Case Title: Evans v. Fruehauf Corp.

Citation: 647 So. 2d 718

Docket Number: 1930427

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1994-10-14T00:00:00Z

Document:
647 So. 2d 718 (1994)
Ronald EVANS
v.
FRUEHAUF CORPORATION.
1930427.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
October 14, 1994.
J. Michael Campbell of McNamee, Snead & Campbell, D. Leon Ashford and Bruce J. McKee of Hare, Wynn, Newell & Newton, Birmingham, for appellant.
Bibb Allen, Deborah Alley Smith and Charles J. Kelley of Rives & Peterson, Birmingham, for appellee.
HOUSTON, Justice.
Ronald Evans sued Fruehauf Corporation, alleging liability under the Alabama Extended Manufacturer's Liability Doctrine ("AEMLD") and seeking damages for personal injuries. The jury returned a verdict for Fruehauf, and the trial court entered a judgment on that verdict. Evans appealed. We affirm.
Evans, a truck driver, alleged in his complaint that he had injured his back in 1987 while attempting to use a "converter dolly" that Fruehauf had manufactured and sold. The converter dolly, which Fruehauf sold to Evans's employer in 1984 and which Evans alleged was "defective," within the meaning of that term as it is used in our cases establishing the AEMLD, was a device used to connect two semi-trailers so that they could be pulled in tandem by one truck. The primary basis for Evans's claims, as stated in his brief, was that "the converter dolly ... should have been equipped with a counterweight system in order to reduce the tongue weight (the effective weight required to be lifted by the truck driver)." After it sold the converter dolly to Evans's employer (1984), but before Evans was injured (1987), Fruehauf redesigned its line of converter dollies so as to provide a counterweight.
The sole issue presented on this appeal is whether the trial court erred in excluding from the evidence an internal memorandum prepared by a Fruehauf employee in 1986. That memorandum read, in pertinent part, as follows:
Fruehauf initially contends that the issue concerning the admissibility of its internal memorandum was not preserved for appellate review. In the alternative, Fruehauf contends that evidence of a modification made to the design of a product after the product has been sold, but before the occurrence of an accident allegedly caused by that product, should fall under the general rule requiring exclusion of evidence of subsequent remedial measures. Citing several cases, Fruehauf argues that its internal memorandum would be inadmissible under that rule.[1] Evans argues that the issue presented was properly preserved for appellate review and, citing a number of cases and legal authorities, contends that the Fruehauf memorandum was not evidence of a subsequent remedial measure because it showed that Fruehauf had made the design change to its converter dollies before Evans was injured. In other words, Evans takes the position that a remedial measure must have been taken subsequent to the accident giving rise to the lawsuit in order to fall under the general rule governing the admissibility of evidence of subsequent remedial measures.[2]
After carefully reviewing the record in this case, we find it unnecessary to determine whether the Fruehauf memorandum was inadmissible under the general rule excluding evidence of subsequent remedial measures. Although the trial court stated in its order denying Evans's new trial motion that the Fruehauf memorandum was inadmissible under that rule, we agree with Fruehauf that during the trial Evans's trial counsel waived the issue of the memorandum's admissibility.[3]
*720 The trial court granted Fruehauf's pretrial motion in limine to exclude evidence that Fruehauf had redesigned its converter dollies after 1984. In Bush v. Alabama Farm Bureau Mutual Casualty Ins. Co., 576 So. 2d 175, 177-78 (Ala.1991), this Court stated:
(Emphasis in original.) Evans acknowledges that there is no indication in the record that the trial court's ruling on Fruehauf's motion in limine was absolute or unconditional. Therefore, Evans had to offer the contested memorandum at the trial and obtain a specific adverse ruling in order to preserve the issue for appellate review.
One of the issues at the trial was whether Fruehauf had had a counterweight available as optional equipment for use on its converter dollies in 1984. Fruehauf argued that a converter dolly equipped with a counterweight was available in 1984, but that Evans's employer had chosen not to order one. To rebut that argument, and to counter the testimony of an adverse witness, Billy Harris, a former Fruehauf branch manager whom Evans had called to testify and who had stated that Fruehauf offered a counterweight as "optional" equipment in 1984, Evans sought to introduce the Fruehauf memorandum, as well as certain portions of the deposition testimony of Brian Stafford, Fruehauf's director of engineering, that, according to Evans, contradicted Harris's testimony. During extensive arguments by counsel for both parties and during a lengthy discussion among counsel and the trial court as to whether Evans was attempting to improperly impeach his own witness (Harris) and as to whether Stafford's deposition testimony and the Fruehauf memorandum were inadmissible as evidence of subsequent remedial measures, the following colloquy occurred among Evans's trial counsel, Fruehauf's counsel, and the trial court:
As these portions of the record show, Evans's trial counsel conceded the issue with respect to the admissibility of the Fruehauf memorandum and effectively withdrew his offer to admit that document. Evans was allowed, over Fruehauf's objection, to introduce into evidence portions of Stafford's deposition that informed the jury of Fruehauf's design change. According to Evans's attorney, Stafford's deposition was the evidence that he was most concerned about getting before the jury. It was in an attempt to get that evidence admitted that he abandoned his effort to admit the memorandum. For the foregoing reasons, we find no basis for reversing the judgment.
AFFIRMED.
MADDOX, SHORES, STEAGALL and INGRAM, JJ., concur.
[1]  In support of its alternative argument, Fruehauf relies primarily on the following cases: Alabama Power Co. v. Marine Builders, Inc., 475 So. 2d 168 (Ala.1985); Petree v. Victor Fluid Power, Inc., 831 F.2d 1191 (3d Cir.1987); Cook v. McDonough Power Equipment, Inc., 720 F.2d 829 (5th Cir.1983); Grenada Steel Industries, Inc. v. Alabama Oxygen Co., 695 F.2d 883 (5th Cir. 1983); Ellis v. Golconda Corp., 352 So. 2d 1221 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1977), cert. denied, Peterson v. McKenzie Tank Lines, Inc., 365 So. 2d 714 (Fla. 1978); Kaczmarek v. Allied Chemical Corp., 836 F.2d 1055 (7th Cir.1987).
[2]  In support of this position, Evans relies primarily on the following cases and legal authorities: Phar-Mor, Inc. v. Goff, 594 So. 2d 1213 (Ala. 1992); Blythe v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 586 So. 2d 861 (Ala.1991); C. Gamble, McElroy's Alabama Evidence § 189.02(1) (4th ed. 1991); C. Gamble & G. Windle, Subsequent Remedial Measures Doctrine in Alabama: From Exclusion to Admissibility and the Death of Policy, 37 Ala.L.Rev. 547 (1986); K. Ingram, Introduction of Subsequent Remedial Measures Through Impeachment, Alabama Trial Lawyers Association "No Nonsense Seminar," Gulf Shores, August 15, 1991 (unpublished); 29 Am.Jur.2d Evidence § 275 (1967); Annot., Admissibility of Evidence of Repairs, Change of Conditions, or Precautions Taken After Accident, 64 A.L.R.2d 1296 (1959); 31A C.J.S. Evidence § 291 (1964); 23 C. Wright & K. Graham, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 5283 (1980); J. Weinstein and M. Berger, Weinstein's Evidence § 407(01) (1992); and Rule 407 of the proposed Alabama Rules of Evidence and the advisory committee's notes thereto.
[3]  Evans's appellate counsel did not represent Evans at the trial.