Opinion ID: 3049898
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Defective Product

Text: In 1991, Ford began to produce model year 1992 F-series pickup trucks using a self-adjusting parking brake designed and manufactured in the 1980s by the Orscheln Company. Although conventional brakes employ a cable that becomes WHITE v. FORD MOTOR CO. 10999 loose over time and therefore must be adjusted periodically to maintain tension, Orscheln’s self-adjusting brake kept the cable tight, even as the vehicle aged. The brake used a selfadjusting ratchet wheel and a “pawl,” which is a “hinged or pivoted finger that sticks into a tooth of the ratchet wheel.” White I, 312 F.3d at 1002-03. A driver would engage the brake by depressing the pedal, setting the mechanism in gear until the pawl tooth fit in between two of the ratchet teeth. By 1990, Ford had preproduction reports of potential problems with the Orscheln brake, and by the time the F-series trucks were in production, the reports had increased. For example, some customers reported that sometimes the parking brake did not engage and instead pressed freely down to the floor, while other customers reported that their trucks rolled despite the parking brake being engaged. Id. at 1003. Ford told Orscheln to identify and fix the problem, and in the fall of 1992, the company assigned Timothy Rakowicz, a young Ford engineer, to assist in the investigation. By November 1992, Ford and Orscheln discovered that sometimes the pawl tooth would skip over the tops of the ratchet wheel teeth instead of engaging in one of the gaps. Ford called this the “skip-through-on-apply” or “skip out” problem. Id. In February 1993, Orscheln testing showed that if the pawl tooth engaged a ratchet tooth at its tip, rather than firmly engaging between the two teeth, the driver would feel resistance when pressing the brake pedal even though the pawl tooth was in fact resting on a ratchet tooth tip. Testing also showed that an outside force on the vehicle could disturb the equilibrium and cause the brake to disengage, allowing the vehicle to roll. Ford referred to the tip-on-tip condition as “spontaneous disengagement,” id. at 1007, or self-release, and the corresponding effect on the vehicle as “rollaway,” id. at 1003. Rakowicz included Orscheln’s test results in a February 22, 1993 draft paper to Ford’s Critical Product Problem Review 11000 WHITE v. FORD MOTOR CO. Group (CPPRG), a committee whose job was to assist with Ford’s investigation of potential safety problems. In the paper, titled “F-Series Parking Brake Control Self Releasing Field Campaign and Owner Notification Paper,” Rakowicz wrote that “the parking brake control will intermittently self release after pedal apply causing a decrease in pressure to the rear brakes.”1 Rakowicz defined the “root cause of the concern” as a “load carrying, ratchet tooth tip on tip condition,” and referring to tests three days earlier, wrote that “[t]he condition has been duplicated during parking brake hill hold testing on February 19, 1993 at the supplier facility using a part removed from a problem vehicle.”2 Rakowicz wrote that a customer with a brake assembly affected with this condition “would experience the following affects [sic]”:
mal.
arbitrary amount of time, the parking brake control will self release. A popping noise will be heard if the customer is within hearing distance. The parking brake pedal will remain in approximately the same position it was applied to.
potentially roll down the incline (emphasis added). Rakowicz believed that the tip-on-tip condition warranted a recall. At retrial, he testified that he was personally aware of 22 reported rollaways when he wrote his report.3 However, 1 Rakowicz also testified at the second trial that a “field campaign refers to recall,” and that “self-releasing refers to spontaneous disengagement.” 2 At the retrial, Rakowicz testified that this paper reflected a “misunderstanding” of the test results, and that he came to understand that the tests did not show spontaneous disengagement. But Rakowicz did not testify to such a misunderstanding in either of two depositions or at the first trial. 3 Rakowicz also acknowledged that, unbeknownst to him, Ford had additional reports of rollaways at the time. WHITE v. FORD MOTOR CO. 11001 more senior engineers at Ford disagreed with Rakowicz’s draft and required him to tone it down, concluding instead that the Orscheln test was not valid. Id. Thus, the CPPRG did not then or ever refer the matter to Ford’s Field Campaign Review Committee (FCRC), which made recall decisions. At the same time, Ford management worried about a recall and its potential cost. At a February 23, 1993 meeting of Ford and Orscheln personnel, a senior Ford engineer lamented that “this problem may cause serious financial ramifications for both companies with warrant recall.” A March 30, 1993 memo similarly referred to a full recall as the “worst case scenario.” The ultimate cost to recall 875,000 manual transmission vehicles was approximately $22 million. In March 1993, Orscheln proposed a solution for the skip out problem. The fix was a small plastic wedge, costing 15 cents to manufacture, which could be installed over the pawl to make sure it pressed down between the teeth instead of skipping over them. However, the wedge also disabled the self-adjusting feature of the brake and increased Ford’s cost. Id. at 1003-04. Meanwhile, the evidence of problems with the F-series parking brake increased, and in the same month (March 1993), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) became involved in the investigation, having received reports of rollaways. In May 1993, Ford disclosed to NHTSA 65 reports of either skip-through or rollaway. The agency requested additional information in September 1993, including complaints, testing documents and accident reports, which Ford provided in February 1994.4 In addition, the agency collected and inspected 10 parking brake assemblies from complainants, bench tested five of these assemblies and 4 In its response to NHTSA, Ford also reported that it had only one reported injury from rollaway. White I, 312 F.3d at 1004. However, evidence at the retrial showed that five injuries had been reported to Ford, with the fifth coming in September 1993. 11002 WHITE v. FORD MOTOR CO. tested three of them on a complaint vehicle. Although NHTSA was unable to detect a “spontaneous disengagement” malfunction in these specific assemblies, it did find that some of them experienced skip out.5 By August or September 1993, the plastic wedge was approved for use, and enough were manufactured for Ford to install them in all of the trucks on the road.6 Id. at 1003. But rather than recall the vehicles, Ford issued a Technical Service Bulletin to dealers on November 10, 1993, making the wedge available for any vehicle owner who complained about a problem with skip out. Id. at 1004. The bulletin did not mention spontaneous disengagement or rollaway. In mid-1994, NHTSA began to pressure Ford to conduct a recall and install the wedge as a precautionary measure. On August 30, 1994, and in response to NHTSA’s urging, Ford informed the agency that it had decided to recall 884,400 manual transmission vehicles — which included 1992 through 1994 F-series pickup trucks — “rather than engag[e] in a protracted dispute with the agency.” In its letter to the agency, Ford stated that “[a]lthough all of the vehicles are potentially susceptible to the condition arising, less than one percent” — or 8,440 vehicles — “are expected to exhibit it, 5 Specifically, NHTSA observed 15 malfunctions during the bench tests of the five parking brake assemblies, where the assemblies were cycled 9,400 times. Fourteen of these malfunctions were of the skip out type, while the other was a failure-to-engage. On the vehicle tests, three parking brake assemblies were cycled almost 800 times, resulting in seven malfunctions, one of which was a skip out. The agency also observed additional skip out malfunctions on the vehicle for two of the three complaint parking brake assemblies during other tests. 6 Also by this time, Orscheln had proposed a design change for future vehicles referred to as a “cam-in,” which prevented skip out and the tipon-tip condition while also maintaining the self-adjusting feature. In late 1993, Ford authorized the use of the cam-in on future models. Ford was thus left to decide whether to correct the problem in vehicles that would be manufactured or sold prior to the availability of the cam-in and whether to recall vehicles already on the road. WHITE v. FORD MOTOR CO. 11003 and those which do . . . are expected to do so on an intermittent basis.” In describing the problem, Ford noted that it “may occur occasionally when the parking brake control self-adjust pawl lines up in a tip-to-tip relationship with the self-adjust ratchet,” explaining that “[i]f this occurs, the pawl may skip over one or more teeth in the ratchet during parking brake application.” Ford further informed the agency of 44 reports of “unattended vehicle[s] roll[ing] and result[ing] in property damage,” one of which alleged that an injury had occurred. However, the Whites proved at retrial that Ford knew of at least eight injuries and that it had received reports of over 100 rollaways at the time it submitted its letter to NHTSA. In November 1994, Ford provided NHTSA with its proposed recall notice, which stated: “During rapid pedal application of the parking brake, the pedal may go to the floor with little or no effort. Should this occur, the parking brake system may not achieve full tension, potentially resulting in parking brake ineffectiveness, or diminished effectiveness.” NHTSA acknowledged receipt of the recall notice and described the defect as: “The parking brake control self-adjust pawl does not line up properly with the self-adjust ratchet allowing the pawl to skip over one or more teeth in the ratchet. The parking brake will not hold the vehicle allowing the vehicle to roll freely.” The agency, however, did not ask Ford to make any changes to its notice. On December 16, 1994, Ford issued its recall notice to vehicle owners.7