Lindsey v. Navistar Intern. Transp. Corp.

• Decision Date: 14 August 1998
• Docket Number: No. 97-8691,97-8691
• Parties: Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 15,328, 11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 1729 Jack LINDSEY, Executor of the Estate of Grace C. Lindsey, Deceased, Jack Lindsey, as surviving spouse of Grace C. Lindsey, Deceased, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. NAVISTAR INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORTATION CORP., Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1307

150 F.3d 1307

Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 15,328, 11 Fla. L. Weekly

Fed. C 1729

Jack LINDSEY, Executor of the Estate of Grace C. Lindsey,

Deceased, Jack Lindsey, as surviving spouse of

Grace C. Lindsey, Deceased, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. NAVISTAR INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORTATION CORP., Defendant-Appellant.

No. 97-8691.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Aug. 14, 1998.

Richard B. North, Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough, L.L.P., Atlanta, GA, for Defendant-Appellant.

Allan R. Hoffman, Joseph Reitman, Jr., Lambert & Roffman, James Edward Carter, Carter Firm, Madison, GA, Foy R. Devine, Doffeermyre, Shields, Canfield, Knowles & Devine, Atlanta, GA, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before DUBINA and MARCUS, Circuit Judges, and PROPST ^*, Senior District Judge.

MARCUS, Circuit Judge:

Defendant-appellant Navistar International Transportation Corporation ("Navistar") appeals from a judgment for plaintiffs-appellees Jack Lindsey individually and as executor of the estate of his late wife Grace C. Lindsey, entered after a bench trial in this product liability action for damages resulting from the jackknifing of a tractor-trailer manufactured by International Harvester Company, Navistar's corporate predecessor. ¹ Navistar contends that the district court erred in finding that the tractor was defective, in concluding that the alleged defect was a proximate cause of the accident in question, and in awarding allegedly excessive damages to plaintiffs-appellees. After a thorough review, we conclude that the district court did not err and affirm its judgment.

I.

A. The Accident

The tragic facts are simple enough. On September 5, 1989, Otis Madison was driving southbound on U.S. Highway 441 in Oconee County, Georgia, operating a Navistar tractor hauling an empty flatbed trailer. In front of Madison's truck, a vehicle had stopped while waiting to turn left onto County Road 267. Although the truck driver had at least a few hundred feet of unobstructed visibility, Madison, who was traveling at approximately sixty miles per hour and had an extensive record of speeding violations, did not begin reacting to the situation in front of him until much closer to the intersection. Had Madison's reaction been more timely, or had he been operating the truck within the posted speed limit, Madison could have brought the truck to a stop without a collision.

Unfortunately, however, when Madison finally did begin braking, he hit the brakes hard, and the rear axle locked up. The tractor started to skid, eventually crossing the center line dividing the lanes. Tommy Ballard, who was proceeding northbound on 441 and whose pickup truck was grazed along the entire left side by the tractor, described the vehicle by stating that the cab of the truck was facing "directly straight to me." A bystander whose attention was called to the wreck when he heard tires "hollering on the pavement" turned to look and saw that the tractor-trailer had jackknifed, a term used to refer to the clockwise or counter-clockwise rotation of the trailer away from the tractor. The jackknifed tractor-trailer, which had crossed the center line on a two-lane highway, smashed into Grace Lindsey, who had been driving behind Ballard going northbound on 441. Immediately after the accident, Mrs. Lindsey was moaning. She responded to questions by shaking her head, but she did not speak. An ambulance took Mrs. Lindsey to the hospital, where she died from her injuries soon thereafter. Mrs. Lindsey was thirty years old when she died. She was survived by her husband, and two sons, who were two-and-a-half years and four months old at the time of her death.

B. Procedural Background

Contending that the tractor involved in the accident was defective and unreasonably dangerous because the design of the brake system increased the likelihood of a "jackknifing" wreck under the foreseeable circumstances of hard braking while pulling an empty or lightly loaded trailer, plaintiffs-appellees filed suit in state court in Fulton County, Georgia. Navistar removed the case to federal court and promptly moved for summary judgment, arguing that the federal regulation pertaining to truck-braking systems, 49 C.F.R. § 571.121, preempted plaintiffs-appellees' state law tort claims. The district court granted Navistar's motion and entered judgment for Navistar. Plaintiffs-appellees appealed. Following oral argument, this Court concluded that the federal regulation did not preempt plaintiffs-appellees' state law tort claims and reversed the district court. Myrick v. Freuhauf Corp., 13 F.3d 1516 (11th Cir.1994). The Supreme Court granted certiorari, and, on April 18, 1996, affirmed. Freightliner Corp. v. Myrick, 514 U.S. 280, 115 S.Ct. 1483, 131 L.Ed.2d 385 (1995).

The case then returned to the district court for further proceedings. The matter proceeded to trial, and, pursuant to the parties' stipulation, the district judge sat as the trier of fact. It was uncontested that the jackknifing occurred as a result of the rear axle locking up and the front axle not receiving enough braking power. Thus, plaintiffs-appellees argued that any one of four conditions would have prevented the lock-up of the rear axle, and thus, the accident, from occurring: the presence of antilock brakes, the absence of an automatic limiting valve, the presence of a load-sensing proportioning valve, or the presence of a manual limiting valve. An automatic limiting valve reduces the pressure, and hence the brake force, to the front axle of a tractor during certain braking applications. Thus, plaintiffs-appellees argued that had the tractor not been equipped with an automatic limiting valve, the brake force would not have been reduced to the front axle. A load-sensing proportioning valve continuously monitors the load on each axle by measuring the deflection of the suspension. When the device detects a light load on the rear axle, it proportions more brake force to the front axle. Plaintiffs-appellees reasoned that the presence of a load-sensing proportioning valve would have detected the light load on the tractor and proportioned more brake force to the front axle. As for a manual limiting valve, the driver must adjust a lever on the dashboard to the heavily or lightly (empty) loaded position. When in the lightly loaded position, the manual limiting valve reduces the braking power to the rear axle. Plaintiffs-appellees theorized that a manual limiting valve, if switched to the empty or lightly loaded position, would have reduced the braking power to the rear axle and avoided the rear axle lock-up. After plaintiffs-appellees presented evidence regarding these four alternative designs, Navistar submitted evidence from its experts regarding each of the four proposed alternative designs.

On June 2, 1997, the district court, after taking extensive trial testimony, entered an order finding in favor of plaintiffs-appellees. Specifically, the district court concluded that although the absence of antilock brakes and/or a load-sensing proportioning valve, and/or the presence of an automatic limiting valve did not render the tractor defective, the absence of a manual limiting valve did make the truck defective. With respect to antilock brakes, the district court held that no safe, reliable antilock braking technology was compatible with American-made tractors at the time the truck in question was built. Consequently, the absence of such technology on the trailer at issue did not constitute a defect. As for the inclusion of the automatic limiting valve, the district court found that a hard brake, as employed by the driver in this case, "essentially bypasses an automatic limiting valve." As a result, "the automatic limiting valve had little or no effect on the distribution of the braking force between front and rear axles[,]" and did not cause the accident. The district court similarly rejected plaintiffs-appellees' theory that the absence of a load-sensing proportioning valve constituted a defect in the tractor, noting that such devices do not work well with American-made vehicles; moreover, increasing the effectiveness of a load-sensing proportioning valve in American-made vehicles would require the use of air suspension, which would increase the cost of each vehicle by at least $20,000.

The district court, however, agreed with plaintiffs-appellees that the tractor was defective because it was manufactured without a manual limiting valve. As noted, a manual limiting valve basically allows the driver to reduce the brake force to the rear wheels manually when operating a vehicle in a lightly loaded or empty condition. This adjustment prevents the rear wheels from locking up before the front wheels during a sudden stop and thus avoids the conditions that result in jackknifing. Thus, the district court reasoned that "[i]f the tractor in this case had been equipped with a manually adjustable limiting valve, which had been properly set by the driver to adjust the brakes for pulling an empty trailer, then the tractor's rear wheels would not have locked before the front wheels and the vehicle would not have jackknifed." Further finding that at the time the tractor in this case was manufactured, manual limiting valves were readily available on the American market at a cost of less than one hundred dollars per truck, the district court determined that the lack of a manual limiting valve on the tractor in question constituted a defect.

Accordingly, the district court awarded plaintiffs-appellees damages, including $100,000 for Mrs. Lindsey's pain and suffering, $5,000,000 for the "intangible" value of Mrs. Lindsey's life, and funeral and medical expenses in the amount of $8,361.38, for a total award of $5,108,361.38. Navistar appeals this judgment.

II.

On appeal, Navistar challenges the district court's judgment in three respects: (1) Navistar...