johnson when you're ready morning it please the court i'm can chant in here on behalf of these manufacturing company before i die than to be legal issues before the court i just want to touch on a couple of the underlying fact that i think needed some clarification first the issue of whether this is a custom train or the steps installed on the trailer are indeed a standard feature and these types of dumped trailers but the trailer itself is custom built they built to order based on specifications provided by them by the customer so in this case ken's was the customer for east provided specifications regarding the height of the trailer the length of the trailer the type of she saw any other reason not to put a stepladder wrong side letter and catwalk on the trailer and in response to that very open ended question were volunteered at will yeah because when you do that you're producing the h regulations therefore not relevant and can be considered this court's precedent makes clear that we can't consider government regulations in such matters but only if they're  reference suggesting there's a question of fact about whether osha applies but of course that people question but instead they turn to this argument that the standards are admissible as the basis for their expert's opinion these standards could possibly be related to it can't be related to the factor of compliance with government and industry standards because the sea in the stone plot the argument that and if you go back to the trial court was fine there's only a single reference to gary fired the expert in that response and it's a citation and invite friends to get a single point about you know  a particular factor have to go back to the beginning back to square one with the risky chili factor and weigh those of the factors that properly remain to determine whether there is legitimately an issue all the factors that remain none supports the position that this is an unreasonably dangerous one of the most important factors is the ability to use this product for a period of time without injury but we know that plaintiffs himself use this product for something like six months there's no indication that injuries are happening on any kind of regular basis or at all there's no evidence of anyone other than plaintiffs in this case falling from this step configuration some additional features some additional safety features there's no question he was aware of the danger the custom in practice in the in the industry again these steps this type of configuration has good for them and their trailers for twenty years he could also have as he did after his fall simply not have loaded the trailer so hot and the day of his fall when he preloaded it for the next day he had it loaded t there's no reason he could have done that every single trip and never have needed to climb into the trailer at all and finally consumer expect expectations are a factor under the risk utility test  separate independent basis for finding of an unreasonably dangerous product it's simply one of many factors that gets weighed under the integrated utility and in this case there's no evidence that these  now even if this court were to find that under the risk utility test this were an unreasonably dangerous product or that there were a question of fact as that is still cannot be held responsible because the danger foreseeable to east because to be foreseeable in this product liability contracts it has to be a modification that can be easily made by the consumer and which the manufacturer has sophisticated and sophisticated trucking repair company it wasn't a simple modifications as you know removing a safety shield earth safety latch this is and installing in bolting that you know reasonably foreseeable that a user can easily make the modifications so although foreseeability is typically a jury question where no reasonable jury could find that the use because we really can't expect a manufacturer to spain all the different types of modifications that a purchaser may make post sale but in this case we know that purchasers frequently install turk systems we know that there are hundreds of different tar and tar cap configurations available on market we know in this case that there are two different types of tar kept in seoul and the to intice a pate which type of modification are consumers going to make how they're going to make that modification what new dangers might or might not be introduced it's just a burden that we really can't that installation would potentially interfere with the reason east changed its manufacture protocol to put that top step nineteen inches down it's because it's not going to see on saturday in fact so there's no indication that an alternative design involving a wrong style ladder could have been installed in a way that would not interfere with the tapes of systems customers if there are no further questions i would ask this court to reverse the appellate court and affirm the judgment of the trial parties what the issue is that we brought to this court i thought the question in the appellate court and it's a question you tell a court primarily focused on was what can mr hodder rely upon what to any expert rely upon when that expert  to present to the jury a basis for his opinion and in this case what mr hunter did was to look to a number of standards he did not say those standards control the manufacturers of trailers what he said specifically was those standards so us examples of steps that are there are safe  and there's this and he also said that was that there was a two thousand two hundred and fifteen to the record i had to check it and they've given an idea of what a compliant ladder looks like and the reason that you want to do that in front of the jury obviously is because if i say something to the court or my opposing counsel the st thing that anyone any judge or any lawyer says mr assoc what's your basis for that and that's why this court wilson versus clark presumably allowed experts to rely upon matters like  code that wasn't even in existence at the time of the incident and it was because it showed as the jury what should have been done and what could have been done in this case these pictures show you what can't be done and the standard story of what can be done it is up to the opponent and it could be either side to explain or to bring out to the jury look the of the ladies and gentlemen my experts said these standards were applicable to this product and that's what cross examination is for in this case my understanding from the brief was their main complaint was that they would have to manufacture a product in conformance with a standard that did not apply to that product and my response to that and my hope plain language is simply that this is a very large relatively complex product we're focused only on one small part of their product the jamma tree of the steps and then the question of what you can do to provide a safer design the other three points might my point to simply that when an expert looks at something like a standard he uses that t hit so we're going to apply that we're going to let the jury hear from the expert what should have been there to make it safer and the only the end the only difference in this case is there you have a wall and here you have a trailer the only reason that the expert is looking at these at this point is looking at these three scores and regulations just to show the jury what could have been ducking down different and to show the jury that he just did not pull this out of thin air that's true take two critical to of of time and then and have to be material to it in this instance and i think it's a question i can't say yes or no i can envision situations where it might not be material relevant  and this court in the revere case said we don't we don't think it's going to work in that case because that's movable pilothouse case the court said we don't think the point of show it was relevant there but the relevance of the materiality here i believe was shown by mr can't do that because that's impossible but mr hunter said it's possible here nobody disagreed with the concept that that step size cannot be changed in terms of its width meaning this way it's with this way or maybe most importantly how far the step is from question here was whether or not can expert rely upon whether or not comes into evidence may well depend on further developments in this case i understand discovered discover is not necessarily complete and there are there may be reasons why it should or should not come into evidence rely on the content of the of the regulation is relevant if and here that the content of the the content of the various regulations and codes lookback is relevant because it evidence is little bit unclear and even that i think that explanation is sixty and sixty one shows that at one point to support said a statute or nor a regulation could only come into evidence if it had the force of water that's what made it relevant  since then there are some cases where it's coming under sixty point i want to do it at the bottom line is that the content of the regulation would have to be relevant it might not come in any way if the statute doesn't necessarily government whole product but it should come in charges in this case step geometry a ladder i think it's clear it's a separate letter to you well down to the front of the trailer it's benefit is that it's far away from the trailer it's got a vertical handhold and it can run to within twelve inches  the top of the trailer no one suggested it could not do that they use these letters and other chairs that was the nd one you know there's no grab handle at the top to grab handle issue is separate from the standards that the expert relied upon an expert said that should  well maybe things don't work with other type covers there was no evidence below that that some tarp covers would not work with a step near the top or with a grab handle i dumb so i i just that's that was beyond the scope of the summ from wherever you're stepping wherever it's mounted to if the distance and ocean is this much then why would the same distance not apply in some other circumstance and that's what our expert said he said there is no reason why a sa that situation also would not also be an example of a safe distance or something else it might not be mandated that's up to them to decide with but none nonetheless it's still an example of a safe a safe distance that would stand for each one of the dimensional aspects of porsche and  other regulations and that message said the other the other charges are have to do with the letters and with the grab handle and those are not actually part of the regulation discussion because the expert said i look to the i look to the admissions here the letters are possible i look to the fact that they knew that the cover was going to be there and here you know i look to the sales literature i look to custom practice in the industry to support the other three charges council has argued that he thought the issue all along was what an expert can rely on as a basis for the experts opinions i am at a complete loss as to why he thought that was the issue all along that was never mentioned at any time in the trial but there's no reference to wilson the part there's no reference to the basis for an expert's opinion there's no reference to for the discretion of the trial court that's not a question of law and there's no no place in the appellate court's decision where it suggested or held that it would be an abuse of discretion to bar the expert from relying on this these standards  and regulations if the standards and regulations don't apply to the product whether as substantive evidence or as the basis for an expert's opinion the expert's opinion has to be somehow directed toward the factors under the risk eternity pass that test doesn't suggest that a court can find an unreasonably dangerous design defect because i'm the expert simply concludes that it's dangerous you have to go through those factors and you have to identify what factor the experts testimony is relevant to what what is he esta what is he showing with this testimony and the only thing that gary had of us attempting to show with testimony relying on those standards is that the trailer and the ladder and subsystem on the trailer did not comply with regulations and standards that are not admissible because the standards just don't apply to this problem there's no other basis for admitting testimony relying upon the floor regarding or in any way related to the regulations and stand accident code change could be relevant argument i would disagree with chains conclusion on that and that particular case but regardless reaching dealt with a negligence cl liability claims and the only way the standards become relevant is if they demonstrate that factor of compliance or noncompliance with government regulations or voluntary industry stand