Modisette v. Apple Inc.
| Decision Date | 14 December 2018 |
| Docket Number | H044811 |
| Citation | 30 Cal.App.5th 136,241 Cal.Rptr.3d 209 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Bethany MODISETTE et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. APPLE INC., Defendant and Respondent. |
Counsel for Plaintiffs/Appellants Bethany Modisette, James Modisette and Isabella Modisette: Simon Greenstone Panatier, Brian Patrick Barrow, Nectaria Belantis, Long Beach, Love Law Firm, Gregory P. Love.
Counsel for Defendant/Respondent Apple, Inc.: Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher, Theodore J. Boutrous, Christopher Chorba, Jessica R. Culpepper, Los Angeles, Findlay Craft, Eric H. Findlay, Debby Gunter.
Bethany and James Modisette, along with their daughter Isabella, sued Apple Inc. after they were seriously injured, and their daughter Moriah was killed, when a driver using the FaceTime application on his iPhone crashed into their car on a Texas highway. The trial court sustained Apple’s demurrer to the Modisettes’ first amended complaint and dismissed the action. The Modisettes appeal from the judgment.
We determine that the trial court properly sustained the demurrer without leave to amend. Regarding the Modisettes’ negligence claims, we conclude that Apple did not owe the Modisettes a duty of care. We also determine that the Modisettes cannot establish that Apple’s design of the iPhone constituted a proximate cause of the injuries they suffered, a necessary element of their remaining claims. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment.
On December 24, 2014, Bethany, James, Isabella, and Moriah Modisette were traveling in their family car on Interstate 35W in Denton County, Texas.1 Garrett Wilhelm was also driving on the interstate, and, while driving, was using the FaceTime application on his Apple iPhone 6 Plus. Traveling at highway speed, Wilhelm crashed into the Modisettes’ car, which had stopped due to police activity. The accident caused severe physical and emotional injuries to each of the Modisettes, and Moriah, aged five, subsequently died at the hospital. Wilhelm told the police that he was using FaceTime at the time of the crash. Police found Wilhelm’s iPhone at the scene with FaceTime still activated.
The Modisettes sued Apple Inc., which has its principal place of business in Santa Clara County. The first amended complaint alleged causes of action for general and gross negligence, negligent and strict products liability, negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, loss of consortium, and public nuisance. The Modisettes alleged that the car accident "occurred ... when a driver, distracted while using the ‘FaceTime’ application on an Apple iPhone 6 Plus during operation of his motor vehicle, collided at highway speed with [their] stationary motor vehicle and caused severe physical and emotional injuries to [them]," and that Apple’s failure to design the iPhone "to ‘lock out’ the ability of drivers to utilize the ‘FaceTime’ application on the Apple iPhone while driving a motor vehicle, ... resulted in the[ir] injuries." The complaint incorporated by reference the "body of studies and data that demonstrate the compulsive/addictive nature of smartphone use."
The Modisettes alleged that Apple had wrongfully failed to implement in the iPhone 6 Plus a safer alternative design that would have automatically prevented drivers from utilizing FaceTime while driving at highway speed (lockout technology). The Modisettes also alleged that Apple had failed to warn users that the iPhone "was likely to be dangerous when used or misused in a reasonably foreseeable manner." The Modisettes alleged that Apple "had a legal duty to ... use due care in the design, manufacture, and sale of its iPhone 6 Plus" and that Apple had "breached that duty by failing to use reasonable care to design and manufacture [the phone] with the safer, alternative ‘lock-out’ technology it had already developed to prevent the use of its pre-installed ‘FaceTime’ application during a driver’s operation of a motor vehicle."
According to the first amended complaint, Apple applied for a patent for its lockout technology in December 2008. The patent application stated that the technology was designed to " ‘disable the ability of a handheld computing device to perform certain functions, such as texting, while one is driving.’ " (Italics omitted.) The patent for the lockout technology was issued to Apple in April 2014. Apple released the iPhone 6 Plus on September 9, 2014. FaceTime was a "factory-installed, non-optional application[ ] on the iPhone 6 Plus."
The Modisettes alleged that Apple knew or should have known of the risks caused by the use of the iPhone while driving and quoted portions of Apple’s 2008 patent application for the lockout technology. For example, the first amended complaint alleged that Apple stated in the application that " " Attached as an exhibit to the first amended complaint was a notice of proposed federal guidelines by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued on November 21, 2016. The proposed federal guidelines stated that driver "distractions can come from electronic devices, such as navigation systems and cell/smartphones, and from more conventional activities, such as viewing sights or events external to the vehicle, interacting with passengers, and/or eating." The proposed federal guidelines included statistics on the prevalence of accidents in the United States involving distracted drivers from 2007-2014. For example, in 2013, there were 71,000 "distraction-affected non-fatal crashes involving the use of a cell phone," which constituted 8 percent of all distraction-affected non-fatal crashes and resulted in 34,000 people injured. That same year, there were 411 "distraction-affected fatal crashes involving the use of a cell phone," which constituted 14 percent of fatal "distraction-affected crashes" and resulted in 455 fatalities. The proposed federal guidelines made recommendations to "reduce the potential for unsafe driver distraction" from electronic devices, but acknowledged that
The trial court sustained Apple’s demurrer to the first amended complaint without leave to amend and dismissed the action on May 8, 2017. The court found that "each cause of action ... fails, as a matter of law, to establish either the element of duty or of causation." The Modisettes timely appealed.
The Modisettes contend that the trial court erroneously found Apple did not owe them a duty of care, asserting that the risk created by Apple’s failure to implement the lockout technology was foreseeable and unreasonable. The Modisettes also argue that the trial court inappropriately decided causation on demurrer, asserting that Apple’s conduct and the resulting defect in Wilhelm’s phone combined with Wilhelm’s conduct to cause the collision. The Modisettes seek to amend their complaint by adding allegations that Apple recently implemented a design change that allows iPhone users to block notifications while driving.
We conclude that the Modisettes’ claims for general and gross negligence, negligent products liability, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and public nuisance fail because Apple did not owe the Modisettes a duty of care. We base this determination on two considerations: first, the tenuous connection between the Modisettes’ injuries and Apple’s design of the iPhone 6 Plus without lockout technology; and, second, the burden to Apple and corresponding consequences to the community that would flow from such a duty. We also determine that the Modisettes’ claims for strict products liability, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and loss of consortium fail for lack of proximate cause.2 Accordingly, we affirm the judgment.
"We review an order sustaining a demurrer de novo, exercising our independent judgment as to whether a cause of action has been stated as a matter of law." ( Thompson v. Ioane (2017) 11 Cal.App.5th 1180, 1190, 218 Cal.Rptr.3d 501 ( Thompson ).) 3 ( Moore v. Regents of University of California (1990) 51 Cal.3d 120, 125, 271 Cal.Rptr. 146, 793 P.2d 479 ( Moore ), internal citations omitted.) "We do not review the validity of the trial court’s reasoning, and therefore will affirm its ruling if it was correct on any theory." ( Thompson , supra , at p. 1190, 218 Cal.Rptr.3d 501, internal citation and quotation marks omitted; see also Carman v. Alvord (1982) 31 Cal.3d 318, 324, 182 Cal.Rptr. 506, 644 P.2d 192.)
"A plaintiff in any negligence suit must demonstrate a legal duty to use due care, a breach of such legal duty, and [that] the breach [is] the proximate or legal cause of the resulting injury." ( Kesner v. Superior Court (2016) 1 Cal.5th 1132, 1142, 210 Cal.Rptr.3d 283, 384 P.3d 283 ( Kesner ), internal quotation marks omitted.) Duty is an essential element of the Modisettes’ claims against Apple for general and gross negligence, negligent products liability, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and public nuisance. (See Ibid. [negligence]; Chavez v. 24 Hour Fitness USA, Inc. (2015) 238 Cal.App.4th 632, 640, 189 Cal.Rptr.3d 449...
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