Wolmer v. Chrysler Corp.

• Decision Date: 17 July 1985
• Docket Number: No. 82-2333,82-2333
• Citation: 474 So.2d 834,10 Fla. L. Weekly 1761
• Parties: 10 Fla. L. Weekly 1761, Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 10,626 Jack E. WOLMER, etc., Appellant, v. CHRYSLER CORPORATION, et al., Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 834

474 So.2d 834

10 Fla. L. Weekly 1761, Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 10,626

Jack E. WOLMER, etc., Appellant, v. CHRYSLER CORPORATION, et al., Appellees.

No. 82-2333.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

Fourth District.

July 17, 1985.

Rehearing, Rehearing En Banc

and Certification Denied

Sept. 19, 1985.

Joel S. Perwin of Podhurst, Orseck, Parks, Josefsberg, Eaton, Meadow & Olin, P.A., Miami, and Gilbert A. Haddad of Haddad, Josephs & Jack, P.A., Coral Gables, for appellant.

Michael B. Davis of Davis, Critton, Hoy & Diamond, West Palm Beach, and Sheila L. Birnbaum of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, New York City, for appellee-Chrysler Corp.

HURLEY, Judge.

Plaintiff brought a wrongful death action based on negligence and strict liability. The jury found negligence and awarded compensatory and punitive damages. The trial court, however, in a post-trial decision, granted the defendant's motion for a directed verdict and vacated the punitive damage award. We reverse.

In October, 1976, Jack Wolmer purchased a new 1977 Plymouth Volare station wagon, manufactured by Chrysler Corporation. Almost a year later, on September 27, 1977, his wife Mary was burned to death when their station wagon was hit from behind on Interstate-95. The collision occurred at about 10:30 p.m. as Mrs. Wolmer and two friends were returning to Fort Lauderdale from Miami. The friends were seated in the front; Mrs. Wolmer was riding in the back seat.

The Wolmer vehicle was traveling north in the center lane of I-95, approaching the overpass above the New River. Ahead, near the top of the incline and in the same lane, a car had stopped. Some cars managed to go around, but traffic was heavy and an Oldsmobile was forced to stop directly behind the disabled vehicle. The Wolmer's station wagon stopped behind the Oldsmobile. Almost at once, a Chevrolet pick-up truck, traveling at approximately 50 miles per hour, slammed into the rear of the Wolmer's station wagon.

Witnesses said that the station wagon became an instantaneous ball of fire. One witness said that the flames were at least six feet high. Another witness told how he "saw a large ball of flame shoot up in the air, similar to when [he] worked the flamethrower in the Army. It shot up quite high, higher than the streetlights." The front-seat passengers managed to escape through the driver's window, but Mary Wolmer, engulfed in flames, died instantly.

The complaint, which set forth a cause of action for wrongful death, alleged negligence and strict liability. At the close of the evidence, Chrysler renewed its earlier motion for a directed verdict. The trial court reserved ruling and submitted the case to the jury which returned a detailed verdict. It found for the plaintiff on the negligence count and against the plaintiff on the strict liability count. It assessed compensatory damages at $500,000 for the plaintiff and $500,000 for the estate. It further found that Chrysler acted "with wantonness, wilfullness, or reckless indifference to the rights of others" and, therefore, assessed punitive damages at $3,000,000. Thereafter, the trial court entered an order requiring a remittitur of $300,000 from the $500,000 compensatory verdict for the estate or, in the alternative, a new trial on that issue. The plaintiff agreed to the remittitur. The trial court later entered a second order granting Chrysler's renewed motion for a directed verdict on the issue of punitive damages. This resulted in the present appeal.

I

The issue here is whether the trial court was justified in granting a directed verdict on punitive damages. Thus, we review the governing principles. "In considering the propriety of a directed verdict for a defendant the trial court is required to evaluate the testimony in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and every reasonable intendment deducible from the evidence must be indulged in the plaintiff's favor." McDaniel v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 327 So.2d 893, 895 (Fla. 3d DCA 1976); see also Hartnett v. Fowler, 94 So.2d 724 (Fla.1957); Toyota Motor Co. v. Moll, 438 So.2d 192 (Fla. 4th DCA 1983); Tesher & Tesher, P.A. v. Rothfield, 387 So.2d 499 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980). "Directed verdicts should be granted cautiously in order not to encroach upon a party's right to a jury trial." Packer v. Winston Towers One Hundred Association, 377 So.2d 46 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979).

The Florida Supreme Court recently restated the standard for imposing punitive damages in White Construction Co. v. Dupont, 455 So.2d 1026 (Fla.1984). Quoting from its earlier decision in Carraway v. Revell, 116 So.2d 16 (Fla.1959), the court held:

The character of negligence necessary to sustain an award of punitive damages must be of a "gross and flagrant character, evincing reckless disregard of human life, or of the safety of persons exposed to its dangerous effects, or there is that entire want of care which would raise the presumption of a conscious indifference to consequences, or which shows wantonness or recklessness, or a grossly careless disregard of the safety and welfare of the public, or that reckless indifference to the rights of others which is equivalent to an intentional violation of them".

455 So.2d at 1029. The court recapitulated the above standard in Como Oil Co. v. O'Loughlin, 466 So.2d 1061, 1062 (Fla.1985), saying that "the degree of negligence necessary for punitive damages is willful and wanton misconduct equivalent to criminal manslaughter. The required misconduct goes beyond gross negligence."

The foregoing standard is fully applicable to products liability cases where it has been restated in this fashion:

A legal basis for punitive damages is established in products liability cases where the manufacturer is shown to have knowledge that its product is inherently dangerous to persons or property and that its continued use is likely to cause injury or death, but nevertheless continues to market the product without making feasible modifications to eliminate the danger or making adequate disclosure and warning of such danger.

Johns-Manville Sales Corp. v. Janssens, 463 So.2d 242, 249 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984), review denied, 467 So.2d 999 (Fla.1985); see also Piper Aircraft Corp. v. Coulter, 426 So.2d 1108 (Fla. 4th DCA), review denied, 436 So.2d 100 (Fla.1983); Toyota Motor Co. v. Moll, supra; American Motors Corp. v. Ellis, 403 So.2d 459 (Fla. 5th DCA 1981), review denied, 415 So.2d 1359 (Fla.1982); Dorsey v. Honda Motor Co., 655 F.2d 650 (5th Cir.1981).

II

Plaintiff in the case at bar contended that the '77 Volare station wagon had several design characteristics which, either individually or in combination, caused the death of Mary Wolmer. In this review, we focus on two of the alleged defects. The first involved contact between the fuel tank and the left rear shock absorber. In a rear-end collision, the fuel tank, which is secured by straps under the floor pan behind the rear axle, will push forward and upward. If struck with sufficient force, the fuel tank will ride over the differential and contact the shock absorber. This occurred in the Wolmer crash. The fuel tank, loaded with a substantial quantity of gasoline, was propelled forward and punctured by the top of the shock absorber which had come loose.

The second design characteristic involved the fuel filler tube which extended from the gas cap on the left rear quarter panel into the fuel tank. At the gas-cap end, there was a fixed--rather than a breakaway--connection; it was actually screwed to the rear quarter panel. The other end of the filler tube was simply inserted into the fuel tank where it was held in place by a donut-like rubber grommet which yielded easily to force. The plaintiff introduced evidence to show that, in a rear-end collision, the station wagon's two rear side panels will deflect outward, away from the car. Since the filler tube is affixed to the rear quarter panel, it too will pull outward and, if there is sufficient movement, it will be yanked out of the fuel tank. This also occurred in the Wolmer crash.

Both of these design characteristics had a causal relationship to the flash fire that consumed Mary Wolmer. When the fuel tank was forced forward, the gasoline inside reacted by coming back under intense pressure. Studies estimate that the pressure was ten times greater than the water pressure in an ordinary garden hose. The holes caused by the shock absorber and the removal of the filler tube permitted gas to spurt out in a flamethrower effect, showering the back seat area with highly combustible vapor drops.

To establish a prima facie products liability case, the plaintiff called two expert witnesses who testified that both of the foregoing design characteristics constituted substantial defects which imperiled life and limb. One of these witnesses said that the filler tube's fixed connection was "a gross design defect" which violated a very basic safety engineering principle and posed a "[t]otally unreasonable" risk of danger to any passenger seated in the rear of the station wagon.

As a predicate for punitive damages, the plaintiff introduced testimonial and documentary evidence to show that Chrysler marketed the '77 Volare station wagon knowing that it contained defects likely to cause death or serious injury. Part of this proof came from Chrysler's own records. In an effort to demonstrate compliance with a government-imposed standard, Chrysler conducted a series of crash tests simulating rear-end collisions. These tests consisted of striking the back end of a Chrysler vehicle with a 4000-pound moving barrier traveling at thirty miles per hour. Test reports revealed contact problems between the fuel tank and shock absorber. Also, there were problems of fuel leakage from the filler tube. The reports evidenced Chrysler's actual knowledge of both problems. One of the plaintiff's expert witnesses testified that in light of the difficulties encountered by Chrysler during the crash tests,...