Redman v. John D. Brush and Co.

• Decision Date: 28 April 1997
• Docket Number: No. 95-3215,95-3215
• Citation: 111 F.3d 1174
• Parties: 32 UCC Rep.Serv.2d 785, 46 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1514, Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 14,925 Michael REDMAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JOHN D. BRUSH AND COMPANY, d/b/a Sentry Group, Incorporated, Defendant-Appellant, and Value-Tique, Incorporated, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 1174

111 F.3d 1174

32 UCC Rep.Serv.2d 785, 46 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1514,

Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 14,925

Michael REDMAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.JOHN D. BRUSH AND COMPANY, d/b/a Sentry Group, IncorporatedDefendant-Appellant and Value-Tique, Incorporated, Defendant.

No. 95-3215.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued Dec. 5, 1996.

Decided April 28, 1997.

ARGUED: Laura Ellyn Wilson, Penn, Stuart, Eskridge & Jones, Abingdon, VA, for Appellant.Terry Gene Kilgore, Kilgore & Baker, Gate City, VA, for Appellee.ON BRIEF: D. Gregory Baker, Kilgore & Baker, Gate City, VA, for Appellee.

Before WILKINS and LUTTIG, Circuit Judges, and BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge.

Reversed by published opinion.Senior Judge BUTZNER wrote the opinion, in which Judge WILKINS and Judge LUTTIG joined.

OPINION

BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge:

In this products liability suit, John D. Brush and Company(Sentry), the manufacturer of Sentry safes, seeks review of a jury award entered in favor of Michael Redman.Redman brought the suit after his coin collection, which was locked inside his Sentry safe, was stolen.At the conclusion of trial, the jury awarded Redman the value of the coin collection based on its finding that the loss resulted from the safe's negligent design.Because the evidence was legally insufficient to establish Sentry's liability for the loss, we reverse.

This is a diversity case and Redman's loss occurred in Virginia.Accordingly, Virginia law controls the substantive legal issues.Alevromagiros v. Hechinger Co., 993 F.2d 417, 420(4th Cir.1993).

I

Redman purchased a Sentry Supreme Safe, Model # 5570, from a retailer, which traded under the name of Value-Tique, after noticing the safe in magazine advertisements.The retailer arranged for Sentry to ship Redman's safe, which was delivered in February 1987.Redman stored his coin collection in the safe.In December 1989, while Redman and his family were away for three days, a burglar broke into Redman's home and stole his coin collection.Upon his return, Redman found that the safe, which had a combination lock, had been forced open.On the floor near the safe were a 12"' pry bar, a screw driver, a hammer, and the safe's dial and handle.

In December 1991, Redman filed this action against Sentry and Value-Tique to recover the value of the coin collection.The complaint asserted claims for breach of warranty, negligent failure to warn of a dangerous condition, and negligent design or manufacture.Early on, Value-Tique was dismissed from the suit for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Subsequently, Sentry filed a motion for summary judgment.Ruling on the motion, the district court dismissed the warranty claim because the statute of limitations had elapsed and, alternatively, because Sentry had effectively disclaimed all liability for consequential damages.The court also dismissed the negligent design claim because Redman had not presented any evidence to show that the safe was defective.The court did not, however, dismiss the failure to warn claim.

After several months of pretrial preparation, Sentry filed a second motion for summary judgment.In response, Redman asked the court to reconsider its earlier dismissal of the negligent design claim.Acting on these motions, the court changed two of its previous rulings.First, the court reinstated the design claim because Redman had retained an expert who, Redman said, would testify that the safe was negligently designed.Second, the court dismissed the failure to warn claim, finding that Redman could not sustain the claim under Virginia law because the safe was not a dangerous product.The court also held that Redman's claim was not barred by Virginia's economic loss rule.As a result of these rulings, the district court then held that the case would be tried on the sole issue whether Sentry negligently designed and manufactured the safe.Redman has not appealed any of the orders that adversely affected him.

After the jury returned a verdict in Redman's favor, Sentry renewed its motion for judgment as a matter of law because, in its view, Redman had failed to prove the elements of his claim.The district court denied the motion and entered judgment based on the jury's verdict.SeeRedman v. Sentry Group, Inc., 907 F.Supp. 180(W.D.Va.1995).Sentry appealed.

II

Sentry asserts on appeal that the district court erred in several evidentiary rulings and by denying its motion for judgment as a matter of law.Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50, the moving party is entitled to prevail on a motion for judgment as a matter of law if, after a full hearing, the evidence is legally insufficient to allow a reasonable jury to find in favor of the other party.With that standard in mind, we review the district court's denial of such a motion de novo.Brown v. CSX Transp., Inc., 18 F.3d 245, 248(4th Cir.1994).We review evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion.

In order to sustain a products liability claim for negligent design under Virginia law, "the plaintiff must prove that the product contained a defect which rendered it unreasonably dangerous for ordinary or foreseeable use."Alevromagiros, 993 F.2d at 420.Although Virginia law requires manufacturers to make reasonably safe products, it does not require them to adopt the safest conceivable design.Austin v. Clark Equipment Co., 48 F.3d 833, 837(4th Cir.1995).Instead, manufacturers are required to design products that meet prevailing safety standards at the time the product is made.Sexton v. Bell Helmets, Inc., 926 F.2d 331, 336-37(4th Cir.1991).When deciding whether a product's design meets those standards, a court should consider whether the product fails to satisfy applicable industry standards, applicable government standards, or reasonable consumer expectations.Alevromagiros, 993 F.2d at 420.

III

We turn first to the contested evidentiary rulings.At the outset of the trial, Sentry moved to exclude two of Redman's exhibits.Over Sentry's objection, the district court permitted Redman to introduce a Value-Tique advertisement that appeared in a magazine called Coin World three years after Redman bought his safe.The advertisement described the pictured Sentry safe as "burglar deterrent" and "fire resistant."As justification for introducing the advertisement, Redman claimed that he relied on similar advertisements when he bought his safe.The district court allowed Redman to introduce the advertisement because the safe had been advertised "for burglary purposes."

The advertisement should not have been allowed in evidence.The most obvious problem with the advertisement is that it depicts a different model safe from the one Redman purchased.An even more important difficulty with the admission of the advertisement is that the evidence does not link Sentry to the representation of burglar deterrence that appears in the advertisement.The evidence shows only that Redman ordered the safe from Value-Tique and Sentry shipped the safe direct from the factory.According to the best recollection of its witness, Sentry did not place any advertisements in Coin World in 1986 or 1987.In addition, Redman produced no evidence to show that Sentry authorized Value-Tique to describe a Sentry safe as "burglar deterrent."Later during the trial, Redman testified that no one from Sentry told him the safe was "burglar deterrent," and he admitted that he had not produced any advertisements that Sentry had placed in a coin magazine.

The second exhibit that Sentry's counsel challenged was a copy of the warranty that accompanied the safe.Partially overruling the objection of Sentry's counsel, the district court allowed Redman to introduce a sentence from the warranty for impeachment purposes.The sentence reads: "Your safe is built to protect against fire and petty theft, but if properly installed and used will provide a degree of protection against burglary."The district court admitted the warranty statement for impeachment because, in the words of the district court, Sentry's expert "has said they do not make burglary proof safes."

The trouble with the district court's ruling is simply that the warranty was not contrary to the testimony of Sentry's witness.After explaining the standards of Underwriters Laboratories (UL) for burglar resistance, Sentry's expert testified that Sentry does not make burglar resistant safes and that the safe in question was not designed to meet a UL burglary resistance standard; instead, it met a UL fire resistance standard, and it could not be redesigned to meet a burglar resistance standard.He also testified that the safe offered a degree of burglary protection because it has a lock and bolt work that would require some degree of force to enter for anyone who did not know the combination.His testimony was consistent with the warranty, which described the safe as providing "a degree of protection against burglary."Consequently, the warranty did not impeach Sentry's expert.It simply served to confuse the jury by reminding them that Sentry had given a warranty when, in fact, the district court had dismissed Redman's cause of action on the warranty.Although the district court explained to the jury that the warranty itself was not an issue, the jury's prejudicial confusion was made evident by a question they asked about the meaning of "petty theft," a term mentioned in the warranty.The court responded to the jury's question by explaining that the term was not relevant.Nevertheless, the question and answer suggest that the jury was using the statement in the warranty for more than impeachment purposes, especially since it did not impeach Sentry's expert.The warranty should not have been admitted into evidence, and under the circumstances the district court erred by allowing the introduction of the statement for impeachment purposes.

In addition to the Value-Tique advertisement and the warranty statement, Sentry...