Case Name: Audrey Reno Lozano Wife of/and Leonard LOZANO v. TOURO INFIRMARY, XYZ Insurance Company, Precor, Inc., and ABC Insurance Company
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 2000-12-13
Citations: 778 So. 2d 604
Docket Number: No. 99-CA-2587
Parties: Audrey Reno Lozano Wife of/and Leonard LOZANO v. TOURO INFIRMARY, XYZ Insurance Company, Precor, Inc., and ABC Insurance Company.
Judges: (Court composed of Judge STEVEN R. PLOTKIN, Judge MIRIAM G. WALTZER and Judge JAMES F. McKAY).
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 778
Pages: 604–613

Head Matter:
Audrey Reno Lozano Wife of/and Leonard LOZANO v. TOURO INFIRMARY, XYZ Insurance Company, Precor, Inc., and ABC Insurance Company.
No. 99-CA-2587.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
Dec. 13, 2000.
Rehearing Denied Jan. 31, 2001.
Louvin H. Skinner, Robert J. Skinner, Law Office of Robert J. Skinner, New Orleans, LA, Russell B. Ramsey, Jr., L’Hoste & Ramsey, New Orleans, LA, Counsel for Plaintiffs/Appellants.
Anne Derbes Keller, Law Offices of Adams & Johnston, New Orleans, LA, Counsel for Defendants/Appellees.
(Court composed of Judge STEVEN R. PLOTKIN, Judge MIRIAM G. WALTZER and Judge JAMES F. McKAY).

Opinion:
|,WALTZER, J.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants, Audrey and Leonard Loza-no, sued Precor, Inc. and Touro Infirmary for damages allegedly sustained when Mrs. Lozano fell from a Precor treadmill at the Touro Infirmary Fitness Center. Appellants asserted two causes of action against Precor: defective design and/or manufacture and failure to warn of inherent dangerous defects. Prior to trial, Appellants settled with Touro. Following trial to a jury, the trial court granted a directed verdict in favor of Precor on the failure to warn claim. The jury returned a verdict awarding $106,271.41 in damages, assigning 85 percent of fault to Touro and 15% of fault to Mrs. Lozano. The trial court entered judgment on the verdict, dismissing Appellants' suit against Precor.
Appellants now appeal the trial court's judgment granting a directed verdict on their claim that defendant Precor, Inc. failed to warn them that Precor's model 9.5sp treadmill was susceptible to sudden acceleration, which caused injury to Audrey Lozano. Appellants have not appealed the jury's verdict assigning no vault to Precor. Thus, the jury verdict in favor of Precor on the defective design claim is | gfinal. Having found no merit to appellants' assignments of error respecting the failure to warn claim, we affirm the trial court's judgment.
STATEMENT OF FACTS
On the morning of 28 August 1995, Mr. and Mrs. Lozano went to Touro Infirmary's Fitness Center in order to exercise. This had been their regular practice for three years and one year, respectively. Mr. Lozano testified that while he was lifting weights, he noticed the centers lights dimmed several times. Subsequently, he and Mrs. Lozano started walking on adjacent treadmills. According to Mrs. Lozano, her treadmill suddenly stopped for no apparent reason, shortly after she started her walk. She asked the nurse on duty for assistance and the nurse programmed the treadmill for Mrs. Lozano's usual routine, 20 minutes at a speed of 2.8 miles per hour.
Mrs. Lozano testified that shortly after the nurse re-programmed the treadmill, it suddenly accelerated to "full speed", causing her to fall of the back of the treadmill, suffering multiple abrasions and contusions and orthopedic damage.
ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR
Appellants contend that the trial court:
(1) abused its discretion in excluding reports of ten prior sudden accelerations of 9.5sp model Precor treadmills
(2) erred in granting a directed verdict in light of alleged testimony that Precor's Service Manual states model 9.5sp was susceptible to sudden, uncontrolled acceleration; and
|a(3) erred in failing to set aside the jury's verdict in light of the foregoing alleged errors and the lack of evidence that Touro or Ms. Lozano were at fault.
Appellants also contend that the jury's finding of $50,000 in general damages was unreasonable.
DISCUSSION
A. Burden of Proof
The Louisiana Products Liability Act, LSA-R.S. 9:2800.51 et seq. sets forth the exclusive theories of manufacturers' liability for damage caused by their products. Moore v. Safeway, Inc., 95-1552 (La.App. 1 Cir. 11/22/96), 700 So.2d 831, 848, writs denied, 97-2921, 97-3000 (La.2/6/98), 709 So.2d 735, 744. LSA-R.S. 9:2800.54 defines manufacturer responsibility and burden of proof. Appellants had the burden of proving the following:
(1) Precor manufactured the treadmill;
(2) the treadmill was unreasonably dangerous for reasonably anticipated use; and
(3) the dangerous characteristic existed at the time the treadmill left Precor's control, or was the result of a reasonably anticipated alteration or modification. Bernard v. Ferrellgas, Inc., 96-621, p. 5 (La.App. 3 Cir. 2/5/97), 689 So.2d 554, 558.
LSA-R.S. 9:2800.53(9) defines adequate warning as a warning or instruction that would lead an ordinary reasonable user or handler of a product to contemplate the danger in using or handling the product and either to decline to use or handle the product or, if possible, to use or handle the product in such a manner as to avoid the damage for which the claim is made.
|4In general, a product is unreasonably dangerous because of lack of provision of an adequate warning if, at the time the product left its manufacturer's control, it possessed a characteristic that may cause damage and the manufacturer failed to use reasonable care to provide an adequate warning of this characteristic and its danger to users or handlers of the product. LSA-9:2800.57 (A).
The characteristic the Appellants' allege caused their injury was so-called "thermal runaway", that could cause the treadmill to surge suddenly. Thus, Appellants had the burden of proving that this condition existed when the treadmill left Precor's factory and Precor failed adequately to warn users and handlers of the "thermal runaway" characteristic.
We find nothing in the transcript of testimony, exhibits, or proffer to support a finding that the treadmill was susceptible to thermal runaway or that Precor knew or had reason to know of such susceptibility. Since that is the alleged "characteristic" that allegedly caused Ms. Lozano's injury, she' had the burden under LSA-R .S. 9:2800.54(A) and 9:2800.57(A)of proving that this characteristic was a proximate cause of her injury. The statute in effect codifies this Court's prior holding in Delery v. Prudential Ins. Co. of America, 94-0352, pp. 8-9 (La.App. 4 Cir. 9/29/94), 643 So.2d 807, 814, writs denied 94-2623 and 94-2666 (La.12/16/94), 648 So.2d 393, citing Bloxom v. Bloxom, 512 So.2d 839 (La.1987).
Appellants' reliance on information concerning "Unit Surges Between One and Four Miles Per Hour" contained in the Precor service manual is misplaced. These "surges", actually minor changes in speed, represented maintenance problems, not design elements that were inherently dangerous, as to which a warning would be appropriate. These maintenance problems did not exist "when |sthe product left the manufacturer's control" and are thus irrelevant to the failure to warn issue.
B. Proffered evidence of prior incidents
Our review of the record in its entirety discovers no support for the admission of Appellants' proffered evidence of prior incident reports. Before such evidence should be admitted, Appellants must provide a predicate with proof that the prior incidents were closely related in circumstance to the injury or hazard at issue, and occurred at substantially the same place and under substantially the same conditions and were caused by the same or similar danger or defect as those claimed in the case at bar. See, Davis v. Louisiana Power & Light Co., 612 So.2d 235, 239 (La.App. 4 Cir.1992), writ denied 615 So.2d 336 (La.1993), where this Court noted the reason for requiring such a predicate is to avoid the risk of prejudice associated with informing a jury of other accidents.
In the instant case, Appellants' expert, Butters, opined that the "sudden acceleration" of which Appellants complained was caused by "thermal runaway." However, there was no evidence admitted or proffered that thermal runaway was involved in ANY of the ten prior incidents Appellants sought to introduce. Therefore, we find the trial court's decision to disallow the evidence not to be manifestly erroneous or clearly wrong.
The record contains ample evidence supporting the jury's determination that the treadmill did not have a characteristic that made it unreasonably dangerous — the only design defect put forth by Appellants. Precor's Greg Fissel testified at great length concerning the measures taken by the company specifically to prevent thermal runaway. He concluded that thermal runaway could not have occurred in the context of the Lozano accident unless the ambient room temperature in the |fiTouro Fitness Center reached 242 degrees Fahrenheit, with a 350 pound person moving at 12 miles per hour. Fissel basically concluded that, under the laws of physics, the accident simply could not have occurred as Appellants contended. Appellants' expert did not challenge Fissel's calculation and admitted he had neither tried to perform a calculation or use any other thermal equation to determine the likelihood of thermal runaway in the context of the Lozano accident.
C. The Directed Verdict
A motion for directed verdict under La.C.C.P. art. 1810 is properly granted if, in viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the adverse party, the trial court concludes that the evidence is such that reasonable, fair-minded jurors cannot arrive at a verdict in favor of the non-moving party. The reviewing court must then decide whether reasonable, impartial minds could have reached a different conclusion. Descant v. Administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund, 95-2127 (La. App. 4 Cir. 1/21/98), 706 So.2d 618, 627, unit denied 98-0467 (La.4/3/98), 717 So.2d 1131, reconsideration denied 98-0467 (La.5/15/98), 719 So.2d 65.
The Third Circuit likens this standard to that for granting a summary judgment and held that only when the all the evidence overwhelmingly points to one conclusion should the directed verdict be granted. That court noted that the determination whether to grant or deny a directed verdict must be determined in light of the substantive law on which rest the parties' claims. See, Bernard, 96-621, 689 So.2d at 557.
Applying the directed verdict standard as articulated above, we find that viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Appellants, the trial court could conclude properly that the evidence is such that reasonable and fair-minded jurors cannot arrive at a verdict in favor of Appellants. We need not decide whether |7Appellants established their case by a preponderance of the evidence. We need decide only whether reasonable, impartial minds could have reached a different conclusion.
As discussed hereinabove, the Louisiana Products Liability Act sets forth the burden of proof controlling this case. There was no credible evidence to support a finding that the treadmill possessed a characteristic that may cause damage at the time it left its manufacturer's control. Indeed, the evidence tended to show a Touro Fitness Center programming error caused Ms. Lozano's injury. Absent such a dangerous characteristic, simple logic requires the conclusion that there can be no duty to warn. We therefor find no error in the trial court's action granting a directed verdict on the failure to warn claim.
In light of our disposition of the foregoing issues, Appellants' assignment of error concerning quantum is moot.
CONCLUSION AND DECREE
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed. Costs of this appeal are assessed against the appellant.
AFFIRMED.
PLOTKIN, J., dissents with written reasons.