Court Opinion

ID: 9592986
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:18:26.007228+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:14:06.559443
License: Public Domain

*537P. R. Joslyn, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent. I am of the opinion that the trial court erred when it denied defendants’ motion for a directed verdict or judgment notwithstanding the verdict. The majority opinion concluded that it was an established fact that gasoline did leak from the gas gauge and ignited, causing plaintiff’s injuries. Based upon the rationale of Owens v Allis-Chalmers Corp, 414 Mich 413; 326 NW2d 372 (1982), I believe that plaintiff failed to present a prima facie case of a design defect.
When the evidence is viewed in a light most favorable to plaintiff, he did not meet part of his burden of proof.
Plaintiff did demonstrate that lawn mower rollovers were common enough to be foreseeable. Plaintiff also presented enough evidence from which the jury could have concluded that the fuel gauge was designed in such a way that the epdm rubber created a foreseeable risk of gas leakage in case of rollover. However, these proofs were not sufficient to establish a prima facie case. Plaintiff’s expert gave testimony from which the jury might infer that a riding lawn mower rollover and the resulting injuries from a fire were foreseeable, but neither his testimony nor any evidence on the record gave any indication how likely such an event might be. There was absolutely no documented cases of a lawn mower rollover accident in which the operator had been burned by a fuel-fed fire. There also was a similar lack of evidence concerning the likelihood of an accident resulting from a fire fed by fuel dropping from a vent hole in a gas cap.
Plaintiff simply failed to prove that defendant’s design of the riding lawn mower was the proximate cause of his injuries. Plaintiff was able to present alternative designs but no evidence was *538presented as to the reasonableness of any of the proposed alternative designs.
Accordingly, I would reverse the decision of the trial court.