Sardis v. Overhead Door Corp.
| Decision Date | 13 March 2020 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 3:17-cv-818 |
| Citation | 446 F.Supp.3d 47 |
| Parties | Andrea SARDIS, as Administrator of the Estate of Evangelos Sardis, Deceased, Plaintiff, v. OVERHEAD DOOR CORPORATION, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia |
Peter Christopher Grenier, Grenier Law Group PLLC, Washington, DC, Andrew George Slutkin, Pro Hac Vice, Ethan Shale Nochumowitz, Pro Hac Vice, Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin & White, LLC, Baltimore, MD, Lawrence Steven Emmert, Sykes Bourdon Ahern & Levy, PC, Virginia Beach, VA, for Plaintiff.
Martin Andrew Conn, Christian Farris Tucker, Lisa Moran McMurdo, Matthew James Hundley, Moran Reeves & Conn PC, Michael William Stark, Sarah Virginia Bondurant Price, McGuireWoods LLP, Richmond, VA, for Defendant.
Evangelos Sardis died in 2016 after sustaining injuries on the job. His widow, Andrea Sardis,1 filed this products liability litigation against Overhead Door Corporation ("Overhead Door"). The plaintiff contends that Overhead Door negligently designed the product at issue, failed to warn Sardis about the product's dangers, and breached the implied warranty of merchantability. Following a four-day trial in July, 2019, a jury found in the plaintiff's favor and awarded her over four million dollars in damages. Overhead Door has moved for a new trial and for judgment as a matter of law. Because Overhead Door has failed to meet its burden to set aside the jury's verdict, the Court will deny Overhead Door's motions for a new trial and for judgment as a matter of law.
Sardis worked for Washington Overhead Door ("WOD"), an Overhead Door distributor operating in Northern Virginia. Overhead Door designs and manufactures commercial "Rolling Steel" garage doors, which roll around a shaft at the top of the doorway behind a metal hood. Overhead Door also designs and manufactures containers to ship sections of the metal hoods to distributors. The containers have a "triple-wall cardboard" frame with wooden endcaps. The endcaps have one horizontal and two vertical boards, forming a "U" shape. Five smaller horizontal boards, or "slats," connect the two vertical boards. A gap exists between the first and second slat, creating a handhold. In this products liability litigation, the plaintiff challenges the design of Overhead Door's cardboard container.
The events giving rise to this case began on June 6, 2016—five days after Sardis began working for WOD as a "Tech Trainee." As a trainee, Sardis worked alongside Keith Lawrence, a more experienced technician. While Sardis and Lawrence were working at a jobsite, two WOD employees arrived to drop off hoods for installation at a different site. The hoods were stored in an Overhead Door cardboard container. Sardis, Lawrence, and the two WOD employees moved the container from a flatbed truck to the roof rack of Lawrence's truck. Sardis and Lawrence then drove the container to the installation site.
At the installation site, Sardis and Lawrence tried to remove the hoods from the truck. When Sardis and Lawrence could not remove the hoods without damaging them, Lawrence called for a forklift. Two WOD employees eventually arrived with the forklift. Lawrence and another employee struggled to operate the forklift, causing the container to tip toward the truck cab each time they tried to move it. Sardis then climbed onto an extension ladder on top of the truck to try to help move the container. When Sardis pulled on the container's handhold, the slat came off the container's wooden endcap. Sardis fell off the truck and to hit the asphalt below with the back of his head. He died fourteen days later in the hospital.
Sardis' widow sued Overhead Door, asserting that Overhead Door negligently designed the container, failed to warn Sardis about its dangers, and breached the implied warranty of merchantability. The case proceeded to a jury trial in July, 2019. After four days of evidence, the jury found in the plaintiff's favor on all counts and awarded her over four million dollars in damages. Overhead Door has now moved for a new trial and for judgment as a matter of law.2
Overhead Door asserts the following six grounds for a new trial3 : (1) the Court misstated the law with respect to a manufacturer's duty to test its products; (2) the Court improperly excluded the safety manual while allowing the plaintiff to introduce circumstantial evidence of safety standards; (3) the Court erroneously admitted evidence concerning the length of nails without expert testimony; (4) the Court should have submitted the assumption of the risk defense to the jury; (5) the Court failed to properly instruct the jury on the definition of "reason to know;" and (6) the Court failed to properly instruct the jury that the plaintiff had the burden to prove that a warning would have prevented Sardis' death.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(a) allows courts to order a new trial following a jury verdict. Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(a)(1)(A). "In the Fourth Circuit, a court ‘must set aside the verdict and grant a new trial[ ] if ... (1) the verdict is against the clear weight of the evidence, (2) is based upon evidence which is false, or (3) will result in a miscarriage of justice, even though there may be substantial evidence which would prevent the direction of a verdict.’ " Knussman v. Maryland , 272 F.3d 625, 639 (4th Cir. 2001) (alterations in original). "[W]hen considering a motion for a new trial under Rule 59, ‘a trial judge may weigh the evidence and consider the credibility of the witnesses.’ " Burgess v. Balt. Police Dep't , 300 F. Supp. 3d 696, 702-03 (D. Md. 2018) (quoting Poynter by Poynter v. Ratcliff , 874 F.2d 219, 223 (4th Cir. 1989) ).
"The granting or denial of a motion for a new trial under Rule 59(a) ‘is a matter resting in the sound discretion of the trial judge.’ " Ray v. Allergan, Inc. , 863 F. Supp. 2d 552, 556 (E.D. Va. 2012) (quoting Wadsworth v. Clindon , 846 F.2d 265, 266 (4th Cir. 1988) ). In deciding whether to grant or deny a motion for a new trial, "the crucial inquiry is ‘whether an error occurred in the conduct of the trial that was so grievous as to have rendered the trial unfair.’ " Bristol Steel & Iron Works v. Bethlehem Steel Corp. , 41 F.3d 182, 186 (4th Cir. 1994) (quoting DMI, Inc. v. Deere & Co. , 802 F.2d 421, 427 (Fed. Cir. 1986) ).
The Supreme Court of Virginia has recognized three ways that a product can be unreasonably dangerous: "if it is [1] defective in assembly or manufacture, [2] unreasonably dangerous in design, or [3] unaccompanied by adequate warnings concerning its hazardous properties." Ball v. Takeda Pharms. Am., Inc. , 963 F. Supp. 2d 497, 506 (E.D. Va. 2013). Virginia law, however, does not recognize "a ‘failure to test’ theory as a viable claim separate and apart from the three traditional product defect claims." Id. Instead, a manufacturer's duty to test its products "is subsumed within the general duty of the manufacturer to avoid acting in a negligent manner." Powell v. Diehl Woodworking Mach., Inc. , 198 F. Supp. 3d 628, 633 (E.D. Va. 2016).
In this case, the plaintiff contends that Overhead Door acted negligently in part because it failed to test the container. Overhead Door challenges two of the jury instructions that addressed the plaintiff's negligence claim and a manufacturer's duty to test its products: Instruction Nos. 21 and 22. Overhead Door argues that both instructions "incorrectly suggest that there is some independent, free-standing duty to conduct testing and that the failure to do so renders a manufacturer negligent." (Dk. No. 167, at 8.) From the start, the plaintiff has alleged that Overhead Door acted in a negligent manner because, "among other things," Overhead Door "[f]ailed to properly and adequately test the [container]."4 The plaintiff has never advanced the theory that Overhead Door's failure to test the container alone gives rise to liability.
Both instructions reflect the plaintiff's theory and neither misstates Virginia law. First, Instruction No. 21 provides:
(Dk. No. 151, at 22.) The Court crafted Instruction No. 21 by modifying Virginia Model Civil Instruction No. 34.160.5 At the hearing on the jury instructions, the Court agreed with Overhead Door that Model Instruction No. 34.160 incorrectly suggested that a manufacturer's failure to test its products alone could give rise to liability. To address that concern, the Court added the following phrase to the final sentence of Instruction No. 21: "and the product is unreasonably dangerous." (Dk. No. 151, at 22.)
The Court's modification required the jury to find that the product was unreasonably dangerous before it could hold Overhead Door liable for failing to test the container. In other words, Instruction No. 21 did not allow the jury to hold Overhead Door liable based solely on its failure to test the container. Accordingly, the plaintiff's failure to test theory—and the statement of law in Instruction No. 21—"fit into" the "traditional product claim[ ]" that Overhead Door's container was unreasonably dangerous in design. Powell , 198 F. Supp. 3d at 633-34 (quoting Ball , 963 F. Supp. 2d at 506 ). Instruction No. 21, therefore, accurately states Virginia products liability law.
Second, Instruction No. 22 provides:
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