Opinion ID: 2046018
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The district court ruling and the parties' contentions.

Text: After hearing extensive argument on the issue, the court ruled that all of the consumer complaints would be admissible at trial and overruled BRK's motion in limine. The court's reasoning was as follows: THE COURT: ... the Court is going to allow into evidence the consumer complaints.... These consumer complaints... are relevant regarding punitive damages, these complaints, they are relevant to show knowledge.... The Court feels that the consumer complaints are relevant in that they are substantially similar under the Iowa law. The fact that they, perhaps, never went off or went off late, in this Court's opinion they are substantially similar.... If it doesn't go off timely, it doesn't do what it's intended to do.... Again, the Court is finding that an alarm that never goes off and one that does not go off in a timely fashion are substantially similar for the purposes of this type of product in this lawsuit. It comes in to show knowledge. As a result, all 363 written consumer complaints were admitted into evidence. The consumer complaints were presented to the jury in three cardboard filing boxes. The only limiting instruction given by the court with respect to the consumer complaints advised the jury that in considering the conduct of BRK with regard to the issue of punitive damages, the jury could only consider the consumer complaints as to those incidents which pre-dated the Mercer fire of January 18, 1993. In addition to admission of the written consumer complaints, three of the complaining consumers, including Barbara Ware, William Watters, and Marilyn Russell, testified during trial concerning the failure of their model 83R to alarm to smoke during a fire. Later, in overruling BRK's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict on the issue of the consumer complaints, the court stated, that by BRK's own conduct and admissions, the consumer complaints at issue were substantially similar to the fire at the Mercer residence. The court specifically noted that BRK had categorized the consumer complaints under the single heading No Response to Smoke and that BRK sent out the exact same form letter regarding the identical model 83R ionization smoke detector to those consumers who complained. On appeal, BRK argues that the district court committed reversible error in admitting into evidence all 363 complaints. Specifically, BRK argues that not all of the incidents in the 363 consumer complaints were substantially similar to the Mercer fire because BRK's records of the consumer complaints showed that the smoke detectors failed to alarm for a variety of reasons, including: (1) improper placement of the detector on wall or ceiling; (2) improper location of detector within the home; (3) cold smoke or insufficient amount of smoke to reach detector; and (4) no battery or improper battery connection in the model 83R. In other cases, the smoke detector itself had been started on fire in an attempt to test it. BRK also points out, that in some cases, the detector had not been returned so BRK could not properly test the detector for a potential defect or the consumer had not completed the questionnaire regarding the incident. BRK also points out that the Mercer smoke detector was not available for testing and BRK could therefore not examine it to determine whether it had failed to function properly. The Mercers argue that the consumer complaints were properly admissible because they were substantially similar to the Mercer fire in that the complaints involved the exact same product and the same alleged product defectthat BRK ionization detectors have a delayed response time in responding to certain types of fires. Additionally, the Mercers argued that the consumer complaints were especially relevant to the issue of punitive damages as they showed BRK's knowledge that the 83R ionization smoke detector was not timely responding to slow smoldering fires, and BRK's knowledge that its method of testing the model 83R was not an adequate predictor of the performance of the 83R ionization detector in real world fire scenarios.