Opinion ID: 177197
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exclusion of the Consumer Expectation Test

Text: We first address Appellants' argument that the district court erred by concluding that, once it found that this case involved primarily technical and scientific information, it was required to give only the risk-benefit instruction. In support of their allegation of legal error, Appellants hold up Biosera, Inc. v. Forma Scientific, Inc., 941 P.2d 284 (Colo.App.1996), for the proposition that the `consumer expectation' and `risk/benefit' tests are not mutually exclusive; both tests can be applied in the appropriate circumstances. Aplt. Opening Br. at 21. In Biosera, the Colorado Court of Appeals did appear to conclude that the two tests were not mutually exclusive. The BioSera court stated that we do not read Camacho as precluding application of the consumer expectation test in an appropriate case. 941 P.2d at 287. Rather, a court should review each [test] to determine if it is an appropriate standard for judging the dangerous nature of the product at issue. Id. The Biosera court concluded that the trial court did not err in instructing the jury on both tests. Id. The court reached this result because the issue before itwhether a health care company's freezer that stored blood products was defective because it could be turned off inadvertently by the slightest pressure on its power switchdid not involve the sort of technical, scientific information that would render use of the `consumer expectation' test inappropriate. Id. In light of Montag, however, we interpret Colorado law on this question as follows: where a case is defined primarily by technical and scientific information, the court must use only the risk-benefit test; it may not use the consumer expectation test, and it may not use both tests together. See Montag, 75 F.3d at 1419. Appellants seem to acknowledge that we closed the door to their argument in Montag when we held that claims involving primarily technical and scientific information require use of a risk-benefit test rather than a consumer expectations test. Id. (emphasis added). But Appellants would distinguish or ignore this precedent, arguing that the suggestion that Montag somehow ties this Court's hands and prevents it from considering the analysis in Biosera ... is flawed. Aplt. Reply Br. at 6 n.2. To the contrary, it is Appellants' argument that is flawed; Montag is controlling law. Appellants are correct to note, see id., that [t]he decision of an intermediate appellate state court is a datum for ascertaining state law which is not to be disregarded by a federal court unless it is convinced by other persuasive data that the highest court of the state would decide otherwise. Stickley v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 505 F.3d 1070, 1077 (10th Cir.2007) (quoting West v. Am. Tel. & Tel. Co., 311 U.S. 223, 237, 61 S.Ct. 179, 85 L.Ed. 139 (1940)) (internal quotation marks omitted). But, as we stated above, when a panel of this Court has rendered a decision interpreting state law, that interpretation is binding on district courts in this circuit, and on subsequent panels of this Court, unless an intervening decision of the state's highest court has resolved the issue. Wankier, 353 F.3d at 866 (emphasis added). Biosera came after Montag; however, the Colorado Court of Appeals decided Biosera, so it is not an intervening decision of the state's highest court.  Id. (emphasis added). And Colorado's highest court, the Colorado Supreme Court, has not offered any intervening guidancethrough interpretation of Camacho or otherwiseindicating that a trial court is authorized to instruct the jury in products liability cases that are defined primarily by technical and scientific information regarding the consumer expectation test, in addition to the risk-benefit test. Thus, we appropriately apply Montag here. Consequently, we conclude that the district court committed no legal error when it held that it was required to instruct the jury on only the risk-benefit test. [2]