Peterson by Peterson v. General Motors Corp.

• Decision Date: 11 July 1990
• Docket Number: No. 89-1727,89-1727
• Citation: 904 F.2d 436
• Parties: Erik Thomas PETERSON, by his next friend Victor PETERSON, Victor Peterson and Geneva Peterson, Appellants, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 436

904 F.2d 436

16 Fed.R.Serv.3d 809

Erik Thomas PETERSON, by his next friend Victor PETERSON Victor Peterson and Geneva Peterson, Appellants, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Appellee.

No. 89-1727.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Feb. 15, 1990.

Decided May 31, 1990.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc

Denied July 11, 1990.

William H. McDonald, Springfield, Mo., for appellants.

Rodney E. Loomer, Springfield, Mo., for appellee.

Before ARNOLD and BOWMAN, Circuit Judges, and HEANEY, Senior Circuit Judge.

BOWMAN, Circuit Judge.

Erik Peterson, Geneva Peterson, and Victor Peterson appeal from a judgment entered on a jury verdict in favor of General Motors Corporation (GMC) in their action for personal injury damages. Erik and Geneva Peterson were struck in a K-Mart parking lot by a 1985 Oldsmobile Calais designed and manufactured by GMC. Appellants sued on the theory that a defect in the Calais caused it to accelerate rapidly and uncontrollably when put into reverse. Appellants argue on appeal that the District Court ¹ made numerous trial errors including (1) admitting into evidence certain photographs and a video depicting the scene of the accident; (2) excluding evidence of GMC customer complaints; (3) limiting the number of admissible similar incidents to five; (4) excluding internal GMC documents that pertained to a body frame other than that of the Calais; (5) allowing police officer Rick Richards to testify regarding his experience with similar accidents; (6) instructing the jury not to consider the theory of pedal overlap; and (7) excluding the testimony of a rebuttal witness. In addition, appellants claim that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence, a new trial should be granted because of juror misconduct, and the District Court erred in denying their motion to vacate the judgment in light of newly discovered evidence. We affirm.

This action arises out of a very serious accident. On April 26, 1986, a 1985 Oldsmobile Calais, its driver at the wheel, accelerated rapidly out of its parking stall in a K-Mart parking lot. It traveled approximately 50 feet in a wide arc and collided with a Ford Escort. The Calais continued on its destructive path, striking another vehicle and two pedestrians--appellants Erik and Geneva Peterson. Erik suffered extensive injuries and will require round-the-clock nursing care for the remainder of his life. The driver of the Calais, seventy-six-year-old Florence Ratcliff, testified that she started her vehicle, placed her foot on the brake pedal, shifted the car into reverse, and began backing out of her parking stall. The car suddenly "shot out" from under her and she was unable to bring it under control even though she pressed on the brake pedal as hard as she was able. Immediately following the accident, Mrs. Ratcliff told several witnesses, including a police officer investigating the accident, that "the harder she pressed the faster [the car] went." Trial Transcript at 460.

Appellants contended at trial that a defect in the Calais's computer system allowed a random burst of electromagnetic energy to corrupt the car's computer memory and cause the idle air control valve (IACV) to open completely. With the IACV fully open, enough air and fuel entered the engine to increase its revolutions per minute (rpms) and cause the vehicle to surge backwards when put into reverse. Appellants maintained that Mrs. Ratcliff was unable to control the car because the initial acceleration was so startling and the g-force pressure prevented her from applying sufficient pressure to the brakes.

GMC countered that the Calais's computer system was designed to filter out electromagnetic energy and could not be corrupted in the manner that appellants asserted. GMC engineers testified that had the IACV been fully open during the incident, the police officer who tested the Calais shortly thereafter would have noticed an abnormally high idle speed. GMC presented evidence demonstrating that the small diameter of the idle air control port ensured that only a limited amount of air could enter the engine even with the valve fully open. Testing done after the accident by appellants' own expert indicated that with the valve wide open and the car at maximum idle, the Calais reached a speed of only 10.5 miles per hour after traveling forty-nine feet. This figure is considerably lower than the estimated speed of the Calais at the time it collided with either of the two parked vehicles and the speeds eyewitnesses testified that the Calais was traveling. Moreover, GMC engineers testified that even at maximum idle, a mere thirty pounds of pressure on the brakes, which can be applied by an average person with his or her thumbs, would bring the Calais to a complete stop. GMC contended that the only possible explanation for the accident was that Mrs. Ratcliff inadvertently placed her foot on the accelerator rather than the brake prior to shifting into reverse. As the vehicle picked up speed, Mrs. Ratcliff naturally applied increased pressure to what she erroneously believed was the brake pedal and the car careened around the parking lot at wide-open throttle.

The jury rejected appellants' version of the incident and found in favor of GMC on the Petersons' claims.

Most of the issues appellants raise attack the District Court's rulings concerning the admissibility of evidence. The District Court has broad discretion in the conduct of the trial and we will not substitute our judgment for that of the District Court unless the court has abused its discretion. LaRO Corp. v. Big D Oil Co., 824 F.2d 689, 690 (8th Cir.1987). We have examined the record in this case and are satisfied that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in any of the evidentiary rulings challenged in appellants' first five claims.

Appellants also challenge the District Court's ruling in removing from the case the contention that Mrs. Ratcliff had her foot on the accelerator and the brake at the same time and instructing the jury not to consider evidence supporting this contention in their verdict. We disagree. At trial, appellants introduced evidence that the configuration of the accelerator and brake pedals in the Calais and the size of Mrs. Ratcliff's shoe made it possible for Mrs. Ratcliff to place her foot on both pedals. Mrs. Ratcliff, however, returned to the Calais sometime after the accident and attempted to put her foot on both the accelerator and brake pedals. She testified that, "I couldn't possibly put my foot on the brake and the gas at the same time; it could not be done," and "it hurts to do it." Trial Transcript at 727. The purpose of a withdrawal instruction is to avoid confusion on the part of the jury because of a spurious issue raised by testimony, and the decision whether to give such an instruction is left to the discretion of the trial court. Johnson v. Richardson, 701 F.2d 753, 756-57 (8th Cir.1983); see Weisbach v. Vargas, 656 S.W.2d 797, 799 (Mo.Ct.App.1983). The District Court determined that the pedal overlap theory was a potentially misleading, spurious issue and gave an appropriate withdrawal instruction. We have no difficulty holding that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in so doing, and therefore reject appellants' contention that a new trial is deserved on this ground.

We turn next to the District Court's decision to exclude the rebuttal testimony of appellants' witness, Dr. Bruno Schmidt. Schmidt's testimony was offered to attack the mathematical calculations employed by Dr. Charles Moffat, GMC's accident reconstruction expert. Moffat's...