Opinion ID: 468767
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: evidence deemed unduly prejudicial

Text: 142 An additional ground for the exclusion of much evidence by the trial court was that its likely impact on the jury would be unduly prejudicial in relation to its probative value. Federal Rule of Evidence 403 provides: Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence. The Advisory Committee note to Rule 403 adds that evidence tending to induc[e] decision on a purely emotional basis is properly excludable on this basis. Photographs of the victim bleeding profusely are classic examples of such evidence. 143 In this case, however, a considerable amount of evidence of a much more cerebral character was excluded on a Rule 403 rationale. For example, as an additional ground for excluding some documents post-dating one of the products, the trial court stated: 144 I am not going to admit them because they in many instances have significant potential for prejudice, and some of them, even with that kind of foundation [showing defendants were aware of a safer product at time of manufacture], I doubt that I would admit. 145 For example, Number 157 is apparently an interoffice memo to Mr. F.A. LePage from M. DiFederico dated May 31, 1979 entitled Proposed Rulemaking, Reference Multiple-piece Rims. In the second paragraph of that memo, he says, I honestly believe that multiple-piece rims will be outlawed in the future. It seems to me that the business-records exception will swallow the hearsay rule if I can allow someone to put in any opinion they have by putting it down on paper and putting it in a file somewhere. 146 15 Rec. at 739; see also id. at 916. Plaintiff offered to read Mr. DiFederico's deposition and his testimony concerning the document as foundation, and alternatively offered it as an admission against interest--all to no avail. Id. at 739-41. 147 Plaintiff's Exhibit 157 is an inter-office memo from Mario DiFederico, then the President of Firestone, to one of his top executives. It is entitled Proposed Rule Making Reference Multi-Piece Rims and states in part: 148 I honestly believe that multi-piece rims will be outlawed in the future. My belief in this statement is reinforced by the fact that an alternative is readily available and, therefore, the standard will not necessarily inconvenience either the manufacturer or the consumer. This naturally wouldn't hurt us, if it were done over a period of time. 149 While this information is no doubt prejudicial to Firestone's cause, it does not strike us as likely to induce an emotional response on the part of the jury, unless righteous indignation be classed as such. On the contrary, DiFederico's memo reveals a very rational and calculated approach to corporate decision-making that a jury should have no difficulty understanding and evaluating. If the jury's reaction is not a favorable one, then Firestone and DiFederico have only themselves to blame. 16 150 Equally misplaced in this case is the trial court's concern that the business records exception will swallow the hearsay rule if any opinion can be admitted because someone ... put[s] it down on paper and put[s] it in a file somewhere. 15 Rec. at 739. DiFederico's deposition reveals that he is no ordinary someone employed by Firestone. At the time of writing the memo to LePage he had been President of the company for some three years. DiFederico Dep. at 4. Prior to that he had worked his way up the corporate ladder during a 32 1/2 year career at Firestone, much of which involved work on the design, testing, and production of truck wheel rims. Id. at 10, 12. 17 Perhaps more than anyone else, then, Mr. DiFederico embodied Firestone's corporate decision to manufacture and distribute multi-piece rims of the sort at issue here. 151 In proscribing by order in limine Any statement during opening argument including references to any 'misrepresentations' or 'dishonesty' of the defendants or the use of terms such as the 'widow maker', the 'suicide wheel' or the 'killer wheel' or the use of other such inflammatory language, the trial court may unwittingly have allowed Firestone to indulge in some rather cynical and inconsistent changes of position. As noted previously, in 1958 the company proudly sent to its district managers, territory salesmen, and store managers copies of an article by Rube Hedlund, entitled Tubeless Tires: A Progress Report, for use in their marketing efforts. Plaintiff's Exhibit 18. (This exhibit was excluded; see 15 Rec. at 923.) The cover letter urged the salesmen to use all the facts at your command to sell more tires at a better price, and promised that [b]y reviewing this article, we are sure you will be able to intelligently answer any tubeless tire questions that these prospective tire buyers might ask. Id. Both the cover letter and the article itself make prominent mention of the fact that the article was based on statistics supplied by Firestone. 152 Under the heading Truck Tubeless the article states: 153 If we want one good reason for pushing and endorsing tubeless truck tires, that service court death trap of yours is a simple answer. 154 We have had one death and several bad accidents in Chicago, due to what I call the KILLER locking rings used on tubed truck tires--which involve 6 separate parts. A tubeless truck tire and wheel assembly only has 2 parts: the tire and the one-piece drop center rim. 155 Id. The final three paragraphs of the article read as follows: 156 At your next meeting of your salesmen, service employees, etc., go over the facts pointed out in this article, and be sure to include the boys who change the tires--as they may not be with you long, or might be hospitalized handling those KILLER RINGS. 157 You actually are the # 1 Safety Director in your community, so let's stand up and be counted. 158 I'm so stirred up that it would please me no end if states would pass laws making it illegal to drive with tubed tires. That's how serious I personally feel about our present opportunity and obligation to America's motorists and truckers. 159 A decade later, Firestone was still avidly cultivating its relationship with Hedlund, as indicated by a July 5, 1968, Firestone memo entitled Rube Hedlund's Interest in Safety of Loose Flange Rim, which states in part: 160 Mr. Hedlund was one of the Press people at our recent Ft. Stockton Show on the LXX tire and wheel. 161 In a recent telephone conversation with him, he indicated that he was concerned about the lack of safety with loose flange rims, and cited one in the Chicago area which he knew would be the subject of a suit. He would like for somebody to drop around and talk with him about what might be done to improve the safety of rims of this type. I told him that the best thing we knew was to use tubeless tires on 1-piece drop center rims. 162 Plaintiff's Exhibit 30. (This exhibit was also excluded; see 15 Rec. at 923.) 163 In light of the foregoing, we are forced to take a rather cynical view of Firestone's request for an order in limine, which was in fact adopted by the court, proscribing as inflammatory the very language it had given its strongest possible institutional support to for years. Apparently, such terms and descriptions are inflammatory and unduly prejudicial only when they do not suit Firestone's purposes.IX. APPELLANT'S INHERENT DANGEROUSNESS THEORY 164 As explained in section III, supra, appellant's main contention is that the multi-piece wheels at issue here are unreasonably dangerous and thus defective even when their components are not mismatched. 18 This amounts to a claim that these multi-piece wheels are, so to speak, inherently dangerous (although we do not insist on that terminology.) Through the exclusion of evidence, and by the nature of the jury instructions, appellant was effectively prevented from pursuing this theory as well. 165 One of plaintiff's more eloquent and revealing exhibits would have been a memorandum authored by Robert M. Smith, Field Engineering and Technical Services Manager of Motor Wheel Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Goodyear. Smith's memorandum was prepared in 1973, see Smith Dep. at 133; the Goodyear component was manufactured in 1975. Smith's memorandum states in part: 166 We make a vital vehicle component which is a metal product with an undefined, but limited, useful life. The parts are inherently dangerous both on the highway and in the shop. When in use the dangerous condition is often masked. We know that these parts, especially old and damaged parts, sometimes catastrophically cease to serve their intended purpose. The time at which the usefulness ceases is dependent on chance, service procedures, maintenance, proper use of tools, and the use, abuse and misuse of which the parts have been subjected during their lifetime. When this happens, there may be a social loss and/or a property loss to the user, the involved user or to interested or disinterested bystanders and a financial loss to Goodyear. 167 In the eyes of the user community, the part is a secondary component. It is a sturdy, heavy part, made of steel. He, therefore, thinks it has an unlimited useful life. He does not recognize the possible dangers associated with the product. There is no significant economic reason to replace an old with a new part, other than tubeless, since there has been no improvement in the state of the art. 168 We have expert knowledge with regard to maintenance. Such information is published, but the information may not reach the involved user. If it does, he apparently doesn't see any reason for it. We do not follow up published information with personal contact to show how and the reason why. 169 We have expert knowledge with regard to serviceability (possibly negative type of knowledge). Such information is not detailed in our publications. The involved user cannot tell a good part from a bad. He doesn't believe the part won't function (provide support for the tire). He doesn't believe it will endanger him. Even if he feels it is unserviceable, he may not be able to replace it due to owner or his bosses instructions; or a replacement may not be available. He may be willing to take a chance because he can't afford a new rim, or he's in a hurry. 170 Plaintiff's Exhibit 68; see also Smith Dep. at 132-53. In the course of an extensive offer of proof covering some 15 pages in the record, see 13 Rec. at 426-41, plaintiff offered portions of Smith's deposition as foundation for the memorandum, offered the exhibit alternatively as an admission against Goodyear or a Goodyear business record, and even put a Motor Wheel engineer on the stand to substantiate portions of the exhibit. Still, the trial court declined to admit the document, stating as before: 171 I think the possibility of prejudice far outweighs any probative value the document has. The question we are here to decide is the question of particular components that are before the jury, not tire rims or multi-piece rims in general, and that's all this Plaintiff's Exhibit 68 discusses, is problems with tire rims in general. 172 Id. at 425-26; see also 15 Rec. at 916. 173 The trial court wholly failed to submit to the jury an issue on whether the wheel components were defectively designed because of a proclivity to explode, even when not mismatched, under normal or foreseeable use. Instead, appellant's design defect claims were reduced to the following interrogatory: 174 Do you find that, at the time it was manufactured, Firestone's 5? rim base could be mismatched with a Goodyear LW side ring and that such mismatch, if any, constituted a defective design? 175 Court's Charge to the Jury at 16, Question No. 1. (Question No. 3 simply mirrored No. 1 by transposing the names of the two components.) We note in passing that this interrogatory does not even do justice to appellant's mismatch theory since, consistent with the trial court's limited interpretation of that theory, the interrogatory asked the jury to determine only whether the individual component pieces could be mismatched with each other. 176 The trial court also submitted interrogatories on negligence in design to the jury, but these negligence interrogatories too were couched solely in terms of a mismatch theory. See id. at 29-30. Thus one whole causal explanation for the accident was left unexplored. 177 This case is a classic demonstration of two ships (lawyers for the plaintiff and the trial judge) passing in the night. The trial judge saw the case (ruled on the evidence and submitted it to the jury accordingly) as if the only issue were the mismatch of the Firestone 5? rim and the Goodyear LW ring. This was not plaintiff's contention--either as stated in the pretrial order or as argued throughout the trial. The central defect litigated in this case was the likelihood that multi-piece rims would not fit together: their proclivity for explosive disassembly. It was a danger that users could not detect or be expected to know of. Such a precise fit was required to avoid explosion that many circumstances could interfere with that precise fit. 19 The trial judge's misapprehension of plaintiff's case is obvious in all of his rulings and in the special interrogatory submission, where product liability is predicated on interrogatories as to whether the five degree base, or the LW ring, could be mismatched with the other and if that mismatch constituted a defective design. Plaintiff lost this case in the submission, objected to these issues, 20 and raises the point on appeal. 21 178 Through the exclusion of powerful and probative documentary evidence, and by the nature of the court's charge, appellant was effectively precluded from making her case to the jury on an essential theory of recovery. We conclude that this constitutes reversible error.