Self v. General Motors Corp.

• Court: California Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: FLEMING; COMPTON
• Citation: Self v. General Motors Corp., 42 Cal.App.3d 1, 116 Cal.Rptr. 575, 501 P.2d 1153 (Cal. App. 1974)
• Decision Date: 24 September 1974
• Parties: Thomas L. SELF et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants and Respondents, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Defendant, Respondent, and Appellant. George William MOORE et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, and Respondents, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Defendant, Respondent, and Appellant. Civ. 41247.

Page 575

116 Cal.Rptr. 575

42 Cal.App.3d 1

Thomas L. SELF et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants and Respondents, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Defendant, Respondent, and Appellant.

George William MOORE et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, and Respondents, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Defendant, Respondent, and Appellant.

Civ. 41247.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 2, California.

Sept. 24, 1974.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 27, 1974.

Hearing Denied Nov. 21, 1974.

Heily, Blase, Ellison & Wellcome, DeWitt F. Blase, Oxnard, and Edward L. Lascher, Ventura, for appellant Christine Smith.

Goller, Leveton & Stoll, Los Angeles, for appellants Moore, and others.

Spray, Gould & Bowers, L. Raymond Millard, Richard A. Neumeyer, Hillsinger & Costanzo, John J. Costanzo, Robert V. Keller, Los Angeles, Office of Ross L. Malone, and Thomas W. Watkins, Detroit, Mich., for respondent General Motors Corp.

FLEMING, Associate Justice.

At 11 p.m. on 10 April 1968, Verne Prior, driving on U.S. 101 under the influence of alcohol and drugs at a speed of 65 to 85 miles an hour, crashed his 1963 Chrysler into the left rear of a 1962 Chevrolet station wagon stopped on the shoulder of the freeway for a flat tire. In the crash the Chevrolet station wagon was knocked into a gully, its fuel tank ruptured, and the vehicle caught fire. Two of its occupants were killed, and two others, one of whom was plaintiff Christine Smith, a passenger in the front seat, sustained severe burn injuries.

Smith and others brought an action for personal injuries against Prior for negligent driving and against General Motors in negligence and strict liability for defective manufacture and defective design of the station wagon, in particular the welding of the fuel tank and its placement in the left rear fender section. Subsequent to the jury's verdict, which included damages of $350,000 for Smith against both defendants, the trial court denied General Motors' motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, but granted its motion for a new trial because juror Spencer on Voir dire concealed personal history and withheld opinions about General Motors' design of the station wagon and because plaintiff's attorney improperly brought to the jury's attention the limited amount of Prior's insurance coverage.

General Motors appeals the denial of judgment notwithstanding the verdict, and Smith appeals the grant of a new trial. ¹ In brief, General Motors contends its station wagon contained no defects in design, but if it did, defective design did not cause or contribute to Smith's injuries. Smith contends that her attorney properly questioned Prior about the amount of his insurance that juror Spencer concealed nothing of consequence, and that in any event such asserted errors were nonprejudicial.

I

The evidence established that no matter how the fuel tank in the Chevrolet station wagon might have been welded, it would have ruptured when struck by a vehicle traveling at a speed of 65 to 85 miles an hour. Plaintiff therefore did not press her claim of defective manufacture, but concentrated on the claim that General Motors had defectively designed the station wagon when it located its fuel tank in the left rear fender section separated from the passenger compartment by only a few layers of metal. Plaintiff's experts testified that the station wagon's fuel tank was located in a vulnerable position, that this location made the vehicle unreasonably dangerous to use, that earlier-model station wagons and passenger automobiles had their fuel tanks located underneath the body inside the crossbars of the frame, that if the station wagon's fuel tank had been similarly located it would have been well-protected in the collision.

The foregoing testimony was sufficient to make a prima facie case in support of plaintiff's claim that the station wagon had been defectively designed. While the word 'defect' is not capable of precise definition in all cases (Culpepper v. Volkswagen of America, Inc., 33 Cal.App.3d 510, 517, 109 Cal.Rptr. 110) and while defective design is an amorphous and elusive concept once we have progressed beyond the idea of fitness for intended use, its contours certainly include the notion of excessive preventable danger. When an automobile's fuel tank has been located in a position relatively more hazardous than others, when the added hazard of its location has been recognized by the industry, when the danger is well-known to the designers, and when the tank could have been readily relocated in a safer position, a jury could conclude that the location of the fuel tank made the design of the automobile defective. On the subject of defective design the jury was presented with the experience, opinions, and reasons of plaintiff's experts, who testified one way, and the experience, opinions, and reasons of General Motors' expert, who testified the other way. It was the jury's responsibility to evaluate this evidence and draw its own conclusions. (Donahue v. United Artists Corp., 2 Cal.App.3d 794, 803, 83 Cal.Rptr. 131.) When substantial credible evidence is presented on both sides, the jury's verdict on defective design will not be disturbed.

General Motors, however, contends that defective design was not properly an issue in the case, for a design is defective only if it results in a product which is unsafe for its intended use. (Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc., 59 Cal.2d 57, 27 Cal.Rptr. 697, 377 P.2d 897.) Here, no evidence was produced to show the station wagon was unsafe for its intended use of operation on the highway. Since the station wagon was obviously not intended to be used as a stationary target for another vehicle traveling at 65 to 85 miles an hour, the injuries that resulted from the collision were not attributable to the design of the station wagon, and therefore judgment notwithstanding the verdict should have been entered in General Motors' favor. This argument of General Motors follows a logical course, but its premise has been repudiated by the Supreme Court in Cronin v. J. B. E. Olson Corp., 8 Cal.3d 121, 126, 104 Cal.Rptr. 433, 437, 501 P.2d 1153, 1157: '(The) argument that the van was built only for 'normal' driving is unavailing. We agree that strict liability should not be imposed upon a manufacturer when injury results from a use of its product that is not reasonably foreseeable. Although a collision may not be the 'normal' or intended use of a motor vehicle, vehicle manufacturers must take accidents into consideration as reasonably foreseeable occurrences involving their products. (Passwaters v. General Motors Corporation (8th Cir. 1972) 454 F.2d 1270, 1276; Larsen v. General Motors Corporation (8th Cir. 1968) 391 F.2d 495, 501--503;80 Harv.L.Rev. 688, 689 (1967); contra, Evans v. General Motors Corporation (7th Cir. 1966) 359 F.2d 822, 825, cert. den., 385 U.S. 836, 87 S.Ct. 83, 17 L.Ed.2d 70.) The design and manufacture of products should not be carried out in an industrial vacuum but with recognition of the realities of their everyday use.' A motor vehicle manufacturer is required to foresee that as an incident of normal operation in the environment in which his product will be used accidents will occur, including high-speed collisions between vehicles. Because of this possibility he is required to design his vehicle to minimize unreasonable risks of injury and death. From this duty it follows that a motor vehicle manufacturer must take into account the possibility of high-speed collision when it selects a location for the fuel tank in the vehicle. (See Culpepper v. Volkswagen of America, Inc., 33 Cal.App.3d 510, 518, 109 Cal.Rptr. 110; Mickle v. Blackmon (1969) 252 S.C. 202, 166 S.E.2d 173, 42 A.L.R.3d 525, and annot. 560, 571--572.)

Stated more generally, the law now requires a manufacturer to foresee some degree of misuse and abuse of his product, either by the user or by third parties, and to take reasonable precautions to minimize the harm that may result from misuse and abuse. The manufacturer must evaluate the crashworthiness of his product and take such steps as may be reasonable and practicable to forestall particular crash injuries and mitigate the seriousness of others. (Cronin v. J. B. E. Olson Corp., 8 Cal.3d 121, 126, 104 Cal.Rptr. 433, 501 P.2d 1153; Pike v. Krank G. Hough Co., 2 Cal.3d 465, 473--474, 85 Cal.Rptr. 629, 467 P.2d 229; Thomas v. General Motors Corp., 13 Cal.App.3d 81, 89, 91 Cal.Rptr. 301.) We recognize the impossibility of making a product foolproof or failsafe, and we appreciate the need to balance one consideration against another in designing a complicated product so as to achieve reasonable and practical safety under a multitude of varying conditions. We are also well aware that prosecution of a lawsuit is a poor way to design a motor vehicle, for the suit will almost invariably emphasize a single aspect of design to the total exclusion of all others. For example, defective design is claimed here because the vehicle was not sufficiently crashworthy from the rear. Defective design was claimed in Evans v. General Motors Corporation, 359 F.2d 822 (7th Cir. 1966), because the vehicle was not sufficiently crashworthy from the side; in Dreisonstok v. Volkswagenwerk, A.G., 489 F.2d 1066 (4th Cir. 1974), because not sufficiently crashworthy in front; and in Larsen v. General Motors Corp., 391 F.2d 495 (8th Cir. 1968), because not sufficiently crashworthy in a head-on collision. Protection gained against a head-on collision may be at the expense of protection against one that is broadside, for like an army in battle the vehicle can't be uniformly strong at all points and under all conditions. We also appreciate that consensus design may tend to freeze innovation and inhibit manufacturers from making products that have not been made before. For example, in Dreisonstok, supra, where the driver ran his microbus off the road into a telephone pole, plaintiff charged as defective design the...