Opinion ID: 1795931
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Design Defects and Safer Alternative Design

Text: Jernigan contended at trial that upon impact, the A-pillar collapsed inward into the occupant compartment toward Jeffrey and that Jeffrey's head collided with the structure in the area where the A-pillar meets the dashboard. According to Jernigan, if the A-pillar had not collapsed inward toward Jeffrey, he would not have suffered such severe head injuries. Dr. Joseph Burton, an expert witness for Jernigan in the area of biomechanics, testified that if Jeffrey had had six to eight more inches of space in front of him in the Oldsmobile, he would have made softer contact with some of the structures of the Oldsmobile or he might not have made any contact at all. Mundo opined that the alternative designs he proposed, when combined with the restraint system (seat belt) Jeffrey was wearing, would have afforded Jeffrey the additional space needed to avoid significant head contact with the automobile's structures. [13] As previously noted, Mundo had over 30 years of experience in the field of automotive-design engineering. Mundo identified what he considered to be four primary defects in the design of the Oldsmobile related to its crashworthiness in a frontal collision: (1) the strength of the upper rail; (2) the strength of the tubular door-guard beam; (3) the length and placement of the lower rails; and (4) the omission of a torque box, described as a metal plate welded to the lower rail and the rocker beam, thus bridging the space between the two members just behind the front wheel. Mundo testified that the front end of the first-generation H-car had an upper rail made from high-strength steel, a large stamped-metal door-guard beam, and lower rails that extended further under the passenger compartment than did the rails in the second-generation H-car. He said that each of these structures provided more energy-absorption potential in a collision and that together they provided significantly more protection than was provided by the second-generation H-car. Mundo contrasted the energy-absorbing structures in the rear of the Oldsmobile with those in the front. In the rear, the lower rails run from the bumper just inside the rear wheel toward the front of the car and then turn outward and weld directly to the rocker beam. This joinder produces a continuous beam from the rear bumper to the trunk and out to the rocker beam. In contrast, the front lower rails stop short of the passenger compartment and are not attached to the rocker beam, leaving nothing more than a single thickness of metal welded to the floor pan. Mundo concluded that, by virtue of the design, the rear of the Oldsmobile will absorb substantially more energy in a collision than will the front. Mundo also compared the Oldsmobile with the Pontiac with which it collided. Mundo pointed out that the Pontiac had a larger door-guard beam and torque boxes that transferred the loads to the frame of the vehicle during a front-end collision. Mundo also noted that the design of the Pontiac included lower rails that ran the length of the vehicle, unlike the Oldsmobile, in which the lower rails had been shortened and narrowed. According to Mundo, the extended lower rails provide a continuous beam to absorb forces in a collision. The torque boxes on the Pontiac tie the front lower rails to the rocker beam, and, according to Mundo, thereby increase the energy-absorbing capacity of the frame of the vehicle. According to Mundo, although the Pontiac, a lighter vehicle, was subjected to greater forces in the collision than was the Oldsmobile, the integrity of the passenger compartment was maintained much better in the Pontiac than in the Oldsmobile. The lower rail in the Pontiac was bent only slightly in the collision because it gained strength from being attached to the rocker beam by the torque boxes. The floor beneath the passenger compartment of the Pontiac remained flat and did not collapse as did the floor in the Oldsmobile, because the torque boxes in the Pontiac supported the floor. The A-pillar of the Pontiac did not intrude into the occupant compartment on the passenger side. Describing the damage to the Oldsmobile as the jury viewed the vehicle, Mundo noted that the tubular door-guard beam was bent in the exact spot where the beam end was shaved back. As a result, according to Mundo, its length did not absorb energy in the collision. Mundo described the upper shotgun beam as bent but... not necessarily crushed. It just kind of wimped out of the way. Mundo pointed out that the rocker beam was bent at the point where it would have been welded to the torque box had such a system been used. According to Mundo, a torque box grabs ... hold of that passenger compartment and frames it at the bottom, so that in the crash event, it will allow the crumple zone up here to do its job. Continuing, Mundo stated that without the torque box, it's like kicking the legs out from under the table, and [w]hen that rocker collapsed like that, that allowed this hinge pillar to move into the space where Jeffrey Jernigan was sitting. With no lower rail or torque box to support the floor pan, he said, the floor pan collapsed. When the floor pan of the Oldsmobile collapsed, the forward edge of the passenger seat dropped, causing the entire seat to tilt forward. Mundo contended that the collapse of the floor pan he had previously noted in the FMVSS 208 30-mph testing of the second-generation H-car gave GM notice of the potential for occupant-compartment collapse at a higher speed. According to Mundo, the collapse of the floor pan and the inability of the door-guard beam to keep the A-pillar and the B-pillar separated caused the A-pillar to move into the occupant compartment. Mundo said his alternative designs would have prevented the A-pillar from moving. When asked whether he had an opinion based upon [his] experience in automotive design that ... the design without the torque box and the toe pan beam was safe, Mundo answered affirmatively and said, I believe that there is a defect there and that it's not safe because those beams only tie to a single piece of metal called the floor pan. Then, when asked whether there were alternative designs available back at the time the Oldsmobile was designed that would have minimized or eliminated the problem with the toe pan, he explained: There are a lot of elements that come to play in the crumple zone. And I said here it's an energy management system so we need to manage the energy, which means engineers need to design components, subsystems, pieces to do certain kinds of jobs to manage that. That has been known for a very long time. Because rails that the framing members that are running forward to connect your bumper and to which your engine is bolted down, those have to be inboard of your tires. And because the primary beams that run under the doors, the rocker beams, they have to outboard of the tires. The two are not lined up. And for a very long time, I'm one of the engineers that have known that. And the simplest solution to the problem is what we call a torque box. It's a fancy word for simply welding a beam from the rocker to the primary frame under the car. Now, that alone adds a continuity where you take that primary frame, turns, goes around behind the tiretorque boxturns into the rocker, and runs down the rest of the car. Makes sense, a continuous flow of beam. Having them not connected to one another is why we see the floor moving as we see it. Now, that torque box has been around in many cars for a very long time. The only other element that would enhance and support would be to connect between the frames with a cross member, as we showed earlier this morning, the torque box, then the rail, and then an element that runs between the rails to the next frame to the torque box to the other rocker. That has been around for a long time. When asked whether, based on his knowledge and training, he thought there were alternative designs available at the time [the Oldsmobile] was manufactured that would have minimized or prevented the damage that occurred to the Oldsmobile in the collision, Mundo explained: The answer is yes, there are alternatives; and, yes, there were alternatives at that time. Engineers have been designing cars for crash for energy management systems for quite sometime. Even in the early '80s or when this vehicle was redone for version 2, the early '90s. .... We've spoken of the torque boxes and the things in the lower floor area. There are some additional things we can do down there by putting internal stiffeners inside of the beams, beefing them up on the inside. That's one thing. But moving on up, the thing that we can do is to have high strength in the shotgun [beam] area, which was removed. The things we could have done would be to have beefier door guard beams rather than shaving them back. When asked why it is important to have a strong upper rail, Mundo stated: Well, because if you don't have a strong upper rail in the requisite door structure, then it allows this pillar to move around. And worse yet, it may allow the pillar to come on into the occupant compartment. Mundo then testified: Q. [I]n all of the information you reviewed in this case, examination of the vehicle, your knowledge and training, your experience with crash tests, do you have an opinion as to whether these alternative designs you referred to would have made a difference in this crash? .... A. With all of my experience and the number of vehicles in which I have been involved in crashes and reviewing these kinds of things from a design engineer's point of view, I believe that these alternative designs would have made a difference. And I believe that the difference would have been to preserve the occupant space such that the restraint system which [Jeffrey] was wearing could have had an opportunity to do its job. Q. And if the alternative designs would have been used, what would have been the difference as far as the space in the occupant compartment? A. I really don't know how much intrusion came in to the car. But what I do know as a design engineer is that the restraint system was [designed] to allow the occupant to stroke through the seat belt system without striking dash panels and hinge pillars. So there is usually not a lot of margin for error here in that allowing these pillars to come in at all presents a risk. Q. Could it have been designed to keep the A-pillar in place? A. It could have, yes. Q. Had the alternative designs been used that you described, you believe that would have occurred? A. I believe so ... yes. GM does not challenge Mundo's experience as a design engineer or his analysis of the Oldsmobile's failed performance in the accident. GM challenges Mundo's opinion that his proposed alternative designs would have performed better under the circumstances of this accident and provided the six to eight inches of extra space Dr. Burton testified was necessary, thereby preventing Jeffrey's injuries. GM offered evidence indicating that it had crash-tested the mild 30-ksi steel used in the upper rails and concluded that it did not degrade the crashworthiness of the vehicle. GM contended that the door-guard beam complied with FMVSS 214, [14] as well as with GM's higher internal standards, and was thicker and of greater strength than that found in the first-generation H-car. GM said that the test results for the door-guard beams in the first- and second-generation H-cars were the same. The shortening and narrowing of the lower rails resulted from GM's structural enhancement program to improve crashworthiness and to reduce noise, vibration, and harshness. GM used, in lieu of the torque box, a shear plate which, according to GM, performed the same function as a torque box. In the late 1970s and the 1980s, GM says, it studied the effect of torque boxes and determined that they were unnecessary. Jernigan points out that the Pontiac, also a GM vehicle, had torque boxes. Mundo did not test his alternative designs. Instead, he relied on tests performed on the first-generation H-car, which he considered to have a stronger front-end structure, pointing to a passenger HIC score of 539.2 in one 35-mph frontal-barrier test. He also relied upon the FMVSS 208 crash test of the second-generation H-car in which he observed the floor pan collapsing and upon the collision itself, inspecting and assessing the Oldsmobile and the Pontiac just as he would have done in a crash test. Finally, Mundo relied upon his own extensive experience. GM attempted to test Mundo's alternative designs by using a Ford Taurus automobile, which it contended Mundo had described in a pretrial deposition as embodying his proposed alternative designs. Under the guidance of an accident reconstructionist, GM conducted a crash test with a Taurus and a Pontiac comparable to the Pontiac involved in the collision. According to GM, the passenger dummy in the Taurus experienced a HIC score of 7300 and the A-pillar of the Taurus crushed six inches further into the occupant compartment than did the A-pillar of the Oldsmobile, providing exactly the reverse of the additional six to eight inches that Dr. Burton stated was necessary to avoid Jeffrey's injuries. Jernigan objected to evidence of the crash test between the Taurus and a Pontiac. The trial court deferred its ruling on Jernigan's objection and permitted a video of the crash test to be shown to the jury during opening statements. In his testimony, Mundo said that the test was rigged to come out in GM's favor because, he said, GM had placed sandbags in the Taurus instead of instrumented dummies. GM had said that using sandbags was necessary to bring the Taurus to a weight, including occupants, comparable to the Oldsmobile at the time of the collision. Mundo stated that sandbags do not load a vehicle in the same way an occupant does, and that dummies were available that could have been used to add weight to the vehicle. Mundo also criticized the test because the Taurus was a smaller, lower car than the Oldsmobile, which has a longer wheel base and is wider. The Taurus is rated as a midsize vehicle; the Oldsmobile is rated as a large vehicle. The bumper heights of the Taurus and Pontiac did not match in the same manner that the Oldsmobile and Pontiac did. According to Mundo, the differences explained why the Pontiac drove over the top of the smaller Taurus in the crash test. The trial court excluded the test and any opinions based on it because of those excessively dissimilar factors, illustrating its point by referring to differences in the car heights, the different weights, the types and styles of the car. The trial court found that the crash test between the Taurus and a Pontiac was in no way similar to the Jernigan wreck. The court further found that Mundo did not rely on the Taurus as a safer alternative design. The trial court instructed the jury that the test did not appear to be rigged. The trial court further instructed the jury to disregard both the video shown by GM in the opening statement and any rebuttal testimony introduced by Jernigan.