Sumnicht v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.

• Decision Date: 05 February 1985
• Docket Number: No. 83-812,83-812
• Citation: 360 N.W.2d 2,121 Wis.2d 338
• Parties: Vernon C. SUMNICHT, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC., Toyota Motor Distributors, Inc., and Toyota Motor Sales Company, Ltd., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

Page 2

360 N.W.2d 2

121 Wis.2d 338

Vernon C. SUMNICHT, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, U.S.A., INC., Toyota Motor Distributors Inc., and Toyota Motor Sales Company, Ltd. Defendants-Appellants.

No. 83-812.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Argued Sept. 5, 1984.

Decided Dec. 21, 1984.

Reconsideration Denied Feb. 5, 1985. ^*

Robert D. Scott, Milwaukee (argued), for defendants-appellants; Ross A. Anderson and Frisch, Dudek and Slattery, Ltd., Milwaukee, on briefs.

Robert J. Kay, Madison (argued), for plaintiff-respondent; Mark C. Williamson and Geisler & Kay, S.C., Madison, on brief.

Alan E. Gesler and Warshafsky, Rotter, Tarnoff, Gesler & Reinhardt, S.C., Milwaukee, amicus curiae, for the Wisconsin Academy of Trial Lawyers.

James D. Ghiardi and Kluwin, Dunphy & Hankin, Milwaukee, amicus curiae, for The Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc. and The Motor Vehicle Mfrs.' Ass'n. of the U.S.; William H. Crabtree, Detroit, Mich., of counsel.

CECI, Justice.

This appeal is before this court on certification from the court of appeals pursuant to section (Rule) 809.61, Stats., ¹ see 352 N.W.2d 214, and is from a judgment and order of the circuit court for Walworth county, John J. Byrnes, circuit judge, denying appellants' motions after verdict and granting respondent's motion for judgment on the verdict against appellants in the amount of $2,350,000. We affirm the judgment and order.

Four issues are presented on appeal:

(1) Whether the jury's finding that the defective seat design was a cause of Sumnicht's injuries is supported by credible evidence.

(2) Whether the jury's finding that the defect in the design of the seat system was unreasonably dangerous is supported by credible evidence.

(3) Whether it was prejudicial error for the trial court to allow opinion testimony concerning Toyota's negligence and then, after dismissing the negligence claim, refuse to strike the opinion testimony and instruct the jury to disregard it.

(4) Whether it was prejudicial error for the trial court to instruct the jury on Toyota's duty to warn.

This case arises from an automobile accident which occurred sometime after 2:00 a.m. on May 16, 1976, when the vehicle in which Vernon C. Sumnicht was a passenger left the roadway on a curve and collided with a tree. Sumnicht was rendered a quadriplegic as a result of this accident.

The accident occurred on Highway 89, approximately five miles south of Whitewater, Wisconsin. The evidence is clear that immediately prior to the accident, Sumnicht was lying down, with his head behind the driver's seat, in the back seat of a 1975 Toyota Corolla two-door sedan operated by Edmund C. O'Connor, Jr. Sumnicht was not using the available seat belt. Jack Vallerugo was riding in the front passenger's seat of the Toyota, which was equipped with bucket seats. Sumnicht, O'Connor, and Vallerugo were returning to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where they were students.

The vehicle headed north on Highway 89, when it entered a large curve in the roadway. The Toyota drifted off the highway, traveling approximately 303 feet along the shoulder. It then crossed a drainage ditch and climbed a grass incline before hitting the tree head-on. At the moment of impact with the tree, the Toyota was estimated to be traveling between thirty and fifty miles per hour.

O'Connor sustained chest injuries, from which he fully recovered. Vallerugo also received chest injuries and died en route to the hospital. Sumnicht suffered a fractured dislocation of his cervical spine at C6-7, which caused his quadriplegia. Other than his severed spinal cord, Sumnicht had relatively minor injuries, which consisted of two chipped teeth, a possible fractured rib, and two leg lacerations.

Sumnicht initially commenced suit against the driver of the Toyota, his father, and their insurers, ² later amending his complaint to include three sellers and distributors of the 1975 Toyota involved in the accident (collectively referred to herein as "Toyota"). ³ The complaint alleged causes of action on the theories of strict products liability and negligence.

The trial commenced on January 31, 1983, lasting over three weeks. Sumnicht's liability case revolved around the theories that the front seat system of the Toyota was both defective and unreasonably dangerous and negligently designed and manufactured. His liability experts included an accident reconstructionist, a mechanical engineer, a biomedical engineer, a safety engineer, a neurosurgeon, and a metallurgist.

These experts testified that, at the time of the collision, Sumnicht was lying down in the back seat, with his head toward the driver's side of the Toyota. They theorized that upon impact of the car with the tree, Sumnicht was propelled forward and his head became entrapped in the cutout portion of the back of the driver's seat, while his lower torso swung forward, smashing into the back of the front passenger's seat. The inboard hinge on the passenger's seat broke loose, allowing Sumnicht's lower torso to wrap around the seat. The continued movement forward of his lower torso, while his head was stationary, created the shearing forces which injured his spinal cord and resulted in his quadriplegic condition.

Sumnicht's experts opined that the 1975 Toyota was defective and unreasonably dangerous and negligently designed and manufactured insofar as the back of the bucket seat did not have any energy-absorbing material beneath the vinyl seat cover. Instead of the bucket seat's serving as a shock absorber, it permitted Sumnicht's head to become captured in the hollow cutout portion of the back of the driver's seat.

The hinges on the passenger's seat which connect the bottom of the seat to the seat back were also criticized. There was testimony that the inboard bracket on the passenger's seat broke upon impact because it was made of the weakest steel available. This allowed Sumnicht's lower torso to propel around and enter the front seat area of the Toyota. Sumnicht's experts concluded that had the seat backs not been so designed and had the bracket not broken, Sumnicht would not have sustained the paralyzing injuries.

Conversely, Toyota was of the opinion that the seat system was not defective and did not cause Sumnicht's injuries. Toyota's liability experts included an engineer specializing in crash analysis, a biomechanical engineer, an accident reconstructionist, and a metallurgist. These experts theorized that Sumnicht's head did not become entrapped in the seat at all. It was reasoned that just prior to the collision, Sumnicht sat up and was injured when he was thrown over and between the front bucket seats, striking his head on the dashboard area of the automobile.

At the verdict formulation phase of the trial, the court dismissed the negligence claim at Toyota's request, and the case went to the jury solely on the theory of strict liability. The jury found that the 1975 Toyota automobile contained such a defect in the design of the seat system as to be unreasonably dangerous to a prospective passenger in the rear seat of the automobile and found that such defective design was a cause of injuries to the plaintiff over and above those injuries which he probably would have sustained as a result of the collision without such defective design. The jury also found that O'Connor was negligent at the time of the collision and that his negligence was also a cause of plaintiff's injuries. The jury found that plaintiff was not negligent in his own conduct prior to the collision. The jury apportioned the negligence at fifty percent to the defective seat system and fifty percent to the driver, Edmund C. O'Connor, Jr. The jury awarded 4.7 million dollars for the plaintiff's personal injuries, including his pain and suffering, past and future; his permanent disability; his loss of earnings, past and future; and his medical, hospital, drugs, and nursing care, past and future. These damages were awarded specifically for injuries which plaintiff sustained over and above injuries which he would have probably sustained from the collision without the defective design in the seat system. The trial court reduced the damage award by the percentage of negligence attributed to O'Connor, denied Toyota's motions after verdict, and entered judgment against Toyota in the amount of 2.35 million dollars. Toyota now appeals.

I.

A. Introduction

This suit falls within a class of cases commonly referred to as "second collision" or "crashworthy" cases. ⁴ The crashworthiness doctrine imposes liability upon a manufacturer in a vehicular collision case for design defects which do not cause the initial accident but which cause additional or more severe injuries when the driver or passenger subsequently impacts with the defective interior or exterior of the vehicle. ⁵ This double-collision distinction is clarified by the following:

"An automobile collision is really two collisions. In the first phase of the accident, the plaintiff's automobile collides with another automobile or with a stationary object. Most of the property damage results from the first collision, but the occupants of the vehicle usually sustain little or no injury at this stage. Personal injuries occur most frequently in the second collision, in which the occupants are thrown against or collide with some part of their automobile. Courts will hold the manufacturer liable for the plaintiff's loss in the second collision only if defective design of the automobile caused or exacerbated the plaintiff's injury. Yet, if a court finds that defective automobile design did cause some injury, determining where one defendant's liability ends and another's begins may be virtually impossible. Both those injuries for which the manufacturer should be liable and those attributable to other causes, such as another driver's negligence, occurred during the very brief time span of the second collision." Note, Apportionment of...