Opinion ID: 776872
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Ford's Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law

Text: 21 Judgment as a matter of law is appropriate when a party has been fully heard on an issue and there is no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find for that party on that issue. Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(a). In ruling on a Rule 50 motion, the trial court is required to consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the party against whom the motion was made and to give that party the benefit of all reasonable inferences that the jury might have drawn in his favor from the evidence. The court cannot assess the weight of conflicting evidence, pass on the credibility of the witnesses, or substitute its judgment for that of the jury. Tolbert v. Queens College, 242 F.3d 58, 70 (2d Cir.2001) (internal citations omitted). We review the district court's grant of a motion for judgment as a matter of law de novo, see Diesel v. Town of Lewisboro, 232 F.3d 92, 103 (2d Cir.2000), applying the same standard that a district court must apply, see LeBlanc-Sternberg v. Fletcher, 67 F.3d 412, 429 (2d Cir.1995). 22 We hold that there was a legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find that Ford had negligently designed the cruise control of the 1991 Aerostar. Jarvis presented evidence which the jury could credit that her Aerostar suddenly accelerated without her depressing the accelerator and that she was not able to stop the Aerostar by pumping the brakes. This proof included her testimony, the testimony of other Aerostar owners who had experienced similar problems, and evidence that hundreds of additional Aerostar owners had reportedly experienced sudden acceleration. She also presented an expert who offered a theory to explain why the cruise control had malfunctioned causing the Aerostar suddenly to accelerate, and who proposed an inexpensive remedy for this problem. The district court found this expert testimony to be admissible in a Daubert hearing, and the jury was entitled to credit it. Ford presented evidence that identified weaknesses in this theory, principally that there was no physical evidence that the defects hypothesized by Jarvis caused the cruise control to malfunction and suggested that driver error had caused the accident. We hold, however, that neither Ford's evidence of the unlikely nature of the specific defect that Jarvis had posited nor Ford's theory that the accident had been caused by driver error so outweighed Jarvis's proof that no reasonable jury could find for Jarvis. In so holding, we recognize the settled principle of New York law that a plaintiff in a products liability action is not required to prove a specific defect when a defect may be inferred from proof that the product did not perform as intended by the manufacturer.
23 The New York Court of Appeals has established that a manufacturer is obligated to exercise that degree of care in his plan or design so as to avoid any unreasonable risk of harm to anyone who is likely to be exposed to the danger when the product is used in the manner for which the product was intended. Micallef v. Miehle Co., 39 N.Y.2d 376, 384 N.Y.S.2d 115, 348 N.E.2d 571, 577 (1976). The court explained that [w]hat constitutes reasonable care will ... involve a balancing of the likelihood of harm, and the gravity of harm if it happens, against the burden of the precaution which would be effect to avoid the harm. Id. at 577-78 (internal quotation marks omitted). 24 As applied to the facts of this case, the jury charge on negligent design restated this standard as comprising three elements: (1) that the cruise control system in the 1991 Aerostar was defective when put on the market by Ford; (2) that the defect made it reasonably certain that the vehicle would be dangerous when put to normal use; and (3) that Ford failed to use reasonable care in designing the cruise control system or in inspecting it or testing it for defects, or that even though Ford used reasonable care in designing, inspecting and testing the cruise control system in the 1991 Aerostar, that Ford learned of the defect before putting the product on the market and did nothing about it. 25 The New York Court of Appeals has held that a plaintiff's failure to prove why a product malfunctioned does not necessarily prevent a plaintiff from showing that the product was defective. In Codling v. Paglia, 32 N.Y.2d 330, 345 N.Y.S.2d 461, 298 N.E.2d 622 (1973), a four-month-old car driven by Paglia suddenly and inexplicably drifted across the road's dividing line into oncoming traffic. Id. at 624. Chrysler, in defending the suit, stressed that Paglia had failed to prove any specific defect — emphasizing in particular the inadequacy of the plaintiff's post-accident tests to demonstrate a specific defect. Id. at 625. The New York Court of Appeals rejected this argument and upheld an instruction to the jury on breach of warranty that explained: 26 While the burden is upon the plaintiff to prove that the product was defective and that the defect existed while the product was in the manufacturer's possession, plaintiff is not required to prove the specific defect, especially where the product is complicated in nature. Proof of necessary facts may be circumstantial. Though the happening of the accident is not proof of a defective condition, a defect may be inferred from proof that the product did not perform as intended by the manufacturer.... 27 Id. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals affirmed the jury's conclusion that the steering mechanism of the automobile was not fit for the purpose for which it was intended. Id. at 338, 345 N.Y.S.2d 461, 298 N.E.2d 622. 28 A later New York Court of Appeals case similarly rejected the contention that a plaintiff injured by an exploding can of Freon had failed to make out a prima facie breach of warranty claim when no particular defect in the packaged refrigerant was ever discovered. Halloran v. Virginia Chemicals Inc., 41 N.Y.2d 386, 393 N.Y.S.2d 341, 361 N.E.2d 991 (1977). The court stated that 29 if plaintiff has proven that the product has not performed as intended and excluded all causes of the accident not attributable to defendant, the fact finder may, even if the particular defect has not been proven, infer that the accident could only have occurred due to some defect in the product or its packaging. 30 Id. at 993. 31 The same principles hold in products liability actions brought under a theory of negligent design. See, e.g., Gargano v. Rosenthal, 100 A.D.2d 534, 473 N.Y.S.2d 225, 227 (2d Dep't 1984) (citing Halloran in finding that causes of action for products liability, including those under theories of negligence, breach of warranty, and strict liability, may be proven through circumstantial evidence, by showing that the vehicle's transmission and gearshift did not perform as intended and by excluding all causes of the accident not attributable to [defendants'] conduct); Hunter v. Ford Motor Co., 37 A.D.2d 335, 325 N.Y.S.2d 469, 471 (3d Dep't 1971) ([A]lthough in both actions in negligence and breach of warranty a plaintiff must come forward with evidence of a defect, existence of the causative defect is provable by circumstantial evidence. The precise defect need not be named and proved; it is sufficient if the cumulation of circumstances and inferences... supports the conclusion that there was a defect which caused the accident.); see also Sanders v. Quikstak, Inc., 889 F.Supp. 128, 131 (S.D.N.Y.1995) (citing Halloran in stating that to prove negligence, breach of warranty, and strict products liability under New York law, [d]espite an absence of proof of any specific defect in a product, a jury may infer that an accident occurred because of a defect when the plaintiff has proven that the product did not perform as intended and has excluded all causes of the accident not attributable to the defendant). 6 32
33 In granting Ford's motion for judgment as a matter of law, the district court relied upon the fact that Jarvis's expert had not established that the cruise control malfunctions he outlined were substantially likely to occur or, even assuming they did, that the mechanical features of the car would not have overcome the resulting wide open throttle condition. Jarvis v. Ford Motor Co., 69 F.Supp.2d 582, 599 (S.D.N.Y.1999). The court stated that Jarvis has offered no evidence to suggest how frequently the design defect is likely to occur, id., or any evidence that the attenuated chain of events necessary to result in an accident is likely to occur, let alone with significant regularity. Id. at 600. Concerning the need for scientific proof of a defect, the court found that it is not 34 sufficient for plaintiff to simply define away the need to present proof of its theory by suggesting that there will be no trace of the electrical events posited.. . . [I]n the absence of evidence, plaintiff cannot meet its burden to establish that its version of events is more probable than not. It is, in part, because of the necessity of an expert's explanation for the events at issue that we find it unreasonable to rely on the testimony of five other individuals who reported experiencing sudden accelerations in Ford Aerostars. . ., as well as an even greater number of complaints (totaling 560) investigated by Ford and catalogued ... [of] alleged unintended acceleration incidents . . ., as an adequate substitute for the presentation of a viable expert explanation of this incident .... In reaching this conclusion, we do not mean to suggest that similar act evidence may not be significant in other design defect cases or that the testimony of other incidents could not have been probative of plaintiff's credibility had plaintiff surpassed her initial hurdle of establishing that the defect was more than theoretical. 35 Id. at 601 n. 41.
36 The district court erred in requiring proof of a specific defect in the Aerostar's cruise control and in not considering Jarvis's circumstantial evidence of a defect. The malfunction in the design of the Aerostar that Jarvis has alleged is that it suddenly accelerated, opening full throttle without Jarvis depressing the accelerator pedal, and that her efforts to stop the vehicle by pumping the brakes were unavailing. If Jarvis's six-day-old Aerostar performed in this manner, a jury could reasonably conclude that it was defective when put on the market by Ford, and that the defect made it reasonably certain that the vehicle would be dangerous when put to normal use, as required by the first two elements of the jury charge regarding negligent design. Although Ford argued that the accident was caused instead by driver error, this theory would have been rejected if the jury had believed Jarvis's testimony that she had her feet on the brake and not on the accelerator, as Ford claimed. The final element of the negligence charge asking whether Ford breached its duty of care, required a balancing of the likelihood of harm, and the gravity of harm if it happens, against the burden of the precaution which would be effective to avoid the harm. Micallef, 384 N.Y.S.2d 115, 348 N.E.2d at 577. Construing the evidence in Jarvis's favor and crediting her version of events, a reasonable jury could find that Ford breached its duty of care. Even accepting as true that sudden acceleration in the 1991 Aerostar would occur, at most, very infrequently when measured against all Aerostar ignition starts, the consequences of sudden acceleration could easily be catastrophic, the design of which Jarvis complains has no particular utility to balance its potential for harm, and, according to Jarvis's expert, the malfunction in the cruise control could be avoided by an inexpensive switch that would shut off power to the cruise control when not in use. 37 A different case would be presented if Jarvis had been found unconscious in her overturned Aerostar, with no memory of or witnesses to the accident. In such a case, Jarvis would have to rely more heavily upon scientific evidence to demonstrate that the accident was caused by sudden acceleration. Our decision in Fane v. Zimmer, Inc., 927 F.2d 124 (2d Cir.1991), relied upon by the district court, makes this precise distinction. The plaintiff in Fane needed to show, at the very least, that the plaintiff's internal injuries occurred after a medical device implanted in the plaintiff's hip broke. Id. at 131. Unlike Jarvis's in accident, we noted in Fane that no one observed the accident in this case; and no one knows for sure how it happened. Id. Here, Jarvis offered testimony which a reasonable jury could believe to the effect that the Aerostar's sudden acceleration, not driver error, was the cause of her accident. 7
38 The district court also found that, apart from the issue of scientific evidence of a specific defect, there is such an overwhelming amount of evidence in favor of the defendant that reasonable and fair minded persons could not arrive at a verdict in favor of Jarvis. Jarvis, 69 F.Supp.2d at 602. In support of this conclusion, the district court stated that testimony from Jarvis's own witnesses demonstrat[ed] essentially ... that the July 14, 1991 incident was not the result of plaintiff's sudden acceleration theory. Id. Specifically, the district court emphasized that (1) Jarvis offered no physical evidence of either the specific defect in the cruise control mechanism or of a defect in the dump valve, and (2) Sero's theory that Jarvis's pumping of the brakes contributed to the accident was undermined by testimony by Jarvis's expert Pope. 39 Even though, as discussed above, the law does not require Jarvis to prove what specific defect caused the cruise control to malfunction, Ford conceivably could have offered scientific proof that the cruise control would not have malfunctioned in the manner alleged that so outweighed Jarvis's proof that it malfunctioned as to warrant judgment as a matter of law for Ford. This is not such a case. To explain why, we first examine the evidentiary value of Sero's theory and then address particular issues of fact that the district court resolved in favor of Ford but that we conclude were left open by the evidence and, accordingly, were matters for the jury to decide. 40
41 In its Daubert hearing, the district court fully analyzed Sero's proposed testimony under the factors established by the Supreme Court and found the testimony admissible. 8 The jury was entitled to consider this evidence, even if it did not conclusively demonstrate — as it need not — what specific defect caused the Aerostar's cruise control to malfunction. The district court did not strike the Daubert testimony before evaluating Ford's motion for judgment as a matter of law or recant its Daubert findings in ultimately granting that motion. Nor has Ford appealed the results of the Daubert hearing. So we need not rule on the district court's Daubert findings. However, we briefly review those findings, as they help to illustrate the role of Sero's testimony within Jarvis's case presented at trial. 42 Under the first Daubert factor, the court found that Sero has sufficiently tested and replicated the theory of two independent faults — one of the ground of the cruise control servo and another of the vent and/or vac wires. Jarvis, 1999 WL 461813, at . The court was satisfied that Sero's findings have been sufficiently verified through repeated tests on a model that accurately reflects the relevant electrical components on the 1991 Ford Aerostar. Id. The court further noted that Ford did not dispute that Sero's manipulation of the cruise control components can result in sudden, unintended acceleration, and argued only that Sero had never observed the same results in the real world. Id. Meanwhile, the court was careful to exclude another of Sero's theories that did not satisfy this first prong of the Daubert test. Id. at -5. 43 As to the second Daubert factor, the court held that even though Sero's findings had been neither published nor peer reviewed, this alone was not a sufficient reason to exclude Sero's testimony. Id. at . 9 The district court dismissed criticisms under the third Daubert factor that these theories had not been tested for their rate of error. In this regard, the court stated that Sero was not proposing to testify as to the likelihood that a malfunction in the cruise control caused [Jarvis's] accident. Rather, the court pointed out: 44 Sero is proposing to testify that the design of the 1991 Aerostar makes it physically possible for this malfunction to occur, and wishes to demonstrate to the jury how it can happen. Plaintiff presumably will seek to establish specific causation either through its accident reconstructionist or by attempting to draw inferences from the circumstantial evidence. 45 Unlike the more typical case in which an expert testifies to specific causation and uses a statistical sampling method to determine the likelihood of the event occurring in the particular case, here plaintiff's expert proposes to testify about general causation and relies on modeling and a fault analysis to demonstrate known physical and electrical principles.... 46 Defendant's dispute with Sero's ... findings lies not in their possibility, but in the likelihood that such conditions will occur in the real world..... Disputes over the conclusions that can be drawn from the results of Sero's modeling analysis is properly the province of the jury. 47 Id. at -7. 48 Turning to the fourth Daubert factor, which tests the degree to which the expert's technique has been generally accepted in the scientific community, the district court observed that Ford does not specifically challenge Sero's methodology. Id. at . Sero claimed to have used failure mode analysis on the 1991 Ford Aerostar cruise control system, a standard approach to evaluating the design of a component. Id. The district court concluded that Ford has not asserted that Sero's approach lacks support in the engineering community and we have no reason to believe such a technique is unreliable. Id. 49 The court next addressed a 1989 report prepared by the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) finding that the occurrence of the two independent electrical failures, as suggested by Sero, is virtually impossible. Id. at . The court noted that the NHTSA may not have recognized that sudden acceleration could be caused, under Sero's theories, from a dead stop, and that because the court did not have further evidence as to the basis of the NHTSA's conclusions, it would not exclude Sero's testimony solely on the basis of the contrary conclusion reached by the NHTSA. Id. at . 50 The court recognized that Jarvis's inability to offer physical evidence from the accident in support of the specific defects Sero discussed could affect the weight the jury gave to these theories. The court concluded, however, that this fact did not affect the admissibility of these theories to explain the specific defect that caused Jarvis's Aerostar to accelerate because, it is basic ... to Sero's theory that there will be no physical evidence that the electrical events occurred. Jarvis, 69 F.Supp.2d at 595. 10 What weight should be given to this evidence remained for the jury to decide. 51
52 Jarvis also presented evidence at trial that sudden acceleration not only would open the throttle to her Aerostar but also would decrease significantly her ability to restrain the vehicle by pumping the brakes. Pope, Jarvis's expert, testified that the Aerostar had vacuum power brakes that draw their vacuum from the engine. When accelerating at full throttle, Pope testified, the engine does not create the normal vacuum that assists in braking. An additional reservoir of vacuum could be depleted by pumping the brakes, as Jarvis testified she did in this case. The expert concluded that under those circumstances []it will feel to a person like they've lost their brakes, they're pushing and nothing is happening. 53 Calling this theory into question when ruling on Ford's motion for judgment as a matter of law, the district court pointed to testimony by Pope on cross-examination acknowledging that, assuming that the dump valve was working properly and that it would engage when the brake pedal was depressed approximately half an inch, in a normal pumping phase, the dump valve is always going to be open, so you are never going to be out of vacuum assist. Jarvis, 69 F.Supp.2d at 598. Construing the evidence in the light most favorable to Jarvis, Pope's statement does not establish whether he was referring to a single depression of the brake pedal or how long he assumed the pedal was depressed. These additional factors are crucial for determining when Jarvis's brakes would exhaust the vacuum reservoir making it difficult to slow the vehicle. Admittedly, no record exists of how many times Jarvis pumped the brakes, how long each stroke lasted, or how far she depressed the pedal in each stroke. Such a record would allow a more exact analysis of how the depletion of the vacuum reservoir may have been counterbalanced by the engine replenishing the vacuum, if the dump valve were functioning properly and the sudden acceleration were interrupted every time the brake pedal was depressed. Given the absence of this information and the uncertainty as to the context of Pope's comment, we do not view this isolated portion of Pope's testimony as discrediting other testimony in the record concerning the detrimental effect of pumping the brakes on the ability to stop a vehicle accelerating at full throttle. 54
55 The district court also relied on a second statement by Pope as establishing that any sudden acceleration would have been prevented or terminated by the Aerostar's dump valve. Jarvis, 69 F.Supp.2d at 597-99. When read in context, this statement does not support the determinative weight assigned by the district court. The court called attention to the fact that Pope agreed that, assuming the dump valve was working properly, if the brakes were applied at all, the dump valve would have been open. This evidence, the district court noted, undermines plaintiff's own version of the accident, which was that she started the car with her foot on the brakes, and that with her foot on the brake, the car accelerated. Jarvis, 69 F.Supp.2d at 597. In his testimony, however, Pope qualified this statement as contingent upon the assumption that Jarvis, when starting the van, had depressed the brake pedal far enough to engage the brakes. The proceeding exchange during cross-examination provides the necessary background for his remarks. 56 Question: If [Jarvis] said she had her foot depressed on the brake and the vehicle took off as she pushed on the brake and the vehicle was at a standing stop, unless there was something wrong with the dump valve, do you agree that she was wrong on that? 57 Pope: She would have been pushing not with her full might at that point? 58 Question: I'm sorry? 59 Pope: I don't believe she was pushing with all her effort at that point. The vehicle would have moved forward, yes. 60 Question: Sir, if the brakes were applied at all, the dump valve would have been open, wouldn't it? 61 Pope: Yes. 62 A fact finder could reasonably conclude from this exchange that Pope was attempting to distinguish between two types of depression of the brake pedal. Jarvis testified that she put her [r]ight foot lightly on the brake as she started the engine. If Jarvis had not depressed the brake pedal far enough, the dump valve might not have opened, and the Aerostar could have accelerated suddenly as Jarvis claimed. This light application of the brakes is distinguished in Jarvis's testimony from her later act of placing both feet on the brake pedal and depressing it with considerable force after the vehicle began to accelerate, an action that would have opened the dump valve, assuming that it was functioning properly. 63 The district court also noted that Pope had agreed on cross-examination that if Jarvis was pumping the brake under ordinary pumping, the dump valve would have remained open, and the vehicle would have stopped. Jarvis, 69 F.Supp.2d at 598. On this basis, the court concluded that Pope's testimony ... totally undermined Sero's hypothesis that this accident occurred because plaintiff pumped the brakes rather than applying steady pressure. Id. As in Pope's testimony discussed above concerning the vacuum reservoir, Pope was not asked to comment on the interaction between a properly functioning dump valve, the decrease in vacuum pressure when pumping the brakes, and the sudden acceleration described by Sero. The parties appear to agree that every time the brake pedal was released in the pumping action even a properly functioning dump valve would close and allow the Aerostar suddenly to accelerate anew under Sero's theory. 64 Finally, as previously emphasized, all of this testimony concerning the dump valve presupposes that it was functioning properly at the time of Jarvis's accident. If the dump valve had malfunctioned, the sudden acceleration described by Sero would have continued, despite Jarvis's depressing the brake pedal, even with both feet applying considerable force. DeClercq, Ford's expert, testified that he tested the dump valve after the accident and found that it functioned properly at that time. Undeveloped in the record, however, is discussion of the possibility that a defect in the dump valve could cause it to malfunction in a manner that would not have been evident upon DeClercq's later examination. 65 Examining the record as a whole, and construing the evidence in the light most favorable to Jarvis, we cannot say, as a matter of law, that the fact that the Aerostar was equipped with a dump valve discredits Sero's testimony in the manner found by the district court. 66
67 The district court also found that Ford had proffered an alternative scenario that was consistent with the evidence offered by third parties and received support from plaintiff's own witness Pope and the NHTSA governmental study. Jarvis, 69 F.Supp.2d at 602. Ford's scenario suggests that Jarvis, unfamiliar with her new minivan, started it 68 unaware that her father had set the parking brake..., put her foot on the accelerator thinking it to be on the brake, and was startled when the engine started to race against the force of the parking brake. Continuing to believe that her foot was on the brake and not on the accelerator, plaintiff was unable to stop the car. 69 Id. 70 The record as a whole, viewed in the light most favorable to Jarvis, supplies little evidence to support Ford's theory of the accident. While we agree that some evidence in the record is consistent with this theory, judgment as a matter of law demands far more. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(a) (requiring for judgment as a matter of law that there is no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find for [the non-moving] party on that issue). Balancing the evidence that supports Jarvis's sudden acceleration theory against the evidence that calls this theory into question, we do not find the evidence so favorable to Ford as to warrant judgment as a matter of law. To demonstrate this, we begin by analyzing the evidence that the district court collected in support of Ford's theory. 71 The Parking Brake. The district court stated that Jarvis's father testified that he set the parking brake. Jarvis, 69 F.Supp.2d at 602. This misconstrues the record. Jarvis's father, who had been the last one to use the van before the accident, testified that although it was his normal habit to put on the parking brake, particularly when it was on a slight incline, he had no memory of it as such in this case. When asked specifically whether he had set the brake before the accident, he answered, I'm not certain I put it in with the parking brake on. 72 The Brake Light. The district court indicated that Jarvis testified that she saw the word `brake' lighted on the dashboard, which according to Pope means that the parking brake is set. Id. at 603. This reading of the record fails to construe the facts in favor of Jarvis as required when ruling on a motion for judgment as a matter of law. Jarvis testified that she saw a white or light yellow light illuminated high on the left of the dashboard and stated, as I'm recalling[,] it said brake. Asked specifically if she had seen a red light illuminated on the panel from the beginning to the end of the incident, she answered no. Pope testified that the Aerostar had two instrument panel lights related to the braking system. The parking brake light, located on the right lower portion of the dash, was red and said brake. The rear anti-lock brake light, located on the upper left corner of the dash, was amber and would be illuminated for two seconds after the ignition is turned on and the van moves forward while the system reviews its components. Although Jarvis's statement that the light said brake is consistent with the parking brake being set, the placement of the light, its color, and the fact that it was not illuminated during the course of the entire incident all indicate that Jarvis saw the rear anti-lock brake light, not the parking brake light, illuminated. 73 The Speedometer. The district court noted that the fact that Jarvis saw the speedometer going up was inconsistent with DeClercq's testimony that a loose ground wire — required under Sero's theories — would have caused the speedometer to read zero during the sudden acceleration. Id. Jarvis did not present any evidence to rebut DeClercq's claim on this matter. 74 The Rear Brake Lights. The court also called attention to Joanne Valentine-Simonian's testimony that she saw no rear brake lights illuminated on plaintiff's vehicle when it passed her. Id. This statement fails to provide the context for Valentine-Simonian's statement, which affects its reliability. Valentine-Simonian testified that she ran toward the woods when she saw the Aerostar moving quickly down the road in her direction and then looked back to see the van pass, acknowledging that she had jumped out of the way. 75 The Absence of Skid Marks. A police officer investigating the accident testified that he saw no skid marks on the gravel driveway. This evidence, according to the district court, showed that Jarvis had not placed her foot forcefully on the brake. Id. As discussed above, however, the depletion of the brake vacuum reservoir by Jarvis's pumping the brakes would have resulted in diminished braking power regardless of the force with which Jarvis depressed the brake pedal. Pope suggested that the depletion of the vacuum reservoir by Jarvis's pumping the brakes could explain in an absence of skid marks. Moreover, Pope testified that under Ford's theory that the parking brake was on and Jarvis had pumped the accelerator instead of the brake, [i]t's possible that [the Aerostar] would have left skid marks. The Engine Racing. The court observed that, according to Pope's testimony, if the parking brake were on, pumping the accelerator would have resulted in the engine racing sound that plaintiff and Valentine-Simonian reported. Id. While true, the sound of the engine racing is equally consistent with the sudden acceleration explained by Sero's theory. 76 On the same topic, the court noted that Pope agreed that the cessation of the revving sound described by Valentine-Simonian could have indicated that plaintiff had taken her foot off the accelerator . . ., which would also explain the slowing of the vehicle. Id. Again, while true, the same evidence is equally consistent with Jarvis's testimony that she was pumping the brake. 77 Jarvis's Ability to Stop the Aerostar. The district court claimed that the testimony supported the conclusion that Jarvis would have been able to stop the Aerostar if she had pumped the brakes. Id. As discussed above, the pumping action itself could have depleted the vacuum reservoir, diminishing Jarvis's ability to stop the vehicle. 78 The Park Mechanism. The district court also noted Jarvis's testimony that she recalled the Aerostar being in park when it accelerated. Id. at 597 n. 31. All parties agree, however, that the Aerostar did accelerate. Therefore, either Jarvis was mistaken that the Aerostar was in park when it accelerated, or the park mechanism failed. Either way, the reason for the acceleration and Jarvis's inability to stop the Aerostar is unaffected. Furthermore, Ford's explanation for the accident would be similarly undermined by testimony that the Aerostar was in park when it accelerated, rendering this issue even less significant. 79 The NHTSA Report. Finally, the district court stated that [t]he reasonableness of Ford's position was supported, both generally and in certain specifics by the NHTSA report. Id. We agree, however, with the district court's earlier conclusion following the Daubert hearing that differing conclusions in the NHTSA report did not affect the admissibility of Sero's theories to prove the cause of Jarvis's accident. Jarvis, 1999 WL 461813, at . The weight given to conclusions in the NHTSA report, as compared to those of Sero, was a matter for the jury to decide. 80 The district court, meanwhile, failed to discuss the evidence in the record that weighs heavily against Ford's theory of driver error. Ford's theory that Jarvis had the parking brake on and applied her foot to the accelerator instead of the brake is irreconcilable with Jarvis's testimony that she began with her foot lightly on the brake and that the Aerostar's acceleration was sudden. If her foot was placed lightly on the accelerator instead of the brake, and the parking brake were on, the Aerostar would have accelerated slowly, if at all. Jarvis on the other hand, testified that the Aerostar took off. Another weakness of Ford's theory is that it assumes driver error not only as to which pedal Jarvis depressed but also as to the effect of each stroke of the pedal. Under Ford's theory, Jarvis would have felt the Aerostar accelerate with each application of the pedal, and slow each time she lifted her foot from the pedal. Ford's theory asks us to believe that Jarvis repeatedly applied force to the pedal without understanding the effect of her actions. Finally, Ford's theory is unable to account for Jarvis's claim that she depressed the pedal with both feet. As part of the accident reconstruction, Jarvis was asked to sit in the Aerostar and to place both feet on the accelerator. She was able to do so only by placing one foot on top of the other. When asked to do the same with the brake pedal, she found that it accommodated both feet. The jury viewed photos taken for purposes of this litigation showing Jarvis sitting in the Aerostar at the accident site. The photos also demonstrated that, when asked to put both feet on the accelerator, Jarvis had one foot placed over the other. 81 In sum, we find the ultimate issue of Ford's negligence to be a jury question. Ford did not present evidence that conclusively demonstrated, as a matter of law, that Jarvis's accident did not occur because of a defect in the Aerostar's cruise control mechanism. Jarvis's testimony, the testimony of other Aerostar owners who had similar experiences, and evidence of hundreds of other reported cases of sudden acceleration in Aerostars, combined with an expert's scientific explanation of how the cruise control may have malfunctioned and of an inexpensive remedy, were all found admissible by the district court. Together, this evidence provided the jury with a sufficient evidentiary basis to reasonably conclude that the cruise control mechanism had been defectively designed.