Sigler v. American Honda Motor Co.

• Decision Date: 08 July 2008
• Docket Number: No. 07-5471.,07-5471.
• Citation: 532 F.3d 469
• Parties: Shelly SIGLER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

532 F.3d 469

Shelly SIGLER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 07-5471.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: February 1, 2008.

Decided and Filed: July 8, 2008.

ARGUED:

Douglas S. Hamill, Burnette, Dobson & Pinchak, Chattanooga, Tennessee, for Appellant. Linda J. Hamilton Mowles, Lewis, King, Krieg & Waldrop, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellee.

ON BRIEF:

Douglas S. Hamill, Steven F. Dobson, Burnette, Dobson & Pinchak, Chattanooga, Tennessee, for Appellant. Linda J. Hamilton Mowles, Lewis, King, Krieg & Waldrop, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellee.

Before MOORE, CLAY, and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

MOORE, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which CLAY, J., joined. ROGERS, J. (pp. 490-91), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

OPINION

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge.

In this diversity-of-citizenship lawsuit arising under the Tennessee Products Liability Act ("TPLA"), the district court granted summary judgment to Defendant-Appellee American Honda Motor Company ("Honda") after considering several unsworn letters from various experts for Honda. Because our case law clearly prohibits considering such materials, and because Plaintiff-Appellant Shelly Sigler ("Sigler") presented sufficient evidence to establish the existence of genuine issues of material fact regarding whether the airbag in her vehicle was defective and caused her injuries, we REVERSE the district court's judgment and REMAND to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. BACKGROUND

On September 23, 2004, Sigler was involved in a single-car accident while traveling northbound on Interstate 75 in Bradley County, Tennessee. According to Sigler's recollection and an affidavit filed by Terry Williams, a motorist who was driving his car seventy-five to one hundred yards behind Sigler, Sigler was driving at approximately seventy miles per hour immediately prior to the accident. J.A. at 132 (Williams Decl.); J.A. at 266 (S. Sigler Dep. at 33). Sigler's vehicle, a 1999 Honda Accord EX (the "Accord"), then "veered off the road, drove down an embankment and through a small wire fence, and hit a tree." J.A. at 239 (Mem. to Order Granting Summ. J. ("Mem.") at 2). "The tree, approximately six inches in diameter, was uprooted by the collision." Id.; J.A. at 285-86 (D. Sigler Dep. at 25-26).¹ Williams's declaration states that when he saw Sigler's vehicle "suddenly veer off the roadway [he] did not see any brake lights or blinkers" and that "[t]he car then went down the embankment and into a clump of trees." J.A. at 132 (Williams Decl. at ¶ 5).² Sigler's Accord was a "certified pre-owned" vehicle equipped with a driver's side airbag, which did not deploy. J.A. at 239 (Mem. at 2); see also J.A. at 135-36 (Rogers Decl.). Evidence in the record indicates that the Accord's airbag should have deployed if the vehicle, when it collided with the tree, experienced a rapid deceleration from a speed of over fourteen, or possibly twenty-five, miles per hour. J.A. at 55 (Honda Supplemental Restraint System Brochure ("Honda Brochure") at 7); J.A. at 139 (Griffin Decl. at ¶ 9) (citing National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data).

Sigler "was unconscious at the time of the accident and in a semi-conscious state when she was transported to Bradley Memorial Hospital." J.A. at 239 (Mem. at 2). When Sigler arrived at the hospital, hospital records indicate that Sigler did not mention any pain or injury. J.A. at 150 (Bradley Memorial Hospital Emergency Dep't Treatment) ("PE anxious but denies injury or pain. lac[erations] or abrasions noted."). Sigler does not recall the collision, or indeed anything after she entered the highway shortly before her loss of consciousness and accident. J.A. at 266-68 (Sigler Dep. at 33-35). The record contains photographs³ depicting the damage sustained by the Accord in the accident, J.A. at 44-46, and Sigler's insurance carrier "declared the vehicle a total loss due to frontal damage and paid [the Siglers] a total of $11,109.25" on their claim, J.A. at 143 (Sigler Decl. at ¶ 5).

According to Sigler and her husband, Doyle Sigler, on the day following the accident Sigler had developed a quarter-sized bruise above her left eye. J.A. at 262 (D. Sigler Dep. at 23); J.A. at 239 (Mem. at 2) (citing deposition testimony). Sigler then "developed severe headaches, dizziness and neck soreness (which she did not experience before the accident), which caused her to return to the hospital a week after the accident. [Sigler] admits to experiencing a `possible seizure' prior to the accident, but alleges that since the accident, she has been experiencing seizures of aggravated duration and intensity." J.A. at 239 (Mem. at 2) (internal citations omitted); see also J.A. at 157 (Heisser Decl. at ¶ 4) (referring to Sigler's "preexisting seizure disorder"). Sigler claims that "[d]ue to these seizures, [she] cannot drive, had to discontinue nursing school, and is limited in her daily functioning." J.A. at 239 (Mem. at 2). Sigler also claims that her symptoms resulted from a second collision during her accident and that a deployed airbag would have prevented such a second collision. J.A. at 112-13 (Resp. to Honda's Mot. for Summ. J. at 3-4) (citing Sigler Dep. at 59 (J.A. at 276)); see also Appellant Br. at 28-30.

In September 2005, Sigler filed this lawsuit in Tennessee state court, and in October 2005, Honda removed the lawsuit to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. On January 31, 2007, Honda filed a motion for summary judgment as well as a motion in limine to exclude the testimony of Sigler's expert Jacob B. Griffin, III ("Griffin").

Sigler filed a response to the motion in limine and a response to the motion for summary judgment. Honda then filed a motion in limine to exclude the testimony of Sigler's experts Danny Bryant and Dr. Randy Heisser ("Dr. Heisser"), to which Sigler filed a response, and Honda then filed replies to all three of Sigler's responses. No hearings on any of the evidentiary motions were scheduled or held.

On March 30, 2007, the district court entered a Memorandum Opinion and Order granting Honda's motion for summary judgment and granting Honda's motion in limine to exclude the testimony of Griffin. Although the district court's Order did not specifically rule on the motion to exclude the testimony of Bryant and Heisser, as discussed below it appears that the district court implicitly ruled Heisser's testimony inadmissible.⁴ See infra, Part II.B.4. Sigler timely filed a Notice of Appeal on April 5, 2007.

On June 29, 2007, Sigler filed in our court a motion titled "Motion of Plaintiff-Appellant Shelly Sigler to Have the Court Consider the Medical Record of Dr. David Adams Dated October 5, 2004." Honda filed a Response on July 25, 2007.

II. ANALYSIS

Evidentiary questions abound in this appeal. We will consider first Sigler's motion filed in our court and then the district court's evidentiary rulings before analyzing the district court's decision to grant Honda's motion for summary judgment.

A. Sigler's Motion to Consider Medical Records

On June 29, 2007, Sigler filed a motion titled "Motion of Plaintiff-Appellant Shelly Sigler to Have the Court Consider the Medical Record of Dr. David Adams Dated October 5, 2004." Sigler's counsel claim that they first became aware of the medical record on March 26, 2007, and the district court docket sheet reflects that on March 27, 2007, Sigler filed a supplement to her exhibit list and her witness list. R. Nos. 47 and 48, No. 1:05-cv-00296. On March 30, 2007, the district court granted Honda's motion for summary judgment without considering this medical record.

Sigler offers two bases upon which we could grant her motion: first, that we may take judicial notice of certain facts under Rule 201 of the Federal Rules of Evidence; and second, that we have an inherent equitable power to supplement the record with material not reviewed by the district court. Mot. to Consider Medical Records at 3 (citing United States v. Murdock, 398 F.3d 491, 499 (6th Cir.2005)). We deny her motion on both grounds.

Federal Rule of Evidence 201 governs judicial notice of "adjudicative facts." Fed.R.Evid. 201(a). Rule 201(b) provides that "[a] judicially noticed fact must be one not subject to reasonable dispute in that it is either (1) generally known within the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court or (2) capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned." The evidence that Sigler seeks to add to the record—medical notations from Sigler's post-accident visit to her treating physician—clearly does not fall within either category.

Sigler contends that the Seventh Circuit's decision in Denius v. Dunlap, 330 F.3d 919 (7th Cir.2003), supports granting her motion, but Denius in fact demonstrates why her motion is inappropriate under Rule 201. Sigler describes Denius as holding "that the trial court had abused its discretion in refusing to take judicial notice of medical records contained on the National Personnel Record Center's website." Pl.'s Mot. at 8. In fact, the Seventh Circuit in Denius permitted judicial notice only "to note that the NPRC [National Personnel Records Center] and the VA [Department of Veterans Affairs] do in fact maintain medical records of retired United States military personnel," but the court did not permit judicial notice of the contents of any medical records, as Sigler requests that we do. Denius, 330 F.3d at 926 (emphasis added). Denius involved a lawsuit brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by an employee against a state-government employer for requiring the employee "to authorize the release of a broad range of personal information as a condition of continued employment," and the issue before the court was whether the state employer's authorization form, which demanded that employees consent to the...