McCathern v. Toyota Motor Corp.

• Decision Date: 10 May 2001
• Citation: 23 P.3d 320,332 Or. 59
• Parties: Linda McCATHERN, Respondent on Review, v. TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION, a foreign corporation, Toyota Motor Sales, Inc., a foreign corporation, and Broadway Toyota, an Oregon corporation, Petitioners on Review, and Takata Corporation, a foreign corporation, Defendant.
• Court: Oregon Supreme Court

23 P.3d 320

332 Or. 59

Linda McCATHERN, Respondent on Review, v. TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION, a foreign corporation, Toyota Motor Sales, Inc., a foreign corporation, and Broadway Toyota, an Oregon corporation, Petitioners on Review, and Takata Corporation, a foreign corporation, Defendant.

(CC 9601-00689; CA A98578; SC S46683)

Supreme Court of Oregon.

Argued and Submitted May 10, 2000.

Decided May 10, 2001.

Malcolm E. Wheeler, of Wheeler Trigg & Kennedy, P.C., Denver, CO, argued the cause for petitioners on review. With him on the briefs were Jonathan M. Hoffman and Julie K. Bolt, of Martin, Bischoff, Templeton, Langslet & Hoffman, LLP, Portland.

Kathryn H. Clarke, Portland, argued the cause for respondent on review. With her on the brief were Maureen Leonard, Jeffrey P. Foote, and Jana Toran, Portland.

Arthur C. Johnson, of Johnson, Clifton, Larson, & Corson, P.C., Eugene, filed a brief for amicus curiae Oregon Trial Lawyers Association.

Karen O'Kasey, of Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, Portland, filed a brief for amicus curiae Oregon Association of Defense Counsel.

Christopher W. Angius, of Perkins Coie, Portland, and Victor E. Schwartz, Mark A. Behrens, and Leah Lorber, of Crowell & Moring, LLP, Washington, DC, filed a brief for amicus curiae Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc. Also appearing on the brief was Of Counsel Hugh F. Young, Jr., Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc., Reston, VA.

Before CARSON, Chief Justice, and GILLETTE, DURHAM, KULONGOSKI, LEESON, and RIGGS, Justices.¹

KULONGOSKI, J.

The primary issue on review in this product liability civil action is whether plaintiff introduced sufficient evidence to establish that the 1994 Toyota 4Runner was designed defectively.² Plaintiff was injured when the 1994 4Runner vehicle in which she was riding as a passenger rolled over. Plaintiff sued defendants—the manufacturer, distributor, and seller of the 4Runner—alleging that the 1994 4Runner was dangerously defective and unreasonably dangerous because its design rendered it unstable and prone to roll over. A jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff and awarded noneconomic damages totaling $2,250,000 and economic damages totaling $5,400,000. The Court of Appeals affirmed. McCathern v. Toyota Motor Corp., 160 Or. App. 201, 985 P.2d 804 (1999). We now affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.

The following facts are taken from the record. We view the evidence, and the reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom, in the light most favorable to the party in whose favor the jury returned the verdict, i.e., plaintiff. Parrott v. Carr Chevrolet, Inc., 331 Or. 537, 542, 17 P.3d 473 (2001).

The accident that caused plaintiff's injuries took place one evening in May 1995, when plaintiff and her daughter, together with plaintiff's cousin, Sanders, and her daughter, were riding in Sanders's 1994 Toyota 4Runner. Sanders was driving, plaintiff was in the front passenger seat, and the children were in the back seat. Everyone was wearing a seatbelt.

While the group was traveling south on Highway 395 at a speed of approximately 50 miles per hour, an oncoming vehicle veered into Sanders's lane of travel.³ Sanders steered to the right onto the paved shoulder to avoid a collision, then steered to the left to stay on the highway, at which point the 4Runner began to rock from side-to-side. She then steered to the right again to return to the south-bound lane, at which point the 4Runner rolled over and landed upright on its four wheels. During the rollover, the roof over the front passenger seat collapsed and, as a result, plaintiff sustained serious and permanent injuries. The other passengers in the 4Runner sustained only cuts and bruises. The vehicle that had veered into Sanders's lane did not stop, and no other vehicles were involved in the accident.

In January 1996, plaintiff filed the present action against defendants (collectively "Toyota").⁴ Plaintiff's complaint alleged that the 1994 4Runner "was dangerously defective and unreasonably dangerous in that the vehicle, as designed and sold, was unstable and prone to rollover."⁵

At trial, plaintiff presented expert testimony in support of her theory that the 1994 4Runner was designed defectively. One of plaintiff's accident reconstruction experts, Fries, opined that the accident was caused solely by the geometry of the 1994 4Runner, as opposed to any other tripping mechanism, such as braking, off-road travel, or a "rim trip."⁶ Robertson, a statistician specializing in injury statistics, testified regarding the correlation between the height of a vehicle's center of gravity, its track width,⁷ and its rollover resistence. Robertson stated that the 1994 4Runner was unreasonably dangerous because widening the vehicle by only eight inches would have increased its stability and decreased its propensity to roll over. Tamny, another engineer and accident reconstruction expert, also opined that the 1994 4Runner was unreasonably dangerous because the manufacturer could have designed it in such a way that it would have skidded instead of rolling over when making sharp turns on flat, dry pavement.

Beginning with its opening statement and continuing throughout the trial, Toyota conceded that it was aware that the 1994 4Runner rolls over on flat, dry pavement due to tire friction forces alone. According to Toyota, however, the 1994 4Runner's design was not defective because almost all sport utility vehicles (SUVs) will roll over under conditions similar to those present during plaintiff's accident.⁸ Toyota conceded that the design modifications that plaintiff's experts had suggested—lowering the vehicle's center of gravity or widening its track width to increase rollover resistance—were feasible at the time the 1994 model 4Runner was designed. Toyota argued, however, that those changes were not practicable because they would have diminished the 4Runner's utility and inhibited its performance in an off-road environment.

Plaintiff also presented evidence that Toyota had redesigned the 1994 model 4Runner in 1996 by lowering its center of gravity and widening its track width. Toyota's senior staff engineer, Yonekawa, testified that the design modifications made to the 1996 4Runner had improved the vehicle's handling and rollover resistance. In Toyota's testing, the 1994 model 4Runner had overturned at speeds of less than 40 miles per hour with steering input alone, i.e., without applying the brakes. By contrast, the 1996 4Runner did not roll over with steering input alone. According to plaintiff's expert, Tamny, "if you have to hit the brakes to make the vehicle unstable, it has better handling characteristics than if you can get it to lift off from steering alone." Tamny also characterized the 1996 4Runner as a reasonably safe vehicle because, when a driver makes an "obstacle avoidance maneuver"⁹ on flat, dry pavement, the 1996 design slides or skids to a stop, and does not roll over. Finally, Dobashi, Toyota's engineer who was responsible for testing and evaluating the 1996 4Runner, also testified that the 1996 design changes had improved the handling and stability of the 4Runner. When asked whether the 1996 4Runner was worse in any respect than the 1994 model, i.e., whether the design modifications of the 1996 4Runner had affected its utility as an SUV, Dobashi testified that, to his knowledge, "all performances are about the same or better."

Finally, to counter the argument that no ordinary consumer would expect a 4Runner to stay upright during evasive turns, plaintiff presented evidence that Toyota had promoted the 1994 4Runner as a safe and dependable vehicle for both highway and off-road purposes. Toyota's national merchandising manager for the United States, Cecconi, testified that Toyota had marketed the 1994 4Runner to older, wealthier drivers who would use the vehicle for commuting as well as for outdoor activities. According to Cecconi, Toyota was aware that many consumers thought that the 4Runner's height was a safety feature because it allowed better visibility. He also admitted, however, that Toyota's advertising did not attempt to communicate to consumers the rollover risk attendant with the vehicle's height. When presented with an example of a television commercial depicting the 4Runner performing evasive maneuvers similar to those that occurred in plaintiff's accident, Cecconi admitted that, under certain conditions, the maneuvers being depicted in the commercial might cause the vehicle to roll over. Cecconi also was shown several Toyota advertising brochures and testified that he was "not really sure" whether the 1994 4Runner safely could perform the evasive maneuvers depicted in the brochures's diagrams.

At the close of plaintiff's evidence, Toyota moved for a directed verdict on plaintiff's design-defect claim on two grounds: (1) that plaintiff had failed to prove that the 1994 4Runner was dangerously defective and unreasonably dangerous because she had failed to adduce sufficient evidence of the practicability of her proposed alternative design, viz., the 1996 4Runner; and (2) that plaintiff had failed as a matter of law to prove that the design of the 1994 4Runner had caused her injuries because she had failed to demonstrate that it was more probable than not that the accident and injuries would not have occurred had Toyota manufactured and sold the product with plaintiff's proposed alternative design. The court denied Toyota's motion on both grounds. Toyota renewed that motion on the same two grounds at the close of the evidence, and the court again denied the motion.

As noted, the jury found for plaintiff, awarding her economic and noneconomic damages. Toyota timely filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) or, in the alternative, a new trial, based on the same grounds as its earlier motion for a directed verdict. The trial court did not rule on the motion, and it therefore was denied by operation of law. ORCP...