Court Opinion

ID: 9491785
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:23:55.058781+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:56.783433
License: Public Domain

LOKEN, Circuit Judge.
In this diversity action, Jodi Michaelle Carlson appeals the district court’s1 dismissal of her strict liability, negligence, and breach of warranty claims against Hyundai Motor Company and Hyundai Motor America, Inc. The district court concluded that MinmStat. § 169.685, subd. 4, known colloquially as the seat belt gag rule, bars these claims. We affirm.
In April 1995, Carlson was a passenger in a Hyundai Excel automobile that left the road and rolled over. Though she was wearing a seat belt and a shoulder harness anchored to the door frame, Carlson was thrown from the vehicle through an opening in the upper rear portion of the front passenger door because, in the words of Carlson’s Amended Complaint, “when the doorframe bent out it eliminated any effective passenger restraint.” Carlson suffered serious injuries. In 1996, she brought this action in Minnesota state court, seeking substantial damages. The non-resident defendants removed.
All of Carlson’s claims are premised upon a crashworthiness theory — that the Hyundai vehicle had a defectively designed and manufactured seat belt system and door frame that caused Carlson to be ejected during the accident, resulting in substantially greater injuries than had she remained in the vehicle. For example, Paragraph XI of Carlson’s Amended Complaint alleges that Hyundai Motor Company is strictly liable because “[t]he defective and unreasonably dangerous condition of the passive seat belt system and door frame and the vehicle were the direct cause of the injuries and damage sustained by plaintiff.”
The statute in question, Minn.Stat. § 169.685, subd. 4, provides that “[pjroof of the use or failure to use seat belts ... or proof of the installation or failure of installation of seat belts ... shall not be admissible in evidence in any litigation involving person*1162al injuries or property damage resulting from the use or operation of any motor vehicle.” This statute was enacted in 1963, before Minnesota courts recognized crashworthiness as a theory of common law liability. In Olson v. Ford Motor Co., 558 N.W.2d 491 (Minn.1997), the Minnesota Supreme Court held that the statute applies to crashworthiness claims and effectively bars all such claims that are premised upon allegedly defective seat belt systems.
Relying upon Olson and the contemporaneous Minnesota Court of Appeals decision in Schlotz v. Hyundai Motor Co., 557 N.W.2d 613 (Minn.App.), cert. denied, —— U.S. -, 118 S.Ct. 80, 139 L.Ed.2d 38 (1997), defendants moved to dismiss this action as barred by § 169.685, subd. 4. After the Governor of Minnesota vetoed a bill that would have materially amended the statute, the district court granted this motion. The court explained that Carlson’s claim of a defective seat belt system is barred under Olson because, “If Carlson cannot offer evidence of how her seat belt was installed in the car and that she wore it during the accident, then she cannot prove that a defective seat belt caused her - injuries.” The court further held that Carlson’s claim of a defective door and window frame are also barred by the seat belt gag rule because, “Nowhere in her Amended Complaint does Carlson state that a defect in the door frame alone caused her injuries. Thus, as alleged, all of Carlson’s claims are dependent upon evidence of her use of the car’s seat belt, and the joint failure of it and the door frame to prevent her from being ejected from the ear.”
On appeal, Carlson concedes the district court (1) appropriately dismissed her seat belt allegations, and (2) “correctly concluded that the seat belt allegations wex-e intertwined with the allegations that the car was defectively designed, manufactured, and otherwise dangerously deficient.” However, Carlson argues, the court abused its discretion by dismissing her claims without inviting her to amend the complaint to assert independent claims based upon the allegedly defective door and window frame. This contention was not px-operly preserved. Carlson did not ask the district court for leave to file a second amended complaint, either before or after the court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss her amended complaint. A district court does not abuse its discretion in failing to invite an amended complaint when plaintiff has not moved to amend and submitted a proposed amended pleading. See Oliver v. Resolution Trust Corp., 955 F.2d 583, 585 (8th Cir.1992); Clayton v. White Hall Sch. Dist., 778 F.2d 457, 460 (8th Cir.1985).
Even if Carlson had properly px-e-served this issue in the district eoux-t, we conclude that her proposed second amended complaint must be rejected as futile. See Williams v. Little Rock Mun. Water Works, 21 F.3d 218, 225 (8th Cir.1994) (“Good reason to deny leave to amend exists if the amendment would be futile.”). Carlson argues she has a viable claim independent of the allegedly defective seat belt system because, during the accident:
the door frame was caused to deform causing an opening which allowed the ejection of Jodi Carlson. The seat belt mechanism was not significantly related to the cx’eation of this hole. If she had had her seat belt on she would have been ejected and if she had not had her seat belt on she would have been ejected. Accordingly, there is no reason to refer to the seat belt mechanism in this case.
However, the issue in a crashworthiness case is whether the vehicle design as a whole evidences the manufacturer’s failux-e to use reasonable care to prevent auto accident injuries. See O’Grady, Minnesota’s Seat Belt Evidence Gag Rule: Antiquated and Unfair in Crashworthiness Cases, 15 Wm. Mitchell L.Rev. 353, 367-69 (1989), and eases cited. The seat belt gag rule does not bar evidence by Hyundai that its seat belt system was designed to prevent passengers from being ejected from the vehicle during accidents. But while that evidence is admissible, § 169.685, subd. 4, bars Carlson from introducing evidence that the seat belt system was installed, in use, and failed to prevent her ejection. If Carlson cannot prove that the seat belt system failed of its essential crashworthiness purpose, then she cannot prove that Hyundai failed to use reasonable care to prevent accident injuries in its vehicle design as a whole. In other words, like the seat belt system and seat back at issue in *1163Schlotz, and the airbag and seat belt system discussed by Justice Page in his concurring opinion in Olson, 558 N.W.2d at 498, the alleged defects in the Hyundai seat belt system and door frame were inseparably intertwined in causing Carlson’s increased injuries. In these circumstances, any amended complaint attempting to separate the two alleged defects so as to prevent application of § 169.685, subd. 4, to bar Carlson’s claims would be futile.
Finally, Carlson argues the district court erred in dismissing defendant Hyundai Motor Company because that Korean company was never served and thus the court lacked personal jurisdiction to grant a judgment in its favor. We disagree. Carlson failed to raised this issue in the district court and therefore may not raise it on appeal. Moreover, Hyundai Motor Company voluntarily appeared in the district court and joined in defendants’ Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss without contesting the court’s personal jurisdiction, thereby waiving that issue. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(h)(1). “Because the requirement of personal jurisdiction represents first of all an individual right ... an individual may submit to the jurisdiction of the court by appearance.” Insurance Corp. of Ireland, Ltd. v. Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee, 456 U.S. 694, 703, 102 S.Ct. 2099, 72 L.Ed.2d 492 (1982). In this case, Hyundai Motor Company consented to the district court’s jurisdiction by voluntarily appearing and is entitled to the res judicata effect of the court’s judgment in its favor.
The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

. The HONORABLE RICHARD H. KYLE, United States District Judge for the District of Minnesota.