Opinion ID: 1462048
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Lipscomb v. Diamiani Distinguishable Precedent

Text: In granting the plaintiffs' motion to strike the ninth affirmative defense, the Superior Court stated: I find the facts of this case to be controlled by this Court's decision in Lipscomb v. Diamiani, Del.Super., 226 A.2d 914, 918 (1967), and for the reasons therein stated, will not permit GM to introduce into evidence the fact that Mrs. Wolhar was not wearing her seatbelt for the purpose of proving supervening cause. Lipscomb was a traditional automobile tort action between the occupants of two motor vehicles. The question of whether the plaintiffs' automobile was negligently designed by the manufacturer, in a manner that proximately caused enhanced injuries, was not an issue in Lipscomb. In fact, the first crashworthiness case is generally considered to be Larsen v. General Motors Corp., 391 F.2d 495 (8th Cir.1968). Larsen was decided one year after Lipscomb v. Diamiani, Del.Super., 226 A.2d 914 (1967). At issue in Lipscomb was whether the defendant driver's negligence was the proximate cause of the accident and consequential injuries sustained by the plaintiff. In Lipscomb, the defendant sought to admit evidence that the plaintiff was not wearing a seat belt to establish that the plaintiff had breached a common-law duty of due care and was therefore contributorily negligent. The Superior Court held that, because the question of automobile safety is comprehensively covered in Delaware statutory law, the legislative forum is the proper place to adopt a duty to wear a seat belt. Lipscomb v. Diamiani, 226 A.2d at 918. In this case, General Motors does not seek to admit seat belt evidence for the purpose of establishing and then demonstrating Mrs. Wolhar's breach of a common-law duty of care that requires a seat belt to be worn. General Motor wants to admit evidence of seat belt non-use to establish that its seat design did not proximately cause the injuries to Mrs. Wolhar. Consequently, the concerns expressed by the Superior Court in Lipscomb about creating a new common-law duty to wear seat belts, when plaintiffs bring a traditional negligence action against defendant motor vehicle drivers, are not implicated in a plaintiffs' crashworthiness claim against a manufacturer for enhanced injuries attributed to a negligently defective design.