed and granted the motions, concluding that the Kuhars could not establish that the harness's failure resulted from a design defect or failure to warn without the assistance of expert testimony. Id. at *5.
¶7 By the time of the New Jersey court's ruling, the case in Utah was in the middle of the discovery phase, with an expert discovery due date almost a year away. Nevertheless, Thompson moved for summary judgment in the Utah case on the ground that the New Jersey ruling collaterally estopped the Kuhars from establishing their claims against Thompson. The district court agreed and granted Thompson's motion for summary judgment. The Kuhars now appeal.
¶8 The Kuhars challenge the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Thompson, asserting that their Utah claims against Thompson were not barred by the New Jersey court's summary judgment ruling in favor of the other defendants because the issues in the Utah and New Jersey cases were not identical. Summary judgment is appropriate only when "there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Utah R. Civ. P. 56(a). We review a district court's ruling on summary judgment for correctness. Rupp v. Moffo , 2015 UT 71, ¶ 5, 358 P.3d 1060. Specifically, the "determination of whether res judicata bars an action presents a question of law," which we review for correctness. Macris & Assocs., Inc. v. Neways Inc. , 2000 UT 93, ¶ 17, 16 P.3d 1214 ; see also Massey v. Board of Trs. of Ogden Area Cmty. Action Comm., Inc. , 2004 UT App 27, ¶ 5, 86 P.3d 120.
Buckner v. Kennard , 2004 UT 78, ¶ 13, 99 P.3d 842.1 As our supreme court has noted, this doctrine "prevents parties or their privies from relitigating issues which were once adjudicated on the merits and have resulted in a final judgment." Murdock v. Springville Mun. Corp. (), 1999 UT 39, ¶ 18, 982 P.2d 65 (emphasis added). Thompson's collateral estoppel arguments run into trouble on both the first and the third elements.
¶10 With regard to the first element, the issues actually decided in the New Jersey litigation were not the same as the issues raised before the district court here. In New Jersey, the court determined both (1) that a particular expert's testimony, proffered by the Kuhars, was inadmissible under rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence and applicable federal case law, see Kuhar I , No. 16-0395, 2018 WL 7571319, at *9–10 (D.N.J. Nov. 27, 2018), and (2) that without that expert's testimony, under New Jersey law the Kuhars could not satisfy their burden of establishing their product liability claims, see Kuhar II , No. 16-0395, 2019 WL 6211544, at *5, *8–9 (D.N.J. Oct. 21, 2019). Those are not the same issues that the parties raised in the district court in the present case.
¶11 The Utah case was in its early stages when Thompson filed its summary judgment motion, and expert disclosure deadlines had not yet passed. The Kuhars had not yet submitted any expert report in support of their claims—certainly not the same expert report that was excluded in New Jersey—and the district court was not asked to weigh in on whether the specific testimony of any particular expert was admissible.2 Thus, because the Kuhars had not been adjudicated to be bereft of expert testimony, the court had no occasion to consider whether the Kuhars, in the absence of expert testimony, would be able to satisfy their burden of proof on the merits of their underlying claim.
¶12 By contrast, the issue that was the subject of Thompson's summary judgment motion—the issue to which Thompson wished to ascribe preclusive effect—was whether the product in question was defective. Indeed, even in its briefing on appeal, Thompson continues to frame the relevant issue as whether the product in question was defective. But the New Jersey court never grappled with the merits of that issue; it decided the case against the Kuhars not because it made a factual determination that the product was not defective but because it determined that the Kuhars could not satisfy their burden of proof on that point without expert testimony. Because the New Jersey court never concerned itself with the merits of whether the product was defective, that issue is not one to which Thompson here can ascribe preclusive effect.
¶13 And it is at this point in the analysis that the third element of the collateral estoppel test comes into play. That third element requires Thompson to demonstrate that "the issue in the first action was completely, fully, and fairly litigated." See Buckner , 2004 UT 78, ¶ 13, 99 P.3d 842 ; see also Murdock , 1999 UT 39, ¶ 18, 982 P.2d 65 (). If we define the "issue" as Thompson asks us to—namely, whether the product in question was defective—it becomes clear that this issue was never the subject of full and complete litigation in New Jersey. The court simply never reached the merits of that issue—i.e., holding a trial to weigh the evidence and make a finding as to the alleged defective nature of the product—because it determined that the Kuhars’ overarching claim failed on what amounted to a procedural ground.
¶14 A court that dismisses a party's claim on nonmerits procedural grounds (say, for instance, because a party's answer has been stricken as a sanction for discovery abuses or because a party fails to appear at a hearing) has not fully litigated the merits of the underlying substantive issue , even though its dismissal of the overarching claim may operate as an "on the merits" dismissal.3 See, e.g. , Schuh v. American Express Bank, FSB , 806 F. App'x 973, 974 (11th Cir. 2020) ( that the order of dismissal in the first case "cannot serve as collateral estoppel" in the second case "because [the first] case was not actually fully litigated and decided" but "was dismissed as a sanction"); cf. Zufelt v. Haste, Inc. , 2006 UT App 326, ¶ 15, 142 P.3d 594 (...
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Kuhar v. Thompson Mfg., Inc.
...in New Jersey was not identical to the issue Thompson seeks to preclude here. Kuhar v. Thompson Mfg. Inc., 2022 UT App 22, ¶¶ 9-10, 16, 506 P.3d 1200. Specifically, the court of appeals concluded that the New Jersey court had not resolved on the merits whether the harness was actually defec......
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Kuhar v. Thompson Mfg.
...in New Jersey was not identical to the issue Thompson seeks to preclude here. Kuhar v. Thompson Mfg. Inc., 2022 UT App 22, ¶¶ 9-10, 16, 506 P.3d 1200. Specifically, the court of appeals concluded that the Jersey court had not resolved on the merits whether the harness was actually defective......