Opinion ID: 1927336
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Feasibility

Text: Rule 5-407(b) exempts subsequent remedial measure evidence from the exclusionary provision of § (a) when it is offered to prove feasibility, if feasibility has been controverted. That raises two questions: what is meant by feasibility and was feasibility, in fact, controverted? These two questions also tend to overlap and are often dealt with together; whether a defendant has controverted feasibility may well depend on how one defines the term. The exception allowing subsequent conduct evidence to show feasibility has been a troublesome one, especially in negligence cases, for, as Judge Weinstein points out, negligence and feasibility [are] often indistinct issues. The feasibility of a precaution may bear on whether the defendant was negligent not to have taken the precaution sooner. 2 Weinstein's Federal Evidence, supra, § 407.04[3]. The Court of Special Appeals noted that two seemingly divergent approaches have been taken in construing the feasibility exception. Tuer v. McDonald, supra, 112 Md.App. at 129, 684 A.2d at 482. Some courts have construed the word narrowly, disallowing evidence of subsequent remedial measures under the feasibility exception unless the defendant has essentially contended that the measures were not physically, technologically, or economically possible under the circumstances then pertaining. Other courts have swept into the concept of feasibility a somewhat broader spectrum of motives and explanations for not having adopted the remedial measure earlier, the effect of which is to circumscribe the exclusionary provision. Courts in the first camp have concluded that feasibility is not controvertedand thus subsequent remedial evidence is not admissible under the Rulewhen a defendant contends that the design or practice complained of was chosen because of its perceived comparative advantage over the alternative design or practice ( Flaminio v. Honda Motor Co., Ltd., 733 F.2d 463, 468 (7th Cir.1984); Gauthier v. AMF, Inc., 788 F.2d 634, 638 (9th Cir.1986); Hardy v. Chemetron Corp., 870 F.2d 1007, 1011 (5th Cir.1989); Bush v. Michelin Tire Corp., 963 F.Supp. 1436 (W.D.Ky.1996); Hallmark v. Allied Products Corp., 132 Ariz. 434, 646 P.2d 319 (App. 1982)); or when the defendant merely asserts that the instructions or warnings given with a product were acceptable or adequate and does not suggest that additional or different instructions or warnings could not have been given ( Mills v. Beech Aircraft Corp., Inc., 886 F.2d 758 (5th Cir.1989); Werner v. Upjohn Co., Inc., 628 F.2d 848 (4th Cir.1980); Fish v. Georgia-Pacific Corp., 779 F.2d 836 (2d Cir.1985); Wetherill v. University of Chicago, 565 F.Supp. 1553 (N.D.Ill. 1983); In re Joint E. Dist. & So. Dist. Asbestos Lit., 995 F.2d 343 (2d Cir.1993)); or when the defendant urges that the alternative would not have been effective to prevent the kind of accident that occurred ( Brookshire Bros., Inc. v. Lewis, 911 S.W.2d 791 (Tex. App.1995); Wick v. Clark County, 86 Wash. App. 376, 936 P.2d 1201 (1997)). Courts announcing a more expansive view have concluded that feasible means more than that which is merely possible, but includes that which is capable of being utilized successfully. In Anderson v. Malloy, 700 F.2d 1208 (8th Cir.1983), for example, a motel guest who was raped in her room and who sued the motel for failure to provide safe lodging, offered evidence that, after the event, the motel installed peepholes in the doors to the rooms. The appellate court held that the evidence was admissible in light of the defendant's testimony that it had considered installing peepholes earlier but decided not to do so because (1) there were already windows next to the solid door allowing a guest to look out, and (2) based on the advice of the local police chief, peepholes would give a false sense of security. Although the motel, for obvious reasons, never suggested that the installation of peepholes was not possible, the court, over a strident dissent, concluded that, by inferring that the installation of peepholes would create a lesser level of security, the defendant had controverted the feasibility of the installation of these devices. Id. at 1214. See also Kenny v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transp., 581 F.2d 351, 356 (3d Cir.1978) (when the defendant opens up the issue by claiming that all reasonable care was being exercised at the time, then the plaintiff may attack that contention by showing later repairs which are inconsistent with it); Reese v. Mercury Marine Div. of Brunswick Corp., 793 F.2d 1416 (5th Cir.1986) (evidence of new warning in manufacturer's revised manual admissible in light of defense that such warning by manufacturer, as opposed to dealer, would not have been effective to alert ultimate customer to potential danger); Ray v. American Nat. Red Cross, 696 A.2d 399 (D.C.App.1997) (evidence of subsequent measure admissible when defendant asserted that it would not have been effective and would have had detrimental effect); City of Indianapolis v. Swanson, 439 N.E.2d 638 (Ind.App.1982) (testimony that remedial measure would have been ineffective placed feasibility into issue); Kurz v. Dinklage Feed Yard, Inc., 205 Neb. 125, 286 N.W.2d 257 (1979) (testimony that remedial measure would not have been effective put feasibility into issue). The apparent divergence indicated by these cases may, at least to some extent, be less of a doctrinal division than a recognition that the concept of practicability is implicit in the notion of feasibility and allows some leeway in the application of the rule. Part of the problem is that dictionaries, which are often resorted to by the courts, contain several definitions of the word feasible. WEBSTER'S NEW UNIVERSAL UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY (2d ed. 1983), for example, contains three definitions: (1) that may be done, performed, executed, or effected; practicable; possible; (2) likely; reasonable; probable; as, a feasible story; (3) that may be used or dealt with successfully; as, land feasible for cultivation. Each of those definitions embody, to some extent, the concept of practicability. Some courts have tended to follow the first definition and have thus articulated the notion of feasibility in terms of that which physically, technologically, or economically is capable of being done; others, like the Eighth Circuit in Anderson v. Malloy , have latched on to the third definition, which brings more into play the concepts of value, effectiveness, and overall utility. To some extent, the problem may be driven by special considerations arising from application of the rule to product liability cases, especially those grounded on strict liability. When the plaintiff is obliged to establish that there were feasible alternatives to the design, manufacturing method, or warnings used by the defendant, he or she necessarily injects the question of feasibility into the case, to which the defendant ordinarily responds by showing why those alternatives were not used. As Saltzburg, Martin, and Capra point out, if a remedial measure has, in fact, been taken that could have been taken earlier, the defendant is not likely to claim that the measure was not possible or practicable, and, indeed, defendants often are willing to stipulate to feasibility in order to avoid having the subsequent remedial evidence admitted. 1 SALTZBURG, MARTIN AND CAPRA, supra, 486. The issue arises when the defendant offers some other explanation for not putting the measure into effect sooneroften a judgment call as to comparative value or a trade-off between cost and benefit or between competing benefitsand the plaintiff characterizes that explanation as putting feasibility into issue. See Rahmig v. Mosley Machinery Co., 226 Neb. 423, 412 N.W.2d 56 (1987). [9] To the extent there can be said to be a doctrinal split among the courts, it seems to center on whether that kind of judgment call, which is modified later, suffices to allow the challenged evidence to be admitted. That is essentially what occurred in this case. At no time did Dr. McDonald or any of his expert witnesses suggest that the Heparin could not have been restarted following the postponement of Mr. Tuer's surgery. Indeed, they indicated quite the opposite; Dr. McDonald, in fact, made clear that, had Mr. Tuer exhibited signs of renewed unstable angina, he would have restarted the Heparin. The only fair reading of his testimony and that of his supporting experts is that the protocol then in effect was the product of a professional judgment call that the risk to Mr. Tuer of having CABG surgery commence while there was a significant amount of Heparin in his blood outweighed the prospect of harm accruing from allowing him to remain Heparin-free for several hours. Dr. McDonald's brief response to one question that, at the time, he regarded it as unsafe to restart the Heparin cannot be viewed in isolation but has to be read in the context of his whole testimony. Under any reasonable view of the meaning of feasibility, a flat assertion by a physician that the remedial measure was inappropriate because it was medically unsafe would ordinarily be tantamount to asserting that the measure was not feasible and would thus suffice to controvert the feasibility of the measure. In a medical context at least, feasibility has to include more than mere physical possibility; as we have so sadly learned from history, virtually anything can physically be done to the human body. The practice of medicine is quintessentially therapeutic in nature. Its purpose is to comfort and to heal, and a determination of whether a practice or procedure is feasible has to be viewed in that light. The assertion that a given course would be unsafe, in the sense that it would likely cause paramount harm to the patient, necessarily constitutes an assertion that the course would not be feasible. Dr. McDonald was not asserting, however, in any absolute sense, that restarting the Heparin would have been unsafe but only that, given the complications that could have arisen, and that, in other cases had arisen, from an inadvertent puncture of the carotid artery, weighed against Mr. Tuer's apparently stable condition at the time and the intensive monitoring he would receive during the waiting period, there was a relative safety risk that, at the time, he and the hospital believed was not worth taking. That does not, in our view, constitute an assertion that a restarting of the Heparin was not feasible. It was feasible but, in their view, not advisable.