Court Opinion

ID: 9741389
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:54:36.725661+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:23.004841
License: Public Domain

R. R. Lamb, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent. The trial court permitted the plaintiff to introduce as rebuttal evidence a new theory of liability against the defendant after the plaintiff rested his case. In doing so, the jury was permitted to ponder whether an automobile manufacturer should be held liable for a defect which was neither alleged nor proved by plaintiff during plaintiff’s case in chief.
The lead opinion states:
"Ford alleges that the trial court abused its discretion in permitting rebuttal testimony. Our review of the *350record reveals that decedent’s contributory negligence was at issue. Defendant [i.e., Ford] introduced evidence and testimony to show that decedent was at fault for the accident. Plaintiff then produced a rebuttal witness to testify that steering problems were common to the type of car in question and to introduce the possibility of a defect as the cause of the accident.
"While this testimony might have been more properly presented in plaintiff’s case in chief, we cannot say that the trial court abused its discretion in permitting such testimony. As the jury did deduct ten percent of the award for decedent’s negligence, we believe any error was harmless, GCR 1963, 529.1, and that no manifest injustice occurred.”
I disagree.
The witness whose testimony is in question was Officer Tom Freeman of the Inkster Police Department. That department had owned six, seven, or perhaps even eight Mercury Montegos. The deceased, Timothy Kirk, purchased Cruiser No. 110 from the department at an auction. This vehicle was a 1975 Mercury Montego and had over 88,000 miles on it at the time of the purchase.
On Spetember 22, 1977, at approximately 5:00 p.m., Mr. Kirk was driving westbound on Outer Drive. As he neared the 1-94 overpass in Allen Park, his vehicle left the road, swerved, and eventually crashed into the median bridge abutment supporting the 1-94 overpass. The vehicle was then struck from behind by an oncoming Chevrolet sedan. Mr. Kirk’s vehicle then burst into flames and he died as a result.
On September 12, 1978, plaintiff filed a four-count complaint against defendant for wrongful death alleging (1) negligence, (2) gross negligence, (3) breach of warranty, and (4) product liability. The bases of all four claims were the improper *351placement of the vehicle’s fuel tank, the failure of defendant to install a flexible bladder liner in the fuel tank, and defendant’s failure to adequately perform crash-worthiness tests in relation to the proper placement of the fuel tank.
Plaintiff’s claim throughout the trial was that the automobile’s fuel system was defectively designed and installed by defendant. At no time during his case in chief did plaintiff introduce evidence or a theory of liability that the deceased’s automobile contained other possible defects.
Following plaintiff’s case in chief, defendant introduced evidence to support its theory that the deceased had been driving his automobile at an excessive rate of speed which, in turn, not only caused the automobile to crash into the bridge abutment, but also caused him to be struck from behind by the Chevrolet automobile. Defendant contended that it was the combination of these two impacts which actually compromised the integrity of the fuel system, thereby causing the gasoline leakage and subsequent fire.
Plaintiff then called Officer Freeman to the witness stand as a "rebuttal witness”. Defense counsel questioned the proposed rebuttal witness and the following testimony was elicited:
"Q [Defense counsel:] Good morning, officer. I’m George Steel. How are you?
"A /Officer Freeman:] Okay.
”Q You and I talked the other day on the telephone. Do you recall?
"A Right.
"Q Officer Freeman, you mentioned to me, did you not, on the telephone that you did have some occasions of some steering difficulties with some of the police cruisers; is that correct?
"A Yes, sir, I did.
*352”Q This particular vehicle was apparently Cruiser Number 110. Are you familiar with that?
"A No, sir.
”Q Do you know of any specific problems you had with this steering of this particular vehicle, Cruiser 110, while you were driving that particular vehicle for the Inkster Police Department?
"A I can’t be specific about that particular vehicle.
"Q So any testimony you would give regarding any handling characteristics of this particular vehicle would be speculation?
"A It may have been the vehicle that I had problems with, and it may not have. I don’t recall. It’s been quite some time.
"Q [Defense Counsel:] Your Honor, I would submit under those questions and answers, that any testimony on the part of Officer Freeman would be speculative.”
Plaintiffs counsel was then permitted to elicit further testimony from Officer Freeman that Freeman had experienced some steering problems with all of the department’s 1975 Montegos, but Freeman indicated that the degree and nature of those problems differed with each vehicle. In fact, he only experienced great difficulty three times and it was unknown whether this difficulty occurred in the same vehicle or whether it occurred in three different vehicles. More importantly, Freeman could not say whether he had experienced a great deal of steering problems in Cruiser No. 110.
Defense counsel argued that Freeman’s testimony was not rebuttal evidence, that it was not probative, and that it opened up a completely new issue and theory in the case. As I review the proposed testimony, I agree with defense counsel’s contentions.
In People v Utter, 217 Mich 74, 83; 185 NW 830 (1921), the Supreme Court defined what constitutes rebuttal evidence as follows:
*353"Rebuttal evidence is broadly defined as that given by one party to contradict, repel, explain or disprove evidence produced by the other party and tending directly to weaken or impeach the same. In practical application the line of demarcation between rebuttal evidence and that which should properly be given in chief before the prosecution rests is frequently more or less obscure, and it is a general rule that whether evidence which could have been offered before resting may be given in rebuttal is a matter within the discretion of the trial court.”
As I read Freeman’s testimony, it fails to contradict, repel, explain or even disprove defendant’s proffered evidence of excessive speed as the claimed cause of the accident. It served only to introduce a totally new issue in the case; namely, whether the cause of plaintiffs decedent’s accident was a defective steering mechanism. Such a theory belonged in plaintiffs case in chief, not in rebuttal. This theory caught defendant entirely by surprise. Plaintiff never alleged, much less tried to prove during its case in chief, that the deceased’s 1975 Mercury Montego had a defective steering assembly. I find that the introduction of this evidence was highly prejudicial. To further highlight the degree of this prejudice, I refer to portions of plaintiffs closing argument:
"We knew [the decedent] was only going 50 miles an hour, maybe a little more. Why did he hit the curb?
"And I told you in my opening statement, I just, I didn’t know.
"The only witness I had at that time was Iola Coleman, who said, T saw that car go back and forth real funny and I never saw a car do that before.’ And I knew she was going to say that.
"And I said to you folks, I said, 'There was something wrong with that car.’ And I didn’t know where it was going to come from but I knew, I just knew in my heart that there was something wrong with that car because I had — * * *.
*354"We kept working and working and working, trying to find out what was wrong with the car. And the steering elements of that car had been removed long before it came into our possession by persons unknown to us.
"And Mr. Murphy kept working on it. And finally we said, 'Look. Maybe the guys in Inkster know something about this car.’ It was like a last gasp. But it just made sense to us.
"And Tom Freeman, Officer Freeman said, 'Yeah. I had a problem with this car.’
"Do you remember Officer Freeman’s testimony?
"And I say to you, ladies and gentlemen, that Officer Freeman has told you and told us very likely what happened to Tim Kirk that day on Outer Drive Highway. Because it makes sense — * * *.
"And what makes sense about what happened that day out on Outer Drive Highway? What makes sense? The same thing that happened to Officer Freeman on many, many occasions with all of these cars — And Tim Kirk only had the car since June, and you remember his sister said it had been on blocks for several weeks at her house. He was in the process of changing tires. And he’s going down the highway at 50 or 55 miles an hour.
"I’d like to just read you briefly from Officer Freeman’s testimony where he asid [sic]: T encountered the steering problem in all the vehicles intermittently at different times. A lot of times when you turn corners or went to turn back you wouldn’t have the power steering. It would be manual, real hard, harder than if you didn’t have any. And the same thing is true sometimes if you’re going straight and you want to change lanes or make any adjustments in your steering it would be as though you didn’t have it. It would go from being easy to hard; intermittently.[’]
" 'It occurred at different times without any reason that I know of.’
*355"Here’s Officer Freeman, who’s a trained police officer, trained in the art, among other things, of driving cars. He’s a patrolman and has to chase criminals. He had had it happen to him several times and at least he was on his guard for it.
"I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to consider what happened to Tim Kirk in the last four seconds or five seconds that he had, trying to figure out what was happening to him as he went down Outer Drive at 50 or 55 miles an hour. He suddenly thought he had no steering and he jerked it and hit the curb and he hit that six-inch curb and he bounced off it. He bounced up. Can you imagine what he’s thinking? What is happening? What happened to that steering?
"[A]nd if we had not been able to find Officer Freeman you would have been left without an explanation. But fortunately, you have an explanation and I think it’s a good one because it makes sense.”
This closing argument illustrates not only how plaintiff intended to use Freeman’s testimony, it explains why I cannot find the erroneous admission of this testimony to be harmless.
The purpose of pleadings is to give parties adequate notice of issues that are to be met and to assure that issues raised may be tried fairly by eliminating traps and surprises. Amendments to pleadings are liberally allowed, even to conform the pleadings to the proofs; however, a party may not submit its case to a trier of fact on an entirely different theory. The introduction of this testimony and theory of liability coupled with the arguments based thereon violated these principles.
In addition, I do not believe that Officer Freeman’s testimony was probative of a point in issue because he was unable to tie his experiences with some of the police department’s six, seven, or eight Mercury Montegos to the automobile being driven by plaintiff’s decedent at the time of the accident. *356Thus, the testimony lacked any tendency to make the existence of any fact in consequence more probable or less probable than it would have been without the evidence. The evidence was therefore irrelevant and should not have been admitted. MRE 401, 402.
Moreover, even if somehow this evidence could be found to be relevant, its probative value was outweighed by its prejudicial impact on the jury. MRE 403. Freeman testified that he had experienced three near accidents while driving a patrol vehicle and that during two of these near accidents the tires blew out from hitting the curb. Once he almost hit a restaurant building. He explained that this steering problem occurred at slow speeds immediately after making a turn. It was something he could not get used to other than to be careful when driving the vehicle. He said that when the power steering unit would fail, the steering became so difficult that "it was too hard to control”, and that when the steering mechanism would suddenly start working again, "it would make you change lanes or go out of your lane, lose control a little bit”.
There was no testimony introduced by plaintiff that would indicate that the deceased had been driving at a low rate of speed or that he was making a turn immediately before the accident occurred. On the contrary, the evidence tended to show that the deceased had been driving at a high rate of speed; therefore, the value of Freeman’s testimony was substantially diminished. But, at the same time, the jury was allowed to speculate about whether the deceased’s vehicle and Freeman’s problem vehicle were one and the same. Because Freeman could not identify the deceased’s vehicle as the vehicle, or at least one of the vehicles in which he experienced loss of control, I *357believe that the jury was confused by the issues and misled by Freeman’s testimony. The jury was permitted to decide the case on a theory never alleged or presented by the plaintiff until after plaintiff rested his case. Defendant was not aware of this new theory until it was too late to conduct discovery or to investigate Freeman’s claims.
The lead opinion suggests that the jury’s ten percent compromise is evidence that the error was harmless. I cannot agree. In fact, it demonstrates that the jury may have accepted at least part of defendant’s theory that the deceased had been driving at an excessive rate of speed which, in turn, caused the accident and subsequent fire. Therefore, but for the prejudicial impact of Freeman’s testimony, we are left to speculate about what the verdict would have been absent this evidence.
For these reasons, I vote to reverse.