Court Opinion

ID: 9761930
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:00:16.009872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:27.812219
License: Public Domain

GREEN, Justice,
dissenting.
In this design defect product liability action, the plaintiffs failed to produce any competent evidence of a safer alternative design to the GM 700R4 automatic transmission involved in this accident, which proof was necessary for recovery. Moreover, there was no evidence to support a causation finding on the plaintiffs’ failure-to-warn claim because it was established that the warning provided, had it been heeded, would have prevented the accident. Consequently, defendants are entitled to a judgment. Because the majority instead affirms the trial court’s judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, I respectfully dissent.

No Evidence of a Safer Alternative Design

“In determining whether a product is defectively designed, the jury must conclude that the product is unreasonably dangerous as designed, taking into consideration the utility of the product and the risk involved in its use.” American Tobacco Co. v. Grinnell, 951 S.W.2d 420, 432 (Tex.1997). As part of the design defect inquiry, it is necessary to evaluate the product in light of the economic and scientific feasibility of safer alternatives. Caterpillar, Inc. v. Shears, 911 S.W.2d 379, 384 (Tex.1995). That is to say, if there are no safer alternatives to a product design, the product is not unreasonably dangerous as a matter of law. GrinneU, 951 S.W.2d at 433; Caterpillar, 911 S.W.2d at 384. To establish that an alternative design is safer, it is necessary to show that the alternative design would have prevented the injury. See Boat-land of Houston, Inc. v. Bailey, 609 S.W.2d 743, 746 (Tex.1980). Accordingly, to prevail in this case, the plaintiffs were required to prove the existence of an economically and scientifically feasible transmission that was safer than the GM 700R4. The majority *558points to the testimony of the plaintiffs expert witness, Simon Tamny, for this proof.
Tamny’s testimony on the issue of safer alternative design consisted entirely of suggested modifications to the 700R4 transmission. Specifically, he would redesign the transmission detent lever, or “rooster comb,” in the area between Park and Reverse to steepen the angle on the Park side of the tooth, move the peak of the tooth 2½ degrees closer to Reverse, sharpen the tip of the peak from thirty-one-thousandths of one inch to ten-one-thousandths of one inch, and stiffen the spring used on the roller that travels up and down the tooth. He said these design features were either currently in use by, or available to, industry manufacturers and were thus technologically and economically feasible. He further said that, while these changes to the rooster comb design would not prevent the transmission from being mis-shifted and left in “hydraulic neutral,” a position between Reverse and Park, the redesign would prevent the transmission from falling back into Reverse. Tamny admitted, however, that he had never built or tested a rooster comb with the design configuration he proposed. He nevertheless boldly concluded that his rooster comb modifications would make the GM transmission safer.
In E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Robinson, the supreme court identified a list of factors to be considered in determining the admissibility of expert testimony. 92B S.W.2d 549, 557 (Tex.1995). The court later held that the same factors may be applied by appellate courts when performing no evidence reviews of scientific evidence. See Merrell Dow Pharrn., Inc. v. Hamer, 953 S.W.2d 706, 714 (Tex.1997). These factors include:
(1) the extent to which the theory has been or can be tested;
(2) the extent to which the technique relies upon the subjective interpretation of the expert;
(3) whether the theory has been subjected to a peer review and publication;
(4) the technique’s potential rate of error;
(5) whether the underlying theory or technique has been generally accepted as valid by the relevant scientific community; and
(6)the non-judicial uses that have been made of the theory or technique.

Id.

Applying these factors to Tamny’s testimony, it is plain to see that the testimony does not measure up to the minimum standards for reliability required by the supreme court to satisfy the “more than a scintilla” test for no evidence review in eases grounded in scientific evidence. See Havner, 953 S.W.2d at 711-14 (expert’s bare opinion will not suffice as evidence); Schaefer v. Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n, 612 S.W.2d 199, 204-05 (Tex.1980) (expert’s testimony based on mere possibility, speculation, and surmise was no evidence). Tamny’s theory of design defect is based on a design that has never been tested, relies exclusively on his subjective interpretation of how the design would function, and has not been submitted for peer review or publication. Moreover, because of the foregoing, Tamny’s conclusions have a high potential for inaccuracy, and it is unlikely his armchair analytical techniques would be accepted as valid by the relevant scientific community.
Other than Tamny’s bare conelusory statement that his rooster comb would have prevented the accident, there is nothing in the record to suggest that his design is indeed safer than the 700R4. The record does not show, for example, that any one or combination of several of Tamny’s proposed rooster comb modifications has a better industry record than the 700R4 design in preventing accidental shifts from hydraulic neutral into Reverse. Without testing the Tamny design, any conclusion that it would have prevented the accident that killed Pookey Sanchez is pure conjecture and speculation. Consequently, Tamny’s testimony failed to attain the status of “some evidence” that a transmission thus manufactured was safer than the GM version.
Because Tamny’s testimony is the only evidence on the question of whether there is a safer alternative to the design of the GM 700R4 transmission, and because his testimony is based on mere possibility, speculation, and surmise and amounted to no more than a scintilla of evidence, the plaintiffs failed as a matter of law to prove that the GM transmission was unreasonably dangerous as designed.

*559
No Evidence of Producing Cause

GM provided instructions in the owner’s manual concerning vehicle operations, including specific warnings about making sure the transmission was fully engaged in Park before exiting the vehicle. Users were told:
CAUTION: It can be dangerous to get out of your vehicle if either: your shift lever is not fully in “P” (Park), or your transfer case is in neutral (on vehicles with 4-wheel drive), or both. Your vehicle can roll. If you have left the engine running, the vehicle can move suddenly. You or others could be injured. To be sure your vehicle won’t move, even when you’re parking on level ground, follow the steps below.
1. Hold the regular brake pedal down with your right foot and apply the parking brake all the way first. Follow the Parking Brake instructions in this manual for your vehicle, also refer to “Torque Lock.”
2. To move the shift lever into “P” (Park), pull the lever toward you and move it up as far as it will go.
3. Be sure the transfer case is not in neutral, to help keep the vehicle from rolling (four-wheel drive vehicles only).
4. If you don’t have to leave the engine running, (briefly)—
—Move the ignition key to “LOCK.”
—Remove the key and take it with you.
5. Before you leave the driver’s seat, cheek that your vehicle is in park by trying to pull the shift lever out of “P” (Park) — by pulling down on the shift lever without first pulling it toward you. If you can do this, it means that the shift lever wasn’t fully locked into “P” (Park). Or, check that your vehicle is in park by pocketing the key. If you can remove the key, the vehicle is in “P” (Park).
Lack of adequate warnings can render a product unreasonably dangerous. See General Motors Corp. v. Saenz, 873 S.W.2d 353, 358 (Tex.1993). But an inadequate warning cannot be a producing cause of the plaintiff’s damages when it would have prevented the accident if followed. “If despite the inadequacy of GM’s instructions, following them would have prevented the accident, then their inadequacy could not have caused the accident. There is no presumption that a plaintiff who ignored instructions that would have kept him from injury would have followed better instructions.” Id. at 359.
The jury found the warning given by GM was inadequate, and the majority upholds this finding. But that is only the first step of the analysis. The majority wholly fails to address the all important question of whether the inadequate warning was a producing cause of the accident. In this case, it is hard to imagine any instruction or warning that would have been more effective than the one given. But assuming it was inadequate, as found by the jury, it is inescapable that had Pookey Sanchez followed the warnings given, the accident would not have happened. That being the case, plaintiffs failed as a matter of law to establish that any failure-to-wam was a producing cause of the plaintiffs damages.

Conclusion

There is no doubting the tragedy of the accident resulting in this lawsuit. But the law as it has developed makes it clear what is necessary in the way of evidence to establish a design defect or failure-to-wam cause of action. The plaintiffs have not met this minimum evidentiary requirement, and because the majority holds otherwise, I respectfiilly dissent.