Court Opinion

ID: 9462686
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:47:25.446272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:43.283023
License: Public Domain

BRIGHT, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. An automobile manufacturer should not be held liable in a case such as this one where its design of a component meets the standards of the industry, and no unreasonable risk of harm should be apprehended to the user. I believe the Nebraska law is in accord with this view. Plaintiff has presented no evidence to show that the design of the Mustang door latch created an unreasonable risk of injury.
The majority opinion leaves an impression that this accident resulted from a slight impact. That is not the case. Plaintiff’s experts were clear that the fairly modest glancing impact on the Mustang door was followed within “miliseconds” by a very severe blow to the rigid quarter pillar and rear wheel.9 The speed, angle, se*803quence, and timing of the two impacts had to properly coincide to open the door in the manner alleged by plaintiff. In particular, it must not be thought that any impact which might briefly activate the latch would open the door. The latch was equipped with a secondary position into which it would fall as soon as pressure on the door eased off. Ford’s counsel asked plaintiff’s expert, Egerer, the following: “One of the purposes of that secondary position, of course, is a safety device in the latch itself, isn’t that right?” Egerer responded, “Under most circumstances, yes.” In fact, Egerer conceded that when he examined the latch after the accident when the activation lever was still “trapped” by the distortion of the sheet metal of the door the latch was in secondary position. However, he contended that the heavy blow to the Mustang’s rear had occurred just before the lever fell the “minute” amount that put the latch into secondary and thus the door flicked open.
Plaintiff’s experts testified that because of the location of the pivot points in the latch, it was possible for an inward horizontal force to be converted into an upward force which would open the latch. They conceded that not every inward force would have this effect and that differing speeds or angles of impact would produce different results. Plaintiff’s experts also conceded that, as a general rule, so long as the horizontal force continued to hold the latch open, it also would hold the door shut, and that as soon as the force eased off the latch would drop down into secondary position and secure the door. However, they testified that in this case the driver of the Volkswagen cut his wheel sharply to the right, just prior to the collision, attempting to pass behind the Mustang. As a result, the Volkswagen wiped across the Mustang’s relatively soft door in a split second, activating the latch, and then immediately struck the rigid quarter pillar and rear wheel, producing a severe jolt so quickly that the latch had no time to fall into the secondary latching position, and the door was therefore flicked open.
These experts testified that the pivot points could have been differently placed so that a horizontal force would be converted into a downward force which would tend to hold the door latch closed. They expressed their opinion that failure to incorporate this “fail safe” feature rendered the latch design “defective.”
However, neither of plaintiff’s experts was able to express any opinion of the likelihood that an automobile would be exposed to the concurrence of all of the facts necessary to activate the latch and open the door.10 The only information of which they *804were aware was a crash study conducted in 1969 by Cornell University. That study showed that of all major American makes of automobiles, Fords equipped with the very latch used on decedent’s Mustang had the lowest rate of doors opening during collisions. Plaintiff’s experts had compiled an exhibit of other types of American automobile door latches which they used by way of contrast to illustrate the “design defect” in the Mustang latch. Interestingly enough, these were the precise latches to which the Mustang latch was compared in the Cornell study. The plaintiff’s experts conceded that each of these other latches could open upon impact — in other words, would not “fail safe” upon impact in certain circumstances dissimilar to those in the present case.
This is a Nebraska diversity case. The governing law is established by Friedrich v. Anderson, 191 Neb. 724, 217 N.W.2d 831 (1974), in which the Nebraska Supreme Court exhaustively reviewed the law of strict liability for defective automotive design in “second impact or collision” situations.11
The Nebraska Supreme Court enunciated the following as the rule applicable to enhanced injuries received upon a second impact, such as sustained in the present case:
We therefore hold that a manufacturer of goods has a duty to use reasonable care in the design of goods to protect those who will use the goods from unreasonable risk of harm while the goods are being used for their intended purpose or any purpose which could be reasonably expected. The subjection of an automobile to accidental collision with another automobile or object while being used for its intended purpose is a use which a manufacturer should reasonably expect. [Id. at 836 (emphasis added).]
Thus, the court accepted the possibility of liability for defective design which subjects the user to an unreasonable risk of harm. However, the court emphasized that
an automobile manufacturer is not an insurer that its product is, from a design viewpoint, incapable of producing injury. Furthermore, in the application of the general rule, whenever a “second impact” or enhanced injury occurs, this should not be an open invitation to a jury to speculate as to the issue of foreseeability or the unreasonableness of the risk of harm. [Id., 217 N.W.2d at 836.]
In my judgment, the plaintiff’s case utterly failed to show that the construction of the Mustang door latch exposed the occupant of such automobile to any unreasonable risk of harm, bearing in mind that a door latch, in part, should be constructed in a manner that will enable an automobile rider to unlatch the doer to conveniently get in or out of the automobile. The plaintiff’s case showed that any unlocked door latch on the modern automobile can open, given the appropriate application of forces in a collision, and uncontradicted evidence showed that the Mustang latch was less dangerous in actual collisions than any other latch then being manufactured.12 I am mindful, too, that the automobile manufacturer in this case provided door locks and safety belts for the use, if desired, of the occupant of the automobile.
In the Friedrich case, the court affirmed a summary judgment of dismissal of an automobile passenger’s suit seeking recovery against the manufacturer on the theory *805of strict liability (and other theories) for injuries sustained when plaintiff’s face struck the gear shift lever knob after his automobile was struck on the left side/ by another automobile. The collision caused the gear knob of one-half inch diameter to penetrate plaintiff’s eye. For purposes of the appeal, the defendant had stipulated that the knob was defectively designed.
In the 1966 model Plymouth, the type of automobile involved in the accident, the manufacturer in the last half of the year increased the diameter of the gear knobs to one inch to conform to GSA specifications for automobiles to be purchased by the United States Government. The particular injury would have been less likely to occur had the plaintiff’s car been equipped with the larger gear shift knob. Despite this evidence the trial court granted summary judgment for the defendant, finding that
it is conclusively established there was no duty on the part of said defendants at the time of the manufacture and sale to design a gearshift lever knob so as to be incapable of producing the injury to this plaintiff or incapable of causing injury in the event of collision with another vehicle. [Id. at 833.]
The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed the summary judgment and made the following finding:
All the evidence relating to the claimed duty of the defendants to the plaintiff in design of the gearshift lever knob is before the court and is undisputed, and in our opinion is not sufficient that reasonable minds could properly find that the defectively designed product created a foreseeable and unreasonable risk of harm. [Id.,. 217 N.W.2d at 836.]
On the basis of this Nebraska rule of law, we should reject the jury verdict in the present case. This case virtually makes the manufacturer the insurer of the safety of the occupants of an automobile and would impose a duty upon the automobile manufacturer to construct an automobile in such a way as to avoid injury to the occupants under almost any possible impact situation. To cast such a burden upon the manufacturer of an automobile is impractical and uneconomic.
No doubt the manufacturers of automobiles could design and build an automobile with the strength and crash-damage resistance features of an M-2 army tank. I believe the average and reasonable automobile user desires only a reasonably safe, economical form of motor transportation. No greater burden of design-performance ought to be imposed upon automobile manufacturers by either judge or jury.13

. As the majority opinion indicates, engineer Egerer was the primary expert for the plaintiff. He was quick to interject the following caution:
[L]et me point out, when I talked about a minor impact, I was talking about the impact to the door. The impact to the car was quite a severe impact.
While he never quantified the impact to the rear of the Mustang, he apparently accepted the statement by Ford’s counsel that “it literally tore that rear end loose didn’t it?” Photographs in the record show heavy damage to both cars. It should be borne in mind that the Volkswagen was going at approximately 45 mph. and the Mustang at an uncertain speed perhaps as high as 55 mph.
Egerer repeatedly emphasized that the door opened only as a result of a dynamic interaction of both impacts — “after the impact to the door and after a severe blow had caused the rear panel to cave in.” During cross-examination by Ford’s counsel, Egerer gave the following testimony:
*803Q. There is no way that this door can open when there is a force outside of it pushing it in, isn’t that right?
A. That is right, but there is a way that it can open in a force which is a glance — well, it is an instantaneous time interval, then the door can fly open.
Q. But if I were * * * to take that hammer and strike the operating lever, that door wouldn’t fly open, would it?
A. If a split second later you kicked that channel [a solid part of the frame] with a force perhaps one hundred times as much, it would.
Finally, it should not be thought that Egerer ever indicated that the impact on the door in this case was “very slight.” To the contrary, he testified that many of the structural elements of the latch were bent and displaced. For example, the striker which is mounted on the frame was bent inwards two and three-fourths inches. Egerer testified that industry standards required these structures to resist an impact of 2,000 pounds, and plaintiffs attorney stipulated that they met those standards “and exceeded them by far.”

. Defendant’s expert was an engineer with many years’ experience in designing and crash testing Ford door latches, including the Mustang latch at issue in this case. At the beginning of his testimony it was established that he had been present during most of the testimony by plaintiff’s experts and that he was familiar with their views. Yet when he attempted to testify that it would be “unusual” for an accident to occur in the manner alleged by plaintiff, plaintiff’s attorney objected to his testimony “for lack of any foundation, showing that this witness knows anything about whether it is usual or unusual.” The objection was sustained, possibly on other grounds. If, as plaintiff’s attorney asserted, the testimony of his experts provided no basis from which another expert could determine the probability of such *804an accident, it is clear that the lay jury could not make such a determination without indulging in sheer speculation and conjecture.

. In particular, the Nebraska court discussed, and compared Larsen v. General Motors Corp., 391 F.2d 495 (8th Cir. 1968), with Evans v. General Motors Corp., 359 F.2d 822 (7th Cir. 1966).

. I do not read the two cases cited by the majority at note 5, supra, to be particularly applicable. There it was shown that the latches in question violated established industry standards and created a serious risk of injury. Interestingly enough, in Bair v. American Motors Corp., supra, the court found it to be prejudicial error to exclude the 1968 Cornell study introduced in this case since the study was held to be probative of the industry standard. Of course, the Mustang latch in this case met all industry standards and ranked at the top in the Cornell study.

. Prior to this action plaintiff attempted to recover against the driver of the Volkswagen. That action was wholly unsuccessful, largely because of evidence that decedent caused the accident by running a red light. Melia v. Svoboda, 191 Neb. 150, 214 N.W.2d 476, 477 (1974). It is ironic that this evidence was excluded in this case. I would think that this evidence, taken together with decedent’s failure to lock her door or wear her safety harness, would be admissible on the issue of whether the manufacturer should have foreseen an unreasonable risk of harm. However, since I would reverse outright, I do not further address this evidentiary question.