Rogers v. Ingersoll-Rand Co., Civil Action No. 95-0432.
| Decision Date | 16 July 1997 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 95-0432. |
| Citation | 971 F.Supp. 4 |
| Parties | Cosandra ROGERS, Plaintiff, v. INGERSOLL-RAND COMPANY, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Charles C. Parsons, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.
Terrence M.R. Zic, Washington, DC, William H. Robinson, Jr., Richmond, VA, for Defendant.
This matter is before the Court on Defendant Ingersoll-Rand Co.'s Renewed Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law or, in the Alternative, Motion for a New Trial, and Plaintiff Cosandra Rogers' opposition thereto. For the reasons stated below, the Court denies Defendant's motion.
This case is a products liability personal injury action. It came about following an incident on April 17, 1992, which injured Plaintiff Cosandra Rogers. Ms. Rogers is a resident of the District of Columbia. Ingersoll-Rand ("IR") is a New Jersey corporation. Ms. Rogers' employer, District Paving, was not a party to this action.
At trial, Ms. Rogers sought both compensatory and punitive damages from IR claiming that she was seriously and permanently injured by the company's Model MT-6520 milling machine. Ms. Rogers asserted 1) that the milling machine was defectively designed because it was unreasonably dangerous at the time it was sold, possessing known dangers which required IR to provide safety devices to prevent foreseeable injury to those people who worked in close proximity to the machine; 2) that IR acted negligently in its design, manufacture, or sale of the milling machine; and 3) that the dangerous condition of the milling machine breached an implied warranty of merchantability by IR that it would design, make, and sell only milling machines that were safe and free of defects, and fit for their intended purpose. After the close of evidence, the Court held that Ms. Rogers had not proven claims or defenses available solely to her implied warranty cause of action, and that it therefore merged with her strict liability claim. The jury therefore was not given the breach of implied warranty of merchantability claim.
IR denied that its machine was defectively designed, and denied liability to Ms. Rogers under any claim or theory. IR stipulated to the fact that the milling machine was potentially dangerous, but the company denied that the machine is unreasonably dangerous or defective due to a lack of mirrors, track guards, a kill switch, or a different mounting for its back-up alarm. IR said it was aware of these various devices, but made a determination that none would be effective in addressing the danger that would have prevented Ms. Rogers' accident.
IR further stated affirmative defenses that 1) District Paving's negligent failure to maintain or properly operate the milling machine was a superseding cause and the proximate cause of Ms. Rogers' accident; 2) Ms. Rogers was herself contributorily negligent; and 3) that the failure of District Paving's milling machine operator, Terrell Wilson, to see Ms. Rogers was the proximate cause of this accident. At the close of the case, IR moved for a directed verdict as to liability and punitive damages. The Court denied the motion, reserving the right to visit the issue of punitive damages should the jury award them.
Following a two-week trial and two-and-a-half days of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict for Ms. Rogers on both her negligence and her strict liability claims, and awarded compensatory damages in the amount of $10,200,000.00 and punitive damages of $6,500,000.00. The jurors answered 13 separate questions on a special verdict form, consistently finding IR liable for Ms. Rogers' injuries and damages. IR renewed its motion for judgment as a matter of law pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(b), and moved for a new trial under Fed. R.Civ. P. Rule 59.
The evidence offered at trial was that on April 17, 1992, Ms. Rogers was working for District Paving as a flagger, the member of a road paving crew who directs traffic around repaving sites. Her duties required her to stand with her back to the rest of her crew members and the machines they were using, in order to flag oncoming vehicles around the machinery and the people working with it.
District Paving purchased an IR Model MT-6520 milling machine in April 1991. The milling machine is designed to grind up asphalt by means of a series of metal teeth running under the main chassis. The MT-6520 does not have wheels, but moves on four tank-like "tracks" with metal grousers, or treads. It was one of these rear tracks which caused Ms. Rogers's injuries.
Around noon on April 17, 1992, the road crew on which Ms. Rogers was working decided to make one last pass over a particular portion of roadbed before breaking for lunch. The milling machine operator, Terrell Wilson, stopped to avoid passing over some manhole covers, which could severely damage the "teeth" of the asphalt grinding mechanism in the undercarriage of the machine. In his deposition testimony — which was read into the record at trial due to his unavailability — Mr. Wilson said that he looked backward and saw Ms. Rogers to the rear and side of the machine, and that he then put the machine into reverse. From the right-hand side of the operator's platform, the side away from where Cosandra Rogers stood, Mr. Wilson could not see Ms. Rogers because she was in one of the milling machine's blind spots. Shortly after Mr. Wilson began backing up the machine, other workers started running toward him waving their arms and shouting. Ms. Rogers had been partially pulled under the machine track and severely injured.
Ms. Rogers was taken to the Washington Hospital Center's MedStar Unit with extensive injuries to her left leg, hip, and abdomen. Her left leg was amputated above the knee, drains were put in her abdomen to help remove fluids, and metal rods were set in her pelvis in an attempt to stabilize the bones — which had been pushed apart by the force of the impact of the milling machine. She suffered — and is still afflicted by — a prolapsed uterus and bladder problems. IR stipulated to the fact that Ms. Rogers' injuries were due to contact with the milling machine's track, and similarly stipulated that her injuries required surgeries that caused Ms. Rogers' to incur significant medical expenses, the amount of which IR did not contest at trial.
Ms. Rogers spent three months in the Intensive Care Unit of the Washington Hospital Center, and the next two months at the National Rehabilitation Hospital undergoing intensive physical therapy. More than a year after her initial injury, she had a second pelvic surgery, to stabilize her pelvic girdle and left sacroiliac joint, in the hope that it would relieve the pain which kept her from being able to stand for long periods or walk for short ones. The surgery, her orthopedic surgery expert testified, relieved about 50% of her pain but did not give her the mobility she had hoped for.
During her hospitalization and rehabilitation, Ms. Rogers' four children were sent to live with various relatives. She lost her apartment. When she was released, Ms. Rogers stayed for a time in one of her sister's homes, and later lived with other relatives on a temporary basis. She now lives with a female friend who acts as home care companion, in a ground-floor apartment that is wheelchair-accessible but not fully equipped for a disabled person. She is unable to walk, can stand only for brief periods due to ongoing pain in her hip and back, and will not be able to return to her job as a flagger.
Jurisdiction over this case was founded on diversity of citizenship pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332. As a result, the substantive law of the District of Columbia governs this dispute. (See Schleier v. Kaiser Found. Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States, Inc., 876 F.2d 174, 180 (D.C.Cir.1989)).
Because judgment as a matter of law intrudes upon the rightful province of the jury, it is highly disfavored. This Circuit has emphasized that "[t]he jury's verdict must stand unless the evidence, together with all inferences that can reasonably be drawn therefrom is so one-sided that reasonable men could not disagree on the verdict." McNeal v. Hi-Lo Powered Scaffolding, Inc., 836 F.2d 637, 640-41 (D.C.Cir.1988) (internal quotations and citation omitted); accord Richardson v. Richardson-Merrell, Inc., 857 F.2d 823, 827 (D.C.Cir.1988), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 882, 110 S.Ct. 218, 107 L.Ed.2d 171 (1989).
When conflicting inferences from the evidence are possible or where there is room for differences of opinion, the trial judge must allow the case to go to the jury. Id. () Even where it appears to the trial judge that the evidence is such that one party is entitled to prevail on a factual issue, if a contrary result is even possible the better course of action is to allow the issue to go to the jury and then, if necessary, enter a post-verdict judgment as a matter of law. Id.
Rule 50(a)(2), which governs the pre-verdict motion for judgment as a matter of law, requires the motion to "specify the judgment sought and the law and the facts on which the moving party is entitled to judgment." Rule 50(b) states that when the Court either denies or does not initially grant such a motion, the case is deemed submitted to the jury subject to the Court's later determination of the legal issues raised in the motion. The motion "may be renewed" later, under Rule 50(b). "The precise claim made in the motion for judgment n.o.v. must have been made in the motion for directed verdict." Whelan v. Abell, 48 F.3d 1247, 1251 (D.C.Cir. 1995) (quoting U.S. Indus., Inc. v. Blake Constr. Co., 671 F.2d 539, 548 (D.C.Cir. 1982)); accord Fed.R.Civ.P. 50 Advisory Committee's Note...
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