Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-91-06412/USCOURTS-ca10-91-06412-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 355
Nature of Suit: Motor Vehicle Product Liability
Cause of Action: 

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F I L -. ti N>',),1

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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS United 8t~fh~i;uit Pr-, 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

CONNER GALLOWAY, a minor, by and ) 

through his mother and natural ) 

guardian, SADIE LEANNE GALLOWAY; ) 

SADIE LEANNE GALLOWAY, mother and ) 

next of kin of BABY GALLOWAY, ) 

Deceased; SADIE LEANNE GALLOWAY, ) 

individually; PAUL R. GALLOWAY, JR., ) 

Personal Representative of the Estate) 

of DAN CROSS GALLOWAY, Deceased, ) 

) 

Plaintiffs-Appellants, ) 

) 

V • ) 

) 

GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, ) 

) 

Defendant-Appellee. ) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

FEB 19 1993 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 91-6412 

(D.C. No. CIV-90-1356-C) 

(W.D. Oklahoma) 

Before McKAY, Chief Judge, LOGAN and SEYMOUR, Circuit Judges. 

Plaintiffs appeal the district court's grant of summary judgment against them in their products liability suit against defendant General Motors Corporation. Plaintiffs are passengers 

injured in an automobile accident or representatives of persons 

who died in the accident, and General Motors was the manufacturer 

of the 1986 Cadillac El Dorado in which they or their decedents 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall not 

be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, except 

for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of the case, 

res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

Appellate Case: 91-6412 Document: 010110175802 Date Filed: 02/19/1993 Page: 1 
were riding. Summary judgment was granted on the grounds that 

plaintiffs failed to comply with various pretrial orders, that 

plaintiffs proffered an entirely new theory of liability after the 

close of discovery, and that the basis for the expert testimony 

supporting the new , theory was virtually nonexistent. We affirm. 

Plaintiffs originally filed this suit in Oklahoma state court 

in July 1989. That suit was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice, and refiled one year later. After defendant removed the 

case to federal court the case proceeded. Plaintiffs maintained 

as the basis for their suit that defendant had defectively 

designed the steering mechanism of the automobile that was the 

subject of the claim by failing to install a fluid filter, thereby 

permitting particles to enter the steering mechanism and cause it 

to malfunction. 

In February 1991, the district court issued a scheduling 

order, imposing deadlines for discovery, the filing of witness and 

exhibit lists, and plaintiffs' final contentions. Plaintiffs 

failed to identify properly their expert on their witness list, 

and never filed an exhibit list. After plaintiffs filed their 

final contentions, defendant moved for summary judgment. In 

response in August 1991, plaintiffs submitted an affidavit from 

their expert that completely changed the theory of the lawsuit. 

Rejecting the defective steering mechanism theory, plaintiffs' 

expert now asserted that the accident was caused by brake failure. 

Defendant moved to exclude all testimony on this issue, claiming 

prejudice from its proffer after the close of discovery and so 

near to trial. 

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After giving defendant the opportunity to depose plaintiffs' 

expert and reviewing the resulting deposition transcript, the district court granted defendant's motion for summary judgment. It 

held that plaintiffs' failure to comply with the court ' s scheduling orders was egr~gious and prejudicial to defendant, and that n o 

reasonable jury could credit the testimony of plaintiffs' expert 

as a basis for plaintiffs' recovery. 

Summary judgment is appropriate when there are no genuine 

issues of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed . R. Civ. P . 56(c) . Once the moving 

party has met its burden of properly alleging the absence of mate -

rial fact, "the nonmoving party must come forward with 'specific 

facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial . '" Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v . Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 

(1986) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56 (e)). "Where the record taken 

as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the 

non-moving party, there is no 'genuine issue for trial.'" Id. 

(quoting First Nat'l Bank v. Cities Serv. Co., 391 U.S. 253, 289 

(1968)). The court's role when considering a motion for summary 

judgment is narrowly circumscribed. "[A]t the summary judgment 

stage the judge's function is not [her]self to weigh the evidence 

and determine the truth of the matter but to determine whether 

there is a genuine issue for trial." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, 

Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249 (1986). 

If a trial were to be held, the instant plaintiffs would bear 

the burden of proof on the causation issue. Therefore, they were 

required "to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence 

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Appellate Case: 91-6412 Document: 010110175802 Date Filed: 02/19/1993 Page: 3 
of" causation to avoid entry of summary judgment against them. 

Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986). Defendants 

were not required to support their motion with evidence or affidavits negating the claim of causation; merely demonstrating 

plaintiffs' failur~ to support that claim was sufficient. Id. at 

323. Here, even excusing all of plaintiffs' procedural defaults, 

the testimony of their expert as presented in the affidavit and in 

his deposition was insufficient to create an issue of material 

fact sufficient to withstand a motion for summary judgment. 

Plaintiffs' expert, Gary Hansen, Ph.D., was originally 

retained by plaintiffs' counsel soon after the accident and was 

asked to render an opinion concerning the cause of the collision. 

Hansen was unable to examine plaintiffs' vehicle until after it 

had been sold and subsequently rebuilt, at which time he found no 

appreciable defects. Nonetheless, plaintiffs filed suit claiming 

a malfunction in the steering mechanism. Hansen has since disavowed any expertise in the field of fluid mechanics or particle 

contamination, but was nevertheless listed as plaintiffs' expert 

in support of that theory. Hansen had little contact with plaintiffs until their counsel sent him a letter in the summer of 1991, 

two years after the original filing of the case. At that time, 

Hansen informed plaintiffs' counsel that he now felt that the 

accident was caused not by steering mechanism malfunction, but by 

brake failure. In support of his change of mind, he referred to 

another accident with which he was familiar, involving a car made 

by Chrysler in a different year. Based on nothing more than the 

similarities between the two accidents, Hansen was prepared to 

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Appellate Case: 91-6412 Document: 010110175802 Date Filed: 02/19/1993 Page: 4 
testify to a reasonable degree of certainty that plaintiffs' 

accident was caused by brake failure. 

We agree with the district court that this opinion, the only 

support for plaintiffs' theory of liability, could not support a 

verdict in favor of plaintiffs by a rational trier of fact. 

Hansen never examined the brake systems on plaintiffs' car except 

by simply looking under the car at the wheel assemblies after the 

automobile was rebuilt. Therefore, his testimony as to their 

malfunction would be speculative. With respect to the comparable 

accident, not only did that incident involve a different 

manufacturer's car made in a different year, but there is no 

evidence that the skid marks left by the two vehicles 

corresponded. Further, the car in the first incident had a 

history of brake problems, whereas plaintiffs' vehicle had no such 

difficulties. Given these circumstances, either the expert's 

testimony would have been excluded under Fed. R. Evid. 703 

(thereby preventing plaintiffs from making their prima facie 

case), or, if admitted, could not have been credited by a reasonable jury. Because plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a genuine 

issue for trial, defendant was entitled to judgment as a matter of 

law. 

AFFIRMED . 

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Entered for the Court 

James K. Logan 

Circuit Judge 

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