Opinion ID: 468767
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: evidence of safer alternative designs

Text: 46 Evidence of an alternative design of a safer product is admissible and probative to prove design defect in a products liability case. See, e.g., Mitchell v. Fruehauf Corp., 568 F.2d 1139 (5th Cir.1978); Miller v. Bock Laundry Machine Company, 568 S.W.2d 648 (Tex.1978); Rourke v. Garza, 530 S.W.2d 794 (Tex.1975); Bell Helicopter Co. v. Bradshaw, 594 S.W.2d 519 (Tex.Civ.App.--Corpus Christi 1979, writ ref'd n.r.e.). 47 Appellant contends that the single piece wheel, was and is an alternative design of a safer product than the multi-piece wheel. Appellant's Brief at 4. Pursuant to this contention, appellant sought to introduce a number of business records tending to show that in 1966, when the Firestone component was manufactured, the single piece wheel was a known, safer alternative. The trial court was inconsistent in excluding some of this evidence. For example, appellant unsuccessfully proffered a 1966 report by Firestone's chief engineer of truck tire design entitled Tubeless Truck Tire Safety, which read in part: TUBELESS TRUCK TIRE SAFETY 48 In accordance with your request for a summary of our experience in tubeless truck tire safety, the following reasons have been proven through many years of tubeless experience and are primary reasons for considering the tubeless a much safer tire. 49 .... 50 Item # 2--No Lock Ring Hazards --The one piece tubeless drop center rim does not present any mounting or inflating hazards. The tubed tire with multi-piece rim has caused many accidents due to improper assembly, improperly seated, damaged or misfitted side rings and lock rings. These have caused many accidents. 51 Plaintiff's Exhibit 27, at 1. These statements, if credited by the jury, would certainly tend to show that at the time Firestone manufactured the multi-piece rim at issue here, the single piece rim was a viable, safer alternative--and was known to be so by Firestone's top engineers. 52 One of appellees' major claims regarding single piece rims is that tubeless tires, which are necessary for such rims, are not a practical alternative tire. For example, appellees quote appellant's expert as saying that the tube-type tire involved in the accident could not have been mounted on a single-piece rim: 'This doesn't have the flexibility to permit it to be put on a singlepiece base.'  13 Rec. at 508. Appellees then conclude triumphantly that Plaintiff's expert therefore established that the single-piece wheel was not a feasible alternative for users of tube-type tires. Appellees' Brief at 23. But of course tube-type tires require multi-piece rims; the issue is whether single piece rims--and their accompanying tubeless tires--were a viable alternative when the multi-piece components in this case were manufactured. 53 The above-cited Firestone safety report discussed tubeless tires as follows: 54 Item # 1--Fewer Road Delays --Tubeless tires have 1/3 to 1/10 as many road delays per tire as tubed tires on the same fleet. These have been documented on our fleets, including Greyhound. This results in fewer trucks being stranded on the highway for tire service and also means that there are fewer tires suddenly going flat at high speeds on the highway. 55 .... 56 Item # 3--No Tube and Flap Problems --[describing very dangerous failures which would not have been caused if drop center tubeless tires were used.] 57 .... 58 Item # 4--Tire Fires Eliminated --Experience has shown that tire fires caused by tubeless tires are extremely uncommon.... 59 .... 60 Item # 5--Industry Status -- 61 .... 62 We believe that the majority of the major tire companies are in favor of tubeless truck tires as the safest and most economical tire for the future. Our experience on tubeless tires on mileage operations has been very favorable, and tubeless tires are specified for all new equipment for our mileage account. 63 Plaintiff's Exhibit 27, at 1, 2. In fact, nowhere in his safety report does Firestone's chief truck tire engineer mention any drawbacks at all for tubeless tires or single piece rims. 64 After hearing arguments of counsel the trial court excluded Plaintiff's Exhibit 27, along with about a dozen other such documents, on the following grounds: 65 I am going to make the following rulings on the documentary evidence tendered yesterday by the plaintiff. I am going to grant or sustain the objections of the defendants to all of those documents that relate to single-piece rims because I do not believe that that evidence is relevant to any of the issues in this case.... 66 15 Rec. at 736. Evidently, the court had little patience for plaintiff's alternative design theory. As intimated in the order in limine, such evidence was simply considered irrelevant. 11 67 As noted previously, however, the argument from alternative design is an accepted theory of recovery under Texas products liability law. The court in Boatland of Houston, Inc. v. Bailey, 609 S.W.2d 743 (Tex.1980), for example, declared that 68 A plaintiff may advance the argument that a safer alternative was feasible with evidence that it was in actual use or was available at the time of manufacture. Feasibility may also be shown with evidence of the scientific and economic capacity to develop the safer alternative. Thus, evidence of the actual use of, or capacity to use, safer alternatives is relevant insofar as it depicts the available scientific knowledge and the practicalities of applying that knowledge to a product's design. This method of presenting evidence of defective design is not new to the Texas law of product liability. See, e.g., Rourke v. Garza, 530 S.W.2d 794 (Tex.1975); Henderson v. Ford Motor Co., 519 S.W.2d 87 (Tex.1974); Williams v. General Motors Corp., 501 S.W.2d 930 (Tex.Civ.App.--Houston [1st Dist.] 1973, writ ref'd n.r.e.); Hartzell Propeller Co. v. Alexander, 485 S.W.2d 943 (Tex.Civ.App.--Waco 1972, writ ref'd n.r.e.); Pizza Inn, Inc. v. Tiffany, 454 S.W.2d 420 (Tex.Civ.App.--Waco 1970, no writ). 69 Id. at 746. Similarly, in Ford Motor Co. v. Nowak, 638 S.W.2d 582 (Tex.App.1982), the court allowed plaintiff to present extensive testimony on other makes of cars in order to pursue a safer alternative design theory. Indeed, one might fairly say that in Nowak the debate centered as much on the competing gear mechanisms of GM and Chrysler as on the litigated one manufactured by Ford. See id. at 588-89. 70 Thus, far from being irrelevant to appellant's case, the evidence on single piece rims and tubeless tires was central to appellant's alternative design argument, which is an accepted theory of recovery under Texas products liability law. To be sure, appellant was allowed to go into this with her expert witness and to do considerable cross-examination on the matter. But the trial court was inconsistent in excluding some of this evidence. 12 The harm to appellant's case lay in what the excluded evidence would have shown about the extent of appellees' knowledge of the magnitude of the danger and the magnitude of the difference in safety when the two designs were compared. 71