Wylie v. Ford Motor Co., 74-1126
| Decision Date | 23 September 1974 |
| Docket Number | No. 74-1126,74-1126 |
| Citation | 502 F.2d 1292 |
| Parties | Billie Ray WYLIE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. FORD MOTOR COMPANY, a Delaware corporation, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
William L. Garrett, DeSoto, Tex., for plaintiff-appellant.
William S. Hall, Tulsa, Okl., for defendant-appellee.
Before HILL and DOYLE, Circuit Judges, and SMITH, * District judge.
This appeal comes from a directed verdict in a products liability action based on diversity jurisdiction.
On July 10, 1970, appellant Billie Ray Wylie was driving a 1969 Ford Ranch Wagon, purchased and furnished by his employer; this vehicle had traveled nearly 44,000 miles at the time of the accident. Appellant testified that while traveling 65-70 miles per hour on four lane Interstate Highway No. 35 near Georgetown, Texas, he passed a car and pulled back to the right lane. When he straightened up the car, the left front end raised up, a loud bump occurred and the car pulled very hard to the left. After several attempts by appellant to control the vehicle, the car veered to the right, hit a reflector pole and proceeded off the shoulder, across an access road and down an embankment. The vehicle was seen later on the grassy embankment by several persons including Paul Bohanon, a wrecker driver, and Dennis Wilie, a Texas Highway Patrolman who investigated the accident. After the accident, appellant complained of back and other injuries resulting from the incident.
Appellant instituted suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma. Appellant relied on a breach of implied warranty of fitness for his claim for relief from the vehicle's manufacturer, Ford Motor Company. Appellant alleged the implied warranty of fitness was breached in that the upper ball joint of the left front wheel's control arm was defective, had fallen out of its socket on the highway and had caused the car to become uncontrollable. An alternative allegation of breach of the implied warranty of fitness was that driving the vehicle off the highway shoulder in an emergency was a possible use the manufacturer appellee knew of and the car should have been manufactured so that it could have driven over the terrain in this situation without injury occurring to the plaintiff. Appellant's total claimed damages of $543,364 included loss of earnings and retirement benefits, medical expenses, and pain and suffering.
Appellee Ford Motor Company contended no defect existed in the vehicle's front end and denied the failure complained of occurred prior to the vehicle's leaving the highway. Appellee further contended that the appellant's misuse of the vehicle-- driving off the highway and across rough ground, including a drainage ditch and two six-inch concrete curbs on an entrance ramp-- caused the spindle to come loose from the upper ball joint and that these impacts were not within any implied warranty of fitness.
At trial, appellant called Jerome B. McCoy, head of the Division of Physical Sciences and the Department of Physics at the University of Tulsa, as an expert witness. The court allowed McCoy to testify that in his opinion the upper control arm of appellant's vehicle was defective when installed. The witness testified that abnormal wear had occurred to the ball joint and that this wear was caused either by the absence of a spring retainer or by improper hardening of the metal. He said the metal appeared soft to him and considerable impacting over a long period of time had worn down the metal. Thus, McCoy's testimony was that the upper ball joint fell out of its socket prior to any impact damage occurring after appellant's vehicle left the road.
On cross-examination, McCoy acknowledged that he had not run any hardness tests on the metal involved, had not examined the grease in the ball joints or cups for parts of worn material and had not examined the vehicle's spindle. After appellant rested his case, appellee moved for a directed verdict 'for the particular reason . . . that the testimony of the alleged expert, the philosopher, he was not qualified to testify as to the ultimate conclusions, invading the province of the jury.' The court overruled the motion. After presentation of appellee's case, including expert testimony supporting appellee's theories, the court again denied the motion for a directed verdict. 1
The jury could not agree and the court declared a mistrial. Appellee moved to dismiss, and the court considered that motion as one for a directed verdict. Believing the appellant had not made out a case, the court directed a verdict for appellee Ford Motor Company.
On this appeal, we are considering the correctness of the...
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