Opinion ID: 735718
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Meenach's motion for judgment as a matter of law

Text: 22 Meenach argues that the district court's denial of his motion for judgment as a matter of law should be reversed based on Embs v. Pepsi-Cola Bottling Co., 528 S.W.2d 703 (Ky.1975), which held that the permissibility of an inference of a defect when a bottle exploded was enough to allow the plaintiff to survive a motion for judgment as a matter of law. Meenach argues that under Embs, he should have been granted judgment as a matter of law because (1) it was undisputed that Rita Meenach was trapped by the seat belt and (2) there was no evidence to rebut the inference that the seat belt was defective. Emb's relevance is limited due to the different procedural posture; in any event, Meenach's two premises are flawed. First, it was not undisputed that Rita Meenach was trapped by the seat belt. Second, GMC presented evidence to rebut the inference that the seat belt was defective. The conflict on those points created a legitimate jury question. 23 Meenach also argued in his brief that GMC should have been estopped from denying that the lack of an inertia switch was a design defect by the judgment in Baker v. GMC, 159 F.R.D. 519 (W.D.Mo.1994). Three days before Meenach filed his reply brief, however, the Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's decision in that case. Baker v. GMC, 86 F.3d 811 (8th Cir.1996), petition for cert. filed, 65 U.S.L.W. 3342 (U.S. Oct. 22, 1996) (No. 96-653). 24 We find that the district court properly denied Meenach's motion for a directed verdict.