Opinion ID: 2831358
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Evidence of Negligent Design

Text: Kia next argues that, even in the absence of the statutory presumption, the evidence supporting the jury’s negligence finding is legally insufficient. A legal-sufficiency challenge will be sustained if the record reveals that evidence offered to prove a vital fact is no more than a scintilla. King Ranch, Inc. v. Chapman, 118 S.W.3d 742, 751 (Tex. 2003). Evidence does not exceed a scintilla if it is “‘so weak as to do no more than create a mere surmise or suspicion’” that the fact exists. Ford Motor Co. v. Ridgway, 135 S.W.3d 598, 601 (Tex. 2004) (quoting Kindred v. Con/Chem, Inc., 650 S.W.2d 61, 63 (Tex. 1983)). Our ultimate objective in conducting a noevidence review is to determine “whether the evidence at trial would enable reasonable and fair-minded jurors to reach the verdict.” Whirlpool Corp. v. Camacho, 298 S.W.3d 631, 638 (Tex. 2009). Thus, in reviewing the record, we “credit favorable evidence if reasonable jurors could, and disregard contrary evidence unless reasonable jurors could not.” City of Keller v. Wilson, 168 S.W.3d 802, 827 (Tex. 2005). The trial court instructed the jury in pertinent part as follows: Was the negligence, if any, of Kia Motors in designing the 2002 Kia Spectra air bag system a proximate cause of the injury to Andrea Ruiz? .... For Kia Motors to have been negligent, there must have been a design defect in the 2002 Kia Spectra air bag system at the time it left the possession of Kia Motors. A “design defect” is a condition of the product that renders it unreasonably dangerous as designed, taking into consideration the utility of the product and the risk involved in its use. For a design defect to exist there must have been a safer alternative design. 14 “Safer alternative design” means a product design other than the one actually used that in reasonable probability – (1) would have prevented or significantly reduced the risk of the injury in question without substantially impairing the product’s utility[;] and (2) was economically and technologically feasible at the time the product left the control of Kia Motors by the application of existing or reasonably achievable scientific knowledge. Kia argues there is no evidence of a design defect. Kia did not object to this portion of the jury charge, and we therefore analyze the evidence in light of the charge as given. See Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Sturges, 52 S.W.3d 711, 715 n.4 (Tex. 2001). The parties agree that Andrea’s air bag should have deployed in the accident. They also agree that it did not deploy because of an “open circuit” in the air bag’s wiring harness, meaning a lack of metal-to-metal contact interrupted the flow of electricity through the harness. The Ruizes’ theory at trial was that the open circuit was caused by one of two defectively designed connectors within the wiring harness. See Nissan Motor Co. v. Armstrong, 145 S.W.3d 131, 137 (Tex. 2004) (requiring identification, by competent evidence, of a specific defect that caused the incident). Kia contends that the Ruizes’ expert failed to identify the specific defect that caused the open circuit and failed to rule out possible sources of the open circuit other than the two connectors. As did the court of appeals, in conducting our evidentiary review we find useful the testimony of the parties’ experts regarding the overall design of the air bag system. The circuitry begins with an Airbag Diagnostic Unit (ADU), which is mounted to the floor of the vehicle and contains a small computer that signals for the air bags to deploy and the seat belts to tighten when a crash occurs. The ADU is connected to a wiring harness that snakes through the dashboard to four 15 devices—the two frontal air bags and the frontal seat-belt pretensioners. Because the driver’s-side air bag is in the steering column, the wiring from the ADU is routed via a small plastic connector through a device called a clock spring, which allows the wiring to spool and unspool without twisting or breaking as the steering wheel is turned. The wiring exits the clock spring and connects to the air-bag module by another small plastic connector. The data downloaded from the ADU on the Ruizes’ vehicle reflected an error code “56,” which corresponds to an open electrical circuit in the driver’s-side air bag. The data showed that the open circuit had existed for approximately forty-four hours on the car’s lifetimer, which measures how long the ignition is in the “on” position, and that the circuit closed during the crash. Joint expert testing of the air-bag circuitry in the vehicle revealed that the ADU signaled all four devices to activate and therefore functioned properly during the crash. Three of those devices—the seat-belt pretensioners and the passenger’s-side air bag—deployed properly. The clock spring, the air-bag module, and the wiring from the ADU to the driver’s-side air bag all tested normally and were also ruled out as the cause of the open circuit. After reconnecting the harness to the air-bag module, the experts observed an open circuit occur briefly when Kia’s expert picked up the module enough to move the clock spring. Having eliminated the ADU, the clock spring, the module, and the wiring as the cause, the Ruizes’ air-bag expert, Geoffrey Mahon, concluded that the source of the open circuit was the connector to the air-bag module or the connector to the clock spring. Mahon then identified several deficiencies in the designs of the two connectors by comparing them to alternative designs by Packard Electric and Volkswagen in model-year 2002 vehicles. As the court of appeals noted, while the Packard module connector has locking devices that push plastic 16 tabs outward on all sides to prevent movement, and the Volkswagen module connector is glued into place, the Kia connector locks into place with tabs on only one side. 348 S.W.3d at 478–79. Mahon explained that this allows for “a little bit of motion that you can generate on [the other] side,” which can cause the connector to “vibrate out” and cause a loss of electrical connectivity. Mahon also criticized the Kia clock-spring connector for attaching directly to the clock spring, subjecting it to additional vibration, while commending the Packard connector’s placement in a more “secure area” with less movement. In addition, both the Packard and Volkswagen clock-spring connectors contain an additional locking device, while Kia’s does not. Finally, the Packard clock-spring connector has a larger metal surface area than the Kia connector, which provides a better chance of “having a good metal-to-metal contact.” Mahon testified that the alternative designs were safer as well as technologically and economically feasible at the time the 2002 Spectra was designed, as they were in production in other vehicles. The utilization of either of these designs, Mahon concluded, would have significantly reduced the risk of the open circuit that occurred in the Ruizes’ accident. Mahon also testified that, based on the fact that the air-bag system in general and the connectors in particular had not been tampered with or adjusted before the accident, he was “fairly certain” that the design problems existed when the vehicle left Kia’s control. Mahon ultimately concluded that the wiring harness’s connector system in the 2002 Spectra was defectively designed, rendering it unreasonably dangerous and proximately causing the open circuit that led to the failure of Andrea’s air bag to deploy during the accident. 17 Kia argues that Mahon never explained what particular defect existed in either the module connector or the clock-spring connector to cause the open circuit. Instead, Kia contends, Mahon described the open circuit as a “gremlin” of unknown origin that was possibly located in one of those connectors.12 Kia thus concludes that the only evidence of a defect is the product failure—specifically, the air bag’s failure to deploy because of an open circuit—which by itself is insufficient to prove a defect. Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. v. Mendez, 204 S.W.3d 797, 807 (Tex. 2006) (“Texas law does not generally recognize a product failure standing alone as proof of a product defect.”). Comparing Mahon’s testimony to expert testimony in other cases, we disagree with Kia’s characterization of the evidence. For example, in Cooper Tire, a manufacturing-defect case involving tread separation on a tire, we discounted as legally insufficient expert testimony offered to prove that the separation occurred because of wax contamination at the manufacturing plant. Id. We identified several deficiencies with the primary expert’s testimony, including the novel nature of the theory that wax contamination is a cause of tread separation and the lack of general acceptance in the scientific community of that theory, id. at 803; the absence of evidence that the tire in question was even contaminated with wax, id.; the expert’s reliance on a report that undermined his theory, id. at 804; and the lack of proof that wax would “cause lack of adhesion between the components of the tire after it is ‘cooked’ in the vulcanization process,” id. at 805. Accordingly, we held that the expert’s 12 Amicus Product Liability Advisory Counsel similarly argues there was no proof of a specific defect that caused the open circuit. 18 testimony amounted to no more than “a naked hypothesis untested and unconfirmed by the methods of science.” Id. In Ridgway, the plaintiff alleged that a manufacturing defect in a truck’s electrical system caused the truck to catch fire while he was driving. 135 S.W.3d at 599–600. We agreed with the trial court’s summary judgment on the claim, noting that the plaintiff’s expert “could say no more than that he ‘suspects’ the electrical system caused the fire,” and that the expert expressly declined to rule out part of the fuel system as a possible cause and suggested further investigation. Id. at 600–01. Mahon’s testimony did not suffer from these types of shortfalls. Mahon used the term “gremlin” in describing the open circuit as an “intermittent fault” that was difficult to find because it corrected itself before it could be observed. But he did not, as Kia contends, take an unsupported leap from “gremlin” directly to “product defect.” Rather, Mahon explained that this type of fault, which was triggered during joint expert testing of the harness, “ha[s] to occur where two pieces of metal come together.” Mahon and Kia’s expert jointly eliminated the ADU, the air bag, the clock spring, and the wiring as the cause, leaving only the connectors as the possible source. Further, as discussed above, Mahon identified several specific deficiencies in the module and clock-spring connectors that increased the risk of their failure to make reliable electrical contact. Mahon ultimately concluded that these deficiencies proximately caused the open circuit that prevented the air bag in the Ruizes’ vehicle from deploying. We hold that Mahon’s testimony “does not present a case where ‘there is simply too great an analytical gap between the date and the opinion proferred,’ or where the expert’s testimony amounted to nothing more than a recitation of his credentials and 19 a subjective opinion.” Ford Motor Co. v. Ledesma, 242 S.W.3d 32, 40 (Tex. 2007) (quoting Gammill v. Jack Williams Chevrolet, Inc., 972 S.W.2d 713, 726 (Tex. 1998), and citing Cooper Tire, 204 S.W.3d at 801). Kia also argues that Mahon’s testimony was legally insufficient because he failed to rule out a third connector—the ADU connector—or a manufacturing defect in the module or clock-spring connector as potential causes of the open circuit. We disagree. As to the ADU connector, Kia argues that Mahon never tested that connector, that it may not be ruled out merely because it was not attached when the experts generated the intermittent open circuit during testing, and that, because the ADU connector is a multi-port connector, it may not be ruled out by the fact that the ADU successfully commanded three of the four restraint devices to deploy during the accident. Mahon testified, however, that he and Kia’s consulting expert tested the driver’s-side circuit wires while they were attached to the connector and found nothing wrong. This testimony, in conjunction with the experts’ triggering the intermittent open circuit during testing that did not involve the ADU connector, constitutes some evidence that the ADU connector was not the source of the open circuit that caused Andrea’s air bag not to deploy. Kia also relies on Cooper Tire in arguing that the Ruizes were required to rule out the possibility that a manufacturing defect caused the open circuit. In Cooper Tire, we held that none of the plaintiffs’ experts’ testimony was sufficiently reliable to constitute evidence supporting the plaintiffs’ claim that a manufacturing defect involving wax contamination caused a tire to fail. 204 S.W.3d at 807. We then concluded that “the mere fact that the tire failed . . . is insufficient to establish a manufacturing defect of some sort. Such a failure could have been caused by design 20 defect.” Id. Kia contends that, conversely, the Ruizes may not recover for a design defect without ruling out a manufacturing defect. Unlike Cooper Tire, however, the Ruizes did not rely on “the mere fact that the [air bag] failed” to establish a design defect. Id. Further, we have never held that a manufacturing defect must be ruled out in all design-defect cases, or vice versa. Rather, we have held that an expert should exclude “other plausible causes” presented by the evidence. Transcontinental Ins. Co. v. Crump, 330 S.W.3d 211, 218 (Tex. 2010) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Ironically, Kia appears to argue that the mere fact that the air bag failed to deploy is evidence of a manufacturing defect that must be ruled out. But Kia points to no other evidence suggesting such a defect. In light of the affirmative evidence the Ruizes presented that a design defect caused the open circuit, we decline to reverse the jury’s findings based on a failure to rule out a manufacturing defect.