Sun Val. Airlines, Inc. v. Avco-Lycoming Corp., Civ. No. 1-72-83

• Decision Date: 06 April 1976
• Docket Number: 1-74-25 and 1-74-26.,Civ. No. 1-72-83,1-72-141
• Citation: 411 F. Supp. 598
• Parties: SUN VALLEY AIRLINES, INC., and A. C. Hartley, Manager of State Insurance Fund, Plaintiffs, v. AVCO-LYCOMING CORPORATION, a corporation, and Beech Aircraft Corporation, a corporation, Defendants. Rozalys SMITH et al., Plaintiffs in Intervention, v. AVCO-LYCOMING CORPORATION, a corporation, and Beech Aircraft Corporation, a corporation, Defendants. Ona Faye CARLTON, Plaintiff, v. BEECH AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, a corporation, and Avco-Lycoming Corporation, a corporation, Defendants. Ada McCABE, et al., Plaintiffs, v. SUN VALLEY AIRLINES, INC., a corporation, et al., Defendants. James T. REIDY and John F. Merritt, et al., Plaintiffs, v. BEECH AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, a corporation, and Avco-Lycoming Corporation, a corporation, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Idaho

411 F. Supp. 598

SUN VALLEY AIRLINES, INC., and A. C. Hartley, Manager of State Insurance Fund, Plaintiffs, v. AVCO-LYCOMING CORPORATION, a corporation, and Beech Aircraft Corporation, a corporation, Defendants.

Rozalys SMITH et al., Plaintiffs in Intervention, v. AVCO-LYCOMING CORPORATION, a corporation, and Beech Aircraft Corporation, a corporation, Defendants.

Ona Faye CARLTON, Plaintiff, v. BEECH AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, a corporation, and Avco-Lycoming Corporation, a corporation, Defendants.

Ada McCABE, et al., Plaintiffs, v. SUN VALLEY AIRLINES, INC., a corporation, et al., Defendants.

James T. REIDY and John F. Merritt, et al., Plaintiffs, v. BEECH AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, a corporation, and Avco-Lycoming Corporation, a corporation, Defendants.

Civ. Nos. 1-72-83, 1-72-141, 1-74-25 and 1-74-26.

United States District Court, D. Idaho.

April 6, 1976.

Philip H. Corboy & Associates, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff Ada McCabe, et al.

Terrence O'Reilly, of Walkup, Downing & Sterns, San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiff Ona Faye Carlton.

Marshall L. Foreman Jr., and Donald L. Salem, of Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps, San Diego, Cal., for plaintiffs James T. Reidy and John F. Merritt, et al.

Albert R. Abramson and Paul Scarborough, Hoberg, Finger, Brown & Abramson, San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiffs in intervention Rozalys Smith, et al.

R. B. Rock and Donald W. Lojek, Moffatt, Thomas, Barrett & Blanton, Boise, Idaho, for third-party defendants Carlton, Smith and Sun Valley Airlines, Inc. and plaintiff Sun Valley Airlines, Inc.

John T. Hawley and Wayne B. Slaughter, Hawley, Troxell, Ennis & Hawley, Dale Clemons and Randall C. Fredricks, Clemons, Cosho, Humphrey & Samuelsen, Boise, Idaho, for defendant Avco-Lycoming Corp.

Carl P. Burke and Robert M. Tyler, Jr., Elam, Burke, Jeppesen, Evans & Boyd, Boise, Idaho, Kenneth C. Miller, Lord, Bissell & Brook, Chicago, Ill., for defendant Beech Aircraft Corp.

MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER DENYING MOTIONS FOR NEW TRIAL, JUDGMENTS NOTWITHSTANDING THE VERDICT, AND TO AMEND THE JUDGMENTS

J. BLAINE ANDERSON, District Judge.

On February 20, 1972, a Sun Valley Airlines, Inc. regularly-scheduled flight from Hailey, Idaho, to Boise, Idaho, crashed. The president of the airline and pilot, Rolland Smith, the chief mechanic, Otto Carlton, and passengers Harold McCabe, Lynn Reidy and Lisa Merritt, died as a result of the crash.

A number of post-trial motions are before the Court. This trial of these five consolidated wrongful death and property damage cases consumed 62 trial days, 9 days of jury deliberation, testimony of 120 witnesses, either personally or by way of deposition, and the introduction of approximately 1,000 exhibits, including an aircraft engine and engine parts. Very able and competent trial counsel assisted the Court prior to, during, and after trial, with excellent briefs on numerous and often difficult evidentiary and other issues which seemed to arise with unusual regularity. The Court's reasoning behind its rulings is amply reflected in the record and it is unnecessary to restate all of the Court's reasoning in this memorandum. The Court feels compelled, however, because of the "first impression" issues, to express additional reasoning with regard to arguments attacking the verdict and the judgments. Being fully advised in the premises, the Court hereinafter renders its memorandum decision and order denying all parties' post-trial motions for new trial, judgments notwithstanding the verdict, and to amend the judgments.

Plaintiffs Smith and Carlton urge the Court to grant a new trial or in the alternative to grant a judgment notwithstanding the jury verdict. It is argued that the jury failed to find their decedents at fault, despite the fact that the jury found 70% of the cause of the accident was attributable to Rolland Smith and 20% attributable to Otto Carlton.

Saving for the moment the issue of comparative causation, it is clear from a reading of the instructions and the verdict form in its entirety that the jury found fault in terms of negligence and unforeseeable misuse by decedents Smith and Carlton.

The jury was asked to consider in Question No. 14 all the proximate causes of the crash of February 20, 1972.¹ The jury compared the causes based on the evidence and concluded that 10% of the cause was attributable to Beech Aircraft Corporation and 90% was attributable to Sun Valley Airlines, Inc. Question No. 14 instructed the jury to assign a percentage to a party, providing they had previously found that such party's blameworthy activity was a proximate cause of the crash. Questions No. 2 and 13 were questions of proximate cause with regard to Sun Valley Airlines, Inc. Question No. 2 states:

"Was the above-mentioned misuse, if any, of the aircraft by Sun Valley Airlines, Inc., through its employees, a proximate cause of the crash on February 20, 1972?" (emphasis supplied)

The jury was instructed that before it could answer Question No. 2 it must first have answered "yes" to Question No. 1. Question No. 1 asks:

"Did Sun Valley Airlines, Inc., through its employees, misuse the aircraft, # 1027C, in a manner unforeseeable to the manufacturers?" (emphasis supplied)

Question No. 15 asked the jury to assign a percentage to Smith and Carlton of the causation previously assigned to Sun Valley Airlines in Question No. 14. Since the jury in its answer to Question No. 15 attributed all of Sun Valley's causation to Smith and Carlton, it is obvious that the jury, in answering No. 1, was referring to the culpability or blameworthiness of Smith and Carlton as the only employees of Sun Valley who were parties to this action and who misused the aircraft. The form of Question No. 15 did not preclude the jury from assessing a causative percentage of misuse of the aircraft to other employees of Sun Valley Airlines who were not parties to this action. They were not required to apportion all of the Airlines' percentage to and between Smith and Carlton. However, because of their own acts and omissions and the duties pertaining to their respective positions of major responsibility with the Airlines, the evidence would clearly support the percentage allocation as between them and as found by the jury. The defendants framed their defense in terms of unforeseeable misuse and, as can readily be seen, the jury so found. The verdict is not merely a bare conclusion of causation; rather, it reflects a finding of causation premised upon a previous finding of fault, culpability or blameworthiness attributable to Smith and Carlton.

The second issue which the Court addresses is the matter of comparative causation which plaintiffs Smith and Sun Valley Airlines, Inc. claim was applied by this Court in derogation of the law of Idaho.

A concept fundamental in tort law is that in order for liability to lie, there must be a wrongdoer whose actions violate a duty owed to a plaintiff. A violation of a duty owed, whether it be labeled negligence or strict liability, is blameworthy or culpable conduct. With the advent of strict products liability, a heightened standard or duty was imposed upon a manufacturer, such that liability results from a defective product which proximately causes injury, even though the manufacturer was not negligent. However, strict liability is not absolute liability because a manufacturer is not an insurer or guarantor that no one will be injured in using his product. The manufacturer is under a duty to produce a product which is free from unreasonably dangerous conditions. A violation of that duty constitutes blameworthiness or culpability or sense of legal fault.²

Together with the heightening of a manufacturer's duty, a modification occurs with regard to a manufacturer's defenses in a strict products liability action. A plaintiff's contributory negligence by that label is not a bar to recovery. Nevertheless, it is well-settled that misuse of a product in a manner unforeseeable to a manufacturer is a defense to strict products liability.³ The misuse defense embodies a policy that a manufacturer should not absorb the consequences of a plaintiff's misuse of a product in a way which the manufacturer could not reasonably anticipate.

In the case at hand, plaintiffs Carlton, Smith and Sun Valley Airlines misused the aircraft in a manner unforeseeable to the manufacturers. Under strict products liability, such a defense would be an absolute bar to plaintiffs' recovery if pre-comparative negligence principles were applied. Indeed, Beech's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict asserts that this is the law of Idaho.⁴ A different result follows from application of Idaho's comparative negligence statute for it embodies the fundamental legislative policy of avoiding the harsh effect of contributory negligence as an absolute bar. The rationale of comparative negligence was meant to apply as well in a products liability action, such that misuse may not be an absolute bar to recovery. Applying Idaho's comparative negligence statute in this way is consistent with the policy underlying strict products liability, namely, the spreading of loss to manufacturers who are best able to absorb it. Upon a finding of blameworthy conduct, the jury in this case was asked, consistent with Idaho law, to assign a percentage to the causative conduct of the parties to this lawsuit.⁵

The rationale of Idaho's comparative negligence statute extends to a comparison of all legal causes of the plaintiff's injuries and results in a sensible and fair method of loss allocation. No case has come before the Supreme Court of Idaho raising this issue. However, it is the view of this Court that the Idaho Supreme Court would, if presented with this issue in a products liability case, apply comparative causation. The result also follows from the wording of Idaho Code § 6-801⁶ wherein gross negligence is compared with negligence. Likewise, courts in Idaho, as well as this court, have been...