it please the court my name is teacher canela and i represent the appellant in this case jamie andrews this court to reverse the district court's decision for one of two reasons first because an actual manufacture is liable for products defects honor actually the district court did not find that i don't i mean the law is pretty clear talks about you're the one of the other states that it's undisputed that oughta live manufactured every component in the seat belt that's number one number two auto lived testified and sworn deposition that auto lives designed every component in the seat belt that's numbered that's number two number three auto live made a representation on the specification that it designed checked and approved of the specification about how you put together the slate belt assembly but as i understand it the japanese company design and each component correct your honor goes into that but wasn't  it had to make the specifications of the monster in other words mazda actually put together the whole unit is that right or wrong respectfully your honor no that's not right that it was very specific and it's negotiations that it  auto live to create the drawings so mazda did not say ok here's the drawings you've got some components we want you to put them together like this plan we've created instead it was auto live who designed the retractor design the tour yes your honor a document two fifty nine dash two at twenty six it's undisputed that i don't have manufactured the components that comprise the seatbelt simply and i understand that that's a factor in your favor but then there's a case there that you're having a hard davenport and auto live misconstrues davenport the reason is because there are two ways to be liable under georgia law either you're a manufacturer or you're so involved in the design of the defective product that you qualify as a manufacture davenport dealt with that second line of cases that qualify as line of cases and what the district court did was it took the manufacture requirement and superimposed on top of it another requirement that you also be involved manufacture anything it was a distributor it was a distributor that did not manufacture the engine so the product that was defective was a chip or it was the final defective product was a chip or the defendant alabama cummings had gotten the engine from another company and then acted as a middleman to sell it to the final producer of the checker that's totally distinct from what we have here where i don't live designed the defective component manufactured it you interpret in that statute different or yes your honor definitely not eleven not differently than the case law if you look at the best case that you have the support your view that does not have to be involved in the design vehicle and one of the defenses that the manufacturer had was that you know chrysler made the decisions chrysler decided what warnings would go into the case it was a failure to warn case and the court said we know it doesn't matter to us if chrysler would have told you not to put inappropriate warning on here your duty is determined by georgia law not by chrysler's rules and that's a very similar situation that we have here there's also been a case that is directly on point out of the colorado district court recently and that's part tile versus general motors the citation is two thousand and one westlaw for two three seven eight seven zero when you were dealing with georgia law yes your honor but the court there address the exact same argument that oughta live has made in this case and said if you're designing to someone specifications that doesn't mean you're not liable for a design defect job under georgia law that general assembly decided if you manufacture a product and it's defective when it leaves your hands you're responsible and the general assembly did put some limitations on that so if if the product was not defective until it was changed or if it was not affected until it was integrated and we're not go to hold you responsible for injuries or if you're products seller but those exceptions do not apply to auto live and so the court is bound by the statute in this case even if there was a that requires active involvement when there's an actual manufacture adl it has actively engaged in the design of this product and plaintiff has presented enough evidence to at the very least and that question to the jury so the district court read the evidence in the light most favorable to auto live and disregarded many categories of evidence the way this the way this process worked according to our lives was that out of that would present to mazda certain samples of its products products that  designed products that are proprietary to live and these designs all how our lives confidential stamp on them so so these are belong to auto live and then mazda would then pick and choose those products from our live and those were the things that that went into the car so these are all auto live products if i will that doesn't produce or provide defective designs for mazda choose from than a defective design doesn't make it into this mazda three this seat belt effectively did not restrain mike andrews at all it did not slow him down it did not stop him from hitting structures inside the car and the testimony is the thing that actually restrained him was the steering wheel at the testimony is that goldberg depends on the claim that is being asserted the claim asserted in this case is a design claims that is why davenport which follows banks banks is the ultimate product liability decision in the history of products law enjoy it is a logical extension of banks when they say to be responsible for a defective design claim which is what we have a manufacturer is defined as someone who is actively involved and there  there they're claiming that auto live is strictly liable because it's a manufacturer and when you look at the georgia statute it states the manufacturer of any personal property sold as a new directly or through a dealer or any other person shall be liable in tort period that's correct so they're they're claiming they're strict allowable as a manufacturer that's correct  even claiming that they have to be involved live has to be involved in the design but even if they are they were dipping volved in the design so cock that first part i don't see how you get around it they are actually yes or the plain language of the statute  or design defect claim because you were strictly liable to use your words judge wilson if your product caused a problem banks comes along and says not so fast and design claims we're going to look at two things and design claims we're going to look at your it is the choice that you make for the design but they're not making the design claim they're claiming that they're strictly liable as the manufacturer no i would disagree with that your honor they do say that we're strictly liable but it is a design claim when we get into the weeds a little bit in fact they looked at several options and they chose whatever was correct that is the ultimate issue in the case who made the decision and respectfully judge wells and i believe that the bank's case says who makes that choice we're going to hold you responsible if you make that choice davenport comes along and says well if you are a supplier if you are a manufacturer if you are a consultant i'm going to hold you responsible if you're actively involved in that decision i submit to this court you could never have better facts for a supplier than we have here because judge gober you hit the nail on the head they asked us to supply them all sorts of torsion bar deployment thresholds we gave them low we gave them a high they go back and they test the vehicle and it's very complex testing where you take it put it in the vehicle run it into the wall and see how it performs they came back after they did their testing and they said this is the deployment threshold that we want you couldn't have more clear evidence that the design decision was made by mazda did we make parts that were component parts that comprise this system yes yes no doubt about  the specification i respectfully but completely disagree with what opposing counsel said about specification this specification was a mazda specification the evidence in the record is crystal clear that it was a mazda specification they gave us the specification and they said you follow this because it's important this is our design this is our vehicle you either follow this or you're fired they were aware of the results of the simulated crash to us on a lot of it was aware of  simulation the madam of testing takes place during product development this is ten months before they actually make the vehicle with all the live knew that there were problems with the suit though before it's over the seat belt the monster disagree completely there is no evidence of the record of that that that auto have had access to the simulated crash to using gummies these simulated crash tests are mad though tests which is essentially what they're being asked to do is correlate the data to make sure that the predictive testing that goes on in the mat emo is accurate but the proof is in the putting federal law judge also requires you to not look at computer results what happens is you take the actual product slam into a wall and look at the result in the ten month period when mazda is making design changes to make it a better and safer vehicle not only has no clue what they're doing it's their vehicle the ultimate test that was performed your honor while the expert looks at it and says i'm going to take issue with it it satisfies the federal regulations and mazda gets a four out of five star rating on the n p r the ultimate test at the end which is the one that matters show that this product is safe now plaintiff is appropriate and right safe it had the weakest torsion bar in its class of two thousand and five compact passenger cars significantly less than the others were it was a school out consideration and the signing summary judgment and look at the evidence and the like most favorable to andrew's right but the original question judge wilson was what did we know during product development what we knew is that ultimately mazda has it restraint system i would say the response that your honor is that we either made the component parts or we purchased them yes we certainly had involvement in putting the parts together is it also undisputed in the record that there is a safe alternative design that auto love was aware of when it so the seat belt restraint system to mazda absolutely not because we don't make the design that we aren't the design and so t to suggest that i guess maybe put this in context the number of component parts in an automobile all of our automobiles that can impact occupant safety is mind blowing thousands to isolate one part and say that's the culprit monday morning quarterbacking the only way you determine whether the product is safe or not is to put it in a vehicle that concludes the seat includes the driver's airbag all of these parts and go through the federal testing now during product development mazda is doing that ought to leave answers questions i believe responds if there are questions i submit to you your honor when you look at davenport let's look at what i happened in davenport the engine supplier goes out to the facility and tells the chipper this engine is compatible number one number two says this engine needs to be moved so it's closer to the hydraulic pumps ultimately the plane if says it's too close and the proximity actually causes the fire against that backdrop the court of appeals said that's not active involvement that's not active involvement in the design the design or here was the wood chipper i submit to this court that the involvement that auto leaves had when you compare it with the involvement in davenport isn't even really a close call in devon port the plaintiff in that case did not argue that the component part when in the final product was defective but rather that the distributor of the component part was involved in the design of the defective for our product am i reading that wrong let me touch on the distributor point it's an important point i'm glad you raised it judge wilson the manufacturer of the engine is a company called cummins engine company the distributor is cummins alabama and it's an affiliate what happened in this case is that the distributor is the one that goes out and makes these recommendations and says move the hydraulic pumps over toward the engine all at the behest of the manufacturer in fact the most important quote in the case to me is that cummins engine that's the manufacturer required cummins alabama to conduct engine installation review the plaintiffs would have this court believe that judge ellington writes this decision this very substantive decision knowing full well  manufacturer is and who the distributor as well and this judge wrote this decision and was very careful to distinguish what the case did not hold footnote i agree with that i agree with that limited its decision these cases cite approvingly to davenport and say that the test is active involvement in the design i submit to you that whether you are a manufacturer of a counterpart a part a supply or a consultant the rule for design claims is that you can be held responsible if you're actively involved in the design and it stems from banks the most important case in the history of georgia products liability law i'll say this too because in the bailey case think about this for a second in the bailey case the defective design at issue in that case was a car hauler is undisputed that the defendant was both the manufacturer and the designer that entire case was choice of law on the design claim should it be indiana law should it be georgia law and the court goes through an analysis that's unbelievable judge adams it's a ten page opinion and again we're to believe that they do this analysis as an exercise in futility because according to the plaintiffs it doesn't matter what design law applies they're on the hook because they're the manufacturer that car hauler is on the hook i submit that there is is no way to read davenport and bailey and say that these courts are writing decisions when in reality all you have to do is get the manufacturer in there on the hook it's wrong also as a matter of policy post banks i encourage you very much to go back to the banks decision because banks was a sea change in the law no longer are you strictly liable for simply supplying a product that fails it is the design decision what did you choose they use the word choice for a derivative of the word choice choose choosing six times the law post banks respectfully is you are on the hook if you do not make a reasonable design choice and here that design choice judge goldberg one hundred percent was made by mazda you couldn't have more of a r manufacture i thought post banks ogletree all of the decisions say look banks changed the world in design claims your negligence claim and your strict liability claim merge into one germ of well i would i would say this when you get to trial and they evaluate your design claim you're going to get the banks charge was your was your design reasonable it's not a strict liability claim insofar as you're not on the hook simply by virtue of having either manufactured it or design it and so i've never seen a case and there is no reported case where design is evaluated anything other than banks i'll say this you asked judge wilson is there a case out there that we have been able to find a single case where a manufacturer a supplier is on the hook for a design claim without active involvement in the design and i would respectfully close with action i would absolutely encourage that in the reason why is it harkens back to a judge wilson said which is well i read the statute in the plain meaning the statute seems to say something but banks in davenport are saying something you know it's an extension of it and so i i do think that if this court on the lawyers sort of fight it what question or questions should we sort of file it is in our footnote one hundred seven to our brief all right i can recite it i'm sorry but it's it in footnote one o seven it essentially says whether a component supplier manufacturer can be held liable for a design claim regardless of whether they participate in the design all right thank you occasion your honor we've been we are position on certification is that it would be a complete waste of time for the georgia supreme court and that this question is answered directly by the statute and the cases and front of the court today  seven that reveals how useless certification would be in this case because auto lives question says can a component parts supplier who supplies a part that conforms to the specifications of the designer man ufacture the finished product and who is this is the important part not otherwise actively involved in the design specifications or formulation of a dot dot dot defective com component part that is not the case here auto live is involved in the design it all these designs in the seat belt are proprietary to auto live their engineers came up with them and what's the best evidence in the record that all that was involved in the then ata live as thirty b six engineer testified that auto live designed all the components in the seat belt assembly that is specifications by mazda else yes your honor all the all the components that are to live presented to mazda were already designed and created by ata live that's what the whole evidence in the cases said here's here's our refresher here's our tourism bar here's our wedding which product would you like to buy and their defense in the cases mazda chose the defective one that's not a defense ga law puts a duty on a manufacturer to manufacture non defective products there's a case that's very helpful which is chicago hardware and in that case deals with a component manufacturer it's a tree stand the tree stand manufactured it is of georgia yes or is a georgia court of appeals case  five ten se second eight seventy five and it says it's after banks so this whole idea that banks change who can be liable is simply not reflected in the cases banks set the standard for what defects means it didn't say anything about who could be liable for the defect chicago hardware which came after banks dealt with a defendant who's the tristan manufacture and a defendant who was the turnbuckle component manufacturer which held the tree stand to the tree and the court said to show that component manufacturers liable you have to prove three things number one that the component manufacturer is the quote manufacture of the property in other words the turnbuckle number two that the term buckle was defective when it was sold and number three that the term buckles defect was the proximate cause of the plaintiffs and jury which the plaintiff has done in this case the term buckle the tree stand manufacture ordered complied with whatever the tree stand manufacturer requested but that wasn't a defense in the chicago hardware case and the same situation applies here it's not a defense to say johnny told me to jump off the bridge so i jumped off the bridge the defense of maaza told us to make this defective product or to provide this defective product is not a defense either for auto live and again the court addressed the similar kind of argue argument and he safety systems bruner where it said just because for chrysler wasn't going to let you warn the way we the plaintiff says you should have warned that's not going to get you off the hook we're going to hold you to a standard even though you're a component manufacture  providing a non defective product so these are issues that are already addressed in the case law and there's no reason to certify this particular case to the georgia supreme court the second thing i wanted to say goes to a point that judge goldberg made earlier which is that there are really two categories under georgia law there's manufacturers and there's product sellers you have to be one of the other adl is trying to create this third category of yes we manufacture but we didn't design that's not in the statute but that's enough to get us out of trouble here and that's simply not in any of the cases so out of the georgia or courts in the georgia intermediate courts of appeals interpretating th you differ differently than than than your interpret in this that you know your honor our interpretation is totally consistent with what the georgia courts of appeals have said they have said you're liable strictly liable under the statute if you either designed or manual or well let me get the exact language for your honor production design or assembly either one of those three is no i'm sorry no your honor that's from all trade and chan there's two other cases that address this disjunctive issue and they say actual manufacturer or designer that's morgan versus marble and in the northern district of georgia