Opinion ID: 3049898
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Accident, First Trial and First Appeal

Text: On October 9, 1994, two months before Ford issued its recall, Jimmie White parked his company’s 1993 Ford F-350 pickup truck facing downhill in his sloped driveway. Mr. 7 As of January 2004, 20 percent of owners had not taken in their vehicles for installation of the wedge. In addition, Rakowicz testified at retrial that Americans still do not know that the vehicles were recalled for the reason of rollaway. 11004 WHITE v. FORD MOTOR CO. White put the truck into first gear, set the parking brake by stepping on the brake pedal and went inside the home. The Whites’ three-year-old son, Walter, was playing unsupervised in the front yard, with Mrs. White occasionally checking on him through the window. Walter climbed into the vehicle’s cab, and according to the Whites, knocked the gearshift into neutral. When the parking brake did not hold, the truck started to roll and Walter fell or climbed out of it. Tragically, the truck’s rear dual wheels rolled over and crushed the boy’s body. Id. at 1002. The truck that killed Walter was built in April 1993 and sold to Jimmie White’s employer on September 22, 1993. By the time of the sale of that vehicle, it was clear to Ford that there was a potential rollaway problem. Id. at 1004. Although Ford agreed to conduct a recall before the date of the accident, Ford did not begin issuing the recall notice to owners until December 1994, two months after Walter’s death. Moreover, Mr. White’s employer did not receive a recall notice until March 1995, 25 months after Rakowicz had recommended a recall and seven months after Ford told NHTSA it would do so. Thus, as we stated in White I, “the accident happened after the brake problem was discovered and figured out, after the technical bulletin to dealers had gone out, and after Ford had decided to recall the trucks to install the fix, but before the recall notices or any warnings to ultimate consumers were sent out.” Id. The Whites brought a products liability action under Nevada law against Ford and Orscheln, alleging strict product liability (defective design), negligence, failure to warn, intentional misrepresentation and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Their theory of the case was that the parking brake failed to engage, allowing the truck to roll, and that Ford knew the brake was prone to failure but refused to recall it or warn consumers of the danger. Id. at 1002. During the 1998 trial, Orscheln settled with the Whites and the case went to verdict against Ford. Id. The jury found that WHITE v. FORD MOTOR CO. 11005 the brake was “defective in design,” but that this design defect did not proximately cause the accident. Rather, the jury found that the brake was “defective for Ford’s failure to warn,” that Ford was negligent with respect to the brake and that Ford had thereby proximately caused Walter’s death. The jury also found the Whites 40 percent contributorily negligent. Finally, the jury found Ford liable for negligent infliction of emotional distress and intentional misrepresentation of the safety of the vehicle, and found by clear and convincing evidence that “ ‘Ford acted with oppression or malice in the conduct’ ” that caused Walter’s death. Id. at 1012 (quoting the jury questionnaire). The jury returned a verdict against Ford for $2,305,435 in compensatory damages — $1,150,000 to each parent for emotional distress and $5,434.57 to Walter’s estate for funeral expenses — and $150,884,400 in punitive damages. The district court found that the punitive damages award was constitutionally excessive and therefore remitted it to $69,163,037.10 — 30 times the compensatory award — on the theory that the largest punitive damages award the Nevada courts had approved was 30 times the compensatory damages. Id. at 1002; see also id. at 1029 (Graber, J., dissenting). The parties then cross-appealed. In White I, this court unanimously affirmed the first jury’s compensatory and punitive liability findings. With respect to punitive damages, it held that the evidence was sufficient to support the following conclusions, which in turn were sufficient under Nevada law to support a punitive damages award:
function] and let a pickup truck roll away, didn’t fix it, didn’t recall it, and didn’t warn drivers of the trucks, all prior to the White accident”;
could result in a rollaway, and failed to warn people driving pickup trucks about the brake in conscious disregard of their safety (that is, knowing that some11006 WHITE v. FORD MOTOR CO. one could be injured or killed and deliberately failing to warn)”;
problem and the fix for it, Ford covered it up with a euphemistic notice to dealers, rather than consumers, instead of a plain warning and immediate recall”;
the parking brake with his foot and felt no resistance, and rollaway, where the parking brake seemed to engage but didn’t prevent the truck from rolling away . . . . were both the same thing, failure of the pawl to drop properly between the teeth of the ratchet wheel”; and
rolling down hills without drivers behind the wheel, it was obvious that someone was likely to be killed if Ford didn’t do something about it.” Id. at 1010 (majority opinion). However, a majority of the panel ultimately reversed the punitive damages award because the district court’s instructions “unconstitutionally allowed a Nevada jury to punish Ford for out-of-state conduct.” Id. at 1020. The majority held that “the jury must be limited to punitive damages reasonably required to vindicate Nevada’s legitimate interests in punishment and deterrence, if any, and prohibited from imposing punitive damages to protect people or punish harm outside of Nevada.” Id. It therefore remanded for a new trial on punitive damages without addressing whether the original or remitted amount of punitive damages was unconstitutionally excessive. See id. at 1016, 1020.