Court Opinion

ID: 9959476
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-11 19:00:48.591141+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:19.301065
License: Public Domain

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
                                 File Name: 24a0163n.06

                                           No. 23-1762

                          UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                              FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT                                    FILED
                                                                                     Apr 11, 2024
                                                                             KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk
 JILL KLEIN, deceased, by her Personal )
                                       )
 Representative, Brent Klein,
                                       )
        Plaintiff-Appellant,           )                  ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
                                       )                  STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
 v.                                    )                  THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF
                                       )                  MICHIGAN
 CATERPILLAR, INC.,                    )
                                       )                                                 OPINION
        Defendant-Appellee.
                                       )

Before: KETHLEDGE, READLER, and BLOOMEKATZ, Circuit Judges.

       KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judge. Jill Klein tragically died after a co-worker at Carmeuse

Lime & Stone ran over her vehicle with a Caterpillar earth hauler. Klein’s husband sued

Caterpillar, alleging (among other things) that Caterpillar was vicariously liable for a third-party

rebuild of the earth hauler before the accident. The district court granted summary judgment to

Caterpillar. We affirm.

                                                 I.

       In describing the facts for purposes of summary judgment, we view the record in the light

most favorable to Klein. See Sloat v. Hewlett-Packard Enter. Co., 18 F.4th 204, 207 (6th Cir.

2021). Carmeuse is a mining company with a quarry located in Cedarville, Michigan. Among the

vehicles that Carmeuse used there was a 1994 Caterpillar 785B Off-Highway Truck—a massive

earth hauler that weighs as much as 550,000 pounds when fully loaded.

       By 2014, the earth hauler needed repairs. To that end, Carmeuse hired FABCO CAT—an

independent dealer of Caterpillar products—to do a “Certified Rebuild” of the earth hauler. ECF
No. 23-1762, Klein v. Caterpillar, Inc.

75-6, PageID 1832. FABCO’s work-order form had a Caterpillar logo on it, and stated that the

rebuild would include “all current Caterpillar Engineering Updates applicable to this truck.” Id.,

PageID 1832–33.

       When FABCO performed the rebuild, it followed Caterpillar’s “scope and parameters”

guide. ECF No. 67-7, PageID 1023. Among other things, the guide specified the parts that FABCO

needed to replace for FABCO’s work to qualify as a Certified Rebuild—which (according to a

FABCO employee) made the earth hauler “like a new 1994 785B with the same expected life that

[it] had when it was originally sold.” ECF No. 67-9, PageID 1132. That qualification also made

the machine eligible for a new warranty from Caterpillar. FABCO completed its work in 2015,

and Caterpillar assigned a new serial number to the earth hauler to reflect that it had been rebuilt

and had a new warranty. Carmeuse then returned the machine to service at the Cedarville quarry.

       For three years afterward, Carmeuse used the earth hauler without incident. In November

2018, however, Jill Klein was at the quarry, sitting in her Ford F-150, when another employee

driving the rebuilt earth hauler ran over her truck—killing her instantly.

       Jill’s husband, Brent Klein, brought this lawsuit against Caterpillar in 2021, asserting

claims for negligence (Count I) and breach-of-warranty (Count II) under Michigan law.

Specifically, Klein alleged that Caterpillar should have included certain safety features—such as

technology enhancing the driver’s ability to see in front of the hauler—in its specifications for the

2015 rebuild. Klein later added a claim (Count III in his third amended complaint) that Caterpillar

had negligently designed and manufactured the earth hauler in 1994—again, by failing to include

those safety features in the vehicle.

       The district court eventually granted summary judgment to Caterpillar. This appeal

followed.

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No. 23-1762, Klein v. Caterpillar, Inc.

                                                  II.

                                                  A.

          We first address a jurisdictional issue, arising from the district court’s omission of any

analysis of Count II—Klein’s breach-of-warranty claim—in its dispositive orders in this case.

(That omission apparently resulted from the district court’s decision first to send dispositive

motions for this case to the magistrate judge.) The court’s omission raises the possibility that the

district court does have work “left to do” in this case, In re Jackson Masonry, LLC, 906 F.3d 494,

498 (6th Cir. 2018); and in that event we would lack jurisdiction over this appeal.

          But the district court’s July 26, 2023, order “dismissed” the entirety of Klein’s third

amended complaint “with prejudice”—albeit, as to Count II, without explaining why. Klein by

Klein v. Caterpillar, Inc., No. 1:21-cv-11748, 2023 WL4760707, at *3 (E.D. Mich. July 26, 2023).

That omission concerns the merits of the district court’s decision, not whether the decision is final.

(Klein makes no merits argument specific to Count II here.) Hence we have jurisdiction over this

appeal.

                                                  B.

          We review de novo the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Caterpillar. Sloat,

18 F.4th at 207.

                                                  1.

          Klein asserts that his negligence claim (Count I) presented genuine issues of fact on two

grounds. First, he argues that Caterpillar voluntarily assumed a duty to rebuild the earth hauler to

present-day safety standards. By way of background, under Michigan law, a manufacturer has no

post-manufacture duty to repair or recall a product that was not defective when it was

manufactured. Gregory v. Cincinnati, Inc., 538 N.W.2d 325, 330-37 (Mich. 1995). But if a

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No. 23-1762, Klein v. Caterpillar, Inc.

manufacturer “voluntarily undertakes to perform an act” after manufacturing a product, it must

perform that act with reasonable care. Fultz v. Union-Com. Assocs., 683 N.W.2d 587, 591 (Mich.

2004).

         Here, Caterpillar did nothing to assume a duty to upgrade the 1994 earth hauler to present-

day safety standards. Caterpillar did not perform the rebuild of the hauler; FABCO did. And the

rebuild by its terms was limited to making the earth hauler “like a new 1994 785B with the same

expected life that [it] had when it was originally sold.” ECF No. 67-9, PageID 1132. Klein

counters that FABCO’s work-order form said that the rebuild would include “all current Caterpillar

Engineering Updates” applicable to the 785B. ECF 75-6, PageID 1833. But that reference

undisputedly meant only that—to the extent the “like a new 1994” rebuild required the use of

replacement parts—those parts would be ones built to current specifications. See ECF No. 75-4,

PageID 1819. Klein therefore lacks evidence creating a genuine issue as to whether Caterpillar

assumed a duty to upgrade the earth hauler to 2015 standards. See Fultz, 683 N.W.2d at 591.

         Klein’s second argument is that Caterpillar is vicariously liable for what Klein says was

FABCO’s negligence during the rebuild. Klein does not assert (or have any evidence) that the

manner in which FABCO performed its work was negligent. He does not allege, for example, that

FABCO left bolts untightened, or neglected to replace parts that Caterpillar’s specifications for the

“Certified Rebuild” required it to replace. His argument, rather, concerns the rebuild’s scope:

again, that FABCO should have rebuilt the hauler to 2015 standards rather than to 1994 ones.

         That argument fails for two reasons. One is that neither Caterpillar nor anyone else had a

duty to rebuild the earth hauler to 2015 standards, which means that (as shown above) Klein’s

underlying theory as to why the work was negligent is invalid. The other reason is that Caterpillar

did not supervise or otherwise control the manner (in the sense of day-to-day procedures) of

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No. 23-1762, Klein v. Caterpillar, Inc.

FABCO’s work on the 1994 hauler. See Little v. Howard Johnson Co., 455 N.W.2d 390, 393–94

(Mich. Ct. App. 1990). What Caterpillar did do was specify the parts necessary to do a “like a new

1994” rebuild. It did not “affect control of daily operations.” Id. at 394. And prescriptions for

“uniformity and standardization of products and services” cannot support a generalized agency

relationship under Michigan law that extends beyond the scope of designing the 1994 rebuild. Id.

The district court was correct to grant summary judgment to Caterpillar on Klein’s Count I

negligence claim.

                                                 2.

       Klein challenges the district court’s dismissal of his Count III claim for negligence as

untimely. That claim first appeared in Klein’s third amended complaint, which he filed more than

three years (the applicable limitations period) after the accident at issue here. See Mich. Comp.

Laws § 600.5805(12); Stephens v. Dixon, 536 N.W.2d 755, 756 (Mich. 1995). Thus, everyone

agrees, for Count III to be timely, it must relate back to the filing of Klein’s second amended

complaint.

       An amendment “relates back” to the date of an earlier pleading when the amendment

asserts a claim or defense that arose out of the same “conduct, transaction, or occurrence set out”

in the earlier pleading. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(c). Here, Klein alleged in Count III of the third amended

complaint that Caterpillar had negligently designed and manufactured the earth hauler in 1994—

based on its omission of certain safety features. In Count I of the earlier pleading, by contrast,

Klein alleged that Caterpillar had been negligent in the 2015 rebuild—based on the same

omissions. Thus, the conduct described in the two counts was similar in kind, but was separated

by more than two decades. Count III therefore did not arise out of an occurrence (the rebuild) pled

in Count II, but instead out of an occurrence (the original manufacture) almost a generation before.

                                                 5
No. 23-1762, Klein v. Caterpillar, Inc.

See U.S. ex rel. Bledsoe v. Comm. Health Sys., Inc., 501 F.3d 493, 516–19 (6th Cir. 2007). The

filing of Count III thus did not relate back to the filing of Count II in the second amended

complaint—which means that the district court was correct to dismiss Count III as untimely. Id.

at 519.

                                                   B.

          Finally, Klein challenges three of the district court’s discovery orders: namely, the court’s

denial of two of Klein’s motions to compel, and the court’s order granting Caterpillar’s motion to

exclude the testimony of both of Klein’s expert witnesses, for failure to provide expert disclosures

for those witnesses by the date specified in the court’s scheduling order. See Fed. R. Civ. P.

26(a)(2)(B), (D). Having reviewed those orders, we conclude that the district court did not abuse

its discretion in any of them, for the reasons stated therein. See ECF Nos. 45, 61, 71, 72, 87, 94;

Blount v. Stanley Eng’g Fastening, 55 F.4th 504, 515–16 (6th Cir. 2022); Bisig v. Time Warner

Cable, Inc., 940 F.3d 205, 219–20 (6th Cir. 2019).

                                               *   *    *

          The district court’s discovery orders and its July 26, 2023, order are affirmed.

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