Letz v. Turbomeca Engine Corp.
| Decision Date | 25 November 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. WD,WD |
| Citation | 975 S.W.2d 155 |
| Parties | Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 15,184 Jodie A. LETZ, et al., Respondent, v. TURBOMECA ENGINE CORPORATION, et al., Appellant. 51446. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Bryan Cave LLP, Thomas C. Walsh, David S. Slavkin, Elizabeth C. Carver, St. Louis, Douglas N. Ghertner, Kansas City, for appellants.
Gary Charles Robb, Kansas City, for respondent.
Before ULRICH, C.J., P.J., and LOWENSTEIN, BRECKENRIDGE, HANNA, SPINDEN, SMART, ELLIS, LAURA DENVIR STITH, EDWIN H. SMITH and HOWARD, JJ., and BERREY, Senior Judge.
Turbomeca, S.A. and Turbomeca Engine Corporation appeal the judgment of the trial court following a jury trial awarding Jodie, Eric, and Christopher Letz $70 million in a wrongful death action. The award included compensatory and punitive damages. The Letzes sued Turbomeca, S.A. (TSA), Turbomeca Engine Corporation (TEC), and Rocky Mountain Helicopters for the death of Sherry Ann Letz, the daughter of Jodie and mother of Eric and Christopher, resulting from a helicopter crash. 1 TSA, a French company, manufactured the helicopter engine on the helicopter, allegedly defective and the cause of the crash, and TEC, a wholly owned subsidiary of TSA located in Texas, installed it. Rocky Mountain Helicopters owned and operated the helicopter.
TSA and TEC allege several errors on appeal. They claim the trial court erred in (1) submitting the issue of "aggravating circumstances" to the jury, (2) submitting Instruction No. 25 and Verdict Form A regarding aggravating circumstances, (3) failing to declare a mistrial after introduction into evidence of a photograph of the decedent's gravemarker, (4) admitting evidence of the cost to recall a defective engine part and allowing plaintiffs to reference the "cost savings" of not recalling the part in arguing damages, (5) admitting evidence of facsimiles sent to the FAA after the helicopter accident regarding prior in-flight engine stoppages, and (6) denying their motion for a new trial or remittitur. The judgment of the trial court is affirmed on condition of remittitur. 2
In the early morning of May 27, 1993, Sherry Letz was involved in a motor vehicle accident and was taken by ambulance to the Harrison County Community Hospital in Bethany, Missouri. She was successfully resuscitated, treated for a collapsed lung, a broken left arm, and concussion, and was stabilized. She suffered a severe trauma; and because the local hospital was not equipped with a CT scan, an MRI, a cardiothoracic surgeon, a neurosurgeon, or a radiologist, her treating physician ordered her transfer by helicopter to St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City.
The Life Flight 2 helicopter departed for Kansas City just after 6:00 a.m. with Sherry, the pilot, a nurse, and a medical technician on board. Soon after the pilot gave his position report at 6:25 a.m. over Cameron, Missouri, the nurse heard a loud "pop" or "bang" in the engine. Within 15 seconds, the helicopter crashed. Sherry and the pilot were killed. The other two passengers sustained serious injuries.
The Life Flight 2 helicopter was powered by an Arriel 1B gas turbine engine manufactured by TSA. The Arriel 1B engine consisted of five modules. In June 1989, TEC installed a TU 76 modified nozzle guide vane in Module 3 of the engine.
A nozzle guide vane directs the flow of air between the first and second stage turbine disc blades. The hub, or internal envelope, is in the center of the nozzle guide vane. A crack along the front or rear flange of the hub will cause a failure in the module and a partial to complete loss of power in the engine.
TSA became aware of a cracking problem in the TU 76 nozzle guide vane in June 1985 after an in-flight failure in the Congo. In January 1986, TSA reported the failure to the French Director General of Civil Aviation, the DGAC. A second in-flight failure involving the TU 76 nozzle guide vane occurred in France in April 1986. In June and July 1986, a TSA metallurgist outlined the cracking problems with the TU 76 as a result of evaluations of in-flight failures and cracks identified during overhaul in two reports. By the summer of 1986, the highest ranking officers of TSA knew that the TU 76 cracking problems had the potential to cause in-flight engine shutdowns. They also recognized the need for modifications of the nozzle guide vane to eliminate the cracking problems.
After the 1986 reports, TSA began research for a replacement nozzle guide vane. At least three possible modifications were tested between 1987 and 1988 without success. In 1988, two new designs, the TU 202 3 and the TU 197 4, were developed and tested. Eventually, the two nozzle guide vanes were certified by French authorities.
During the development of a substitute nozzle guide vane, in-flight engine failures or problems involving the TU 76 nozzle guide vane continued to occur in the United States and world-wide. In the spring of 1989, an in-flight engine failure resulted in serious injury to four passengers in Bolivia. In November of 1989, the TU 76 caused an in-flight loss of power in a helicopter in Phoenix, Arizona. Two months later, another incident of engine deceleration while landing occurred in Oakland, California. In Portugal in December 1991, breakage of the second stage nozzle guide vane caused loss of power in takeoff forcing an emergency landing. TSA records reflect that six prior in-flight engine stoppages were attributable to the TU 76 nozzle guide vane beginning in 1989.
By early 1991, the substitute TU 202 and TU 197 were in production and available. TSA management, however, decided not to immediately recall helicopters equipped with the defective TU 76 nozzle guide vane for fitting with the replacements. Instead, the TU 76 was to be replaced during the regularly scheduled overhaul of the engine.
On March 11, 1991, TSA sent a service letter to all customers advising them to perform a compulsory check at least once a day for a rubbing noise in the gas generator rotating assembly of any engine containing a TU 76 nozzle guide vane. Removal of Modules 2 and 3 was recommended to customers if a continuous or loud intermittent rubbing noise was noticed. In April 1992 and February 1993, two service bulletins were issued by TSA advising customers whose helicopters were equipped with an Arriel 1 engine of the approval and availability of the TU 202 and TU 197 nozzle guide vanes and recommending their installation during a repair procedure on the nozzle guide vane or during overhaul. A second service letter that resembled the March 11, 1991 letter was sent to customers on December 18, 1992. It again reminded customers to be attentive to an abnormal noise during engine stop. The service letters and bulletins, however, did not inform customers that the TU 76 nozzle guide vane had caused in-flight engine stoppages.
Since the certification of the TU 202 and TU 197 replacement nozzle guide vanes in 1991, at least six additional incidents of in-flight engine stoppage or loss of power in engines containing the defective TU 76 nozzle guide vane have occurred around the world. These incidents happened in Guyane, Virginia, Brazil, Arizona, Texas, and Australia.
At trial, the Letzes argued that the helicopter engine manufactured and sold by TSA and installed by TEC in the Life Flight 2 helicopter that crashed, killing Sherry, contained a defective nozzle guide vane, the TU 76, which had caused many engines to fail in flight; that TSA and TEC knew the nozzle guide vane was defective when it was installed in the Life Flight 2 helicopter in June 1989; and that TSA and TEC failed to recall the engine prior to the regularly scheduled overhaul. They asserted that TSA and TEC made a fully informed cost-based business decision not to recall the engines equipped with the defective TU 76 nozzle guide vane, including the Life Flight 2 helicopter engine, to save millions of dollars. Evidence was elicited that TSA saved up to $48 million by not conducting a recall to replace the defective TU 76 nozzle guide vane. After a four week trial, the jury returned a single verdict on all claims against TSA and TEC and assessed damages at $70 million. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Rocky Mountain Helicopters.
As their first point on appeal, TSA and TEC challenge the submissibility of aggravating circumstances. They contend that the trial court erred in overruling their motion for directed verdict at the close of all the evidence and in submitting the aggravating circumstances claim to the jury. They assert that the Letzes failed to prove (1) TSA and TEC knew or had reason to know there was a high degree of probability that the action would result in injury, (2) TSA and TEC knew of the allegedly defective condition of the TU 76 nozzle guide vane at the time it was sold or installed, or (3) TSA and TEC showed complete indifference to or a conscious disregard for the safety of others when they sold or installed the TU 76 nozzle guide vane. The Letzes argue that TSA and TEC have waived any objection they may have had to the submissibility of the aggravating circumstances claim.
To preserve the question of submissibility for appellate review in a jury-tried case, a motion for directed verdict must be filed at the close of all the evidence and, in the event of an adverse verdict, an after-trial motion for a new trial or to set aside a verdict must assign as error the trial court's failure to have directed such a verdict. Browning v. Salem Memorial Dist. Hosp., 808 S.W.2d 943, 949 (Mo.App.1991). Failure to move for a directed verdict at the close of all the evidence...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Ingham v. Johnson & Johnson
...result in injury. Poage v. Crane Co. , 523 S.W.3d 496, 515 (Mo. App. E.D. 2017) (emphasis added) (citing Letz v. Turbomeca Engine Corp. , 975 S.W.2d 155, 164-65 (Mo. App. W.D. 1997) ). In a strict liability action, the plaintiff must show "the defendant placed in commerce an unreasonably da......
-
Smith v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation, No. WD 65542 (Mo. App. 7/31/2007)
...dangerous product with actual knowledge of the product's defect."' Peters, 200 S.W.3d at 24 (quoting Letz v. Turbomeca Engine Corp., 975 S.W.2d 155, 164-65 (Mo. App. W.D. 1997)). Both strict liability and negligence theories require evidence to be presented that `"the defendant showed a com......
-
Smith v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.
... ... La Societe Anonyme Turbomeca France, 963 S.W.2d 639, 661 (Mo.App. W.D.1997). When a jury awards punitive damages, both the ... product with actual knowledge of the product's defect.'" Peters, 200 S.W.3d at 24 (quoting Letz v. Turbomeca Engine Corp., ... 275 S.W.3d 813 ... 975 S.W.2d 155, 164-65 (Mo.App. W.D. 1997)) ... ...
-
Smith v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation, No. WD65542 (Mo. App. 9/2/2008)
...dangerous product with actual knowledge of the product's defect."' Peters, 200 S.W.3d at 24 (quoting Letz v. Turbomeca Engine Corp., 975 S.W.2d 155, 164-65 (Mo. App. W.D. 1997)). Both strict liability and negligence theories require evidence to be presented that `"the defendant showed a com......