FLORIDA SUPREME COURT

Transcription

1 FLORIDA SUPREME COURT CASE NO. SC JOAN HALL-EDWARDS, as the Personal Representative of the Estate of Lance Crossman Hall, Plaintiff/Petitioner, v. FORD MOTOR COMPANY, Defendant/Respondent. ON DISCRETIONARY REVIEW FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA, THIRD DISTRICT PETITIONER S BRIEF ON JURISDICTION DENNEY & BARRETT, P.A. ALTERS, BOLDT, BROWN, 870 Copperfield Drive RASH & CULMO, P.A. Norman, Oklahoma Southeast 5 th Street, Suite 200 Boca Raton, Florida LAW OFFICES OF GUSTAVO BRUCE KASTER, ESQUIRE GUTIERREZ 125 N.E. 1 st Avenue, Suite Aviation Avenue Ocala, Florida Coconut Grove, Florida Attorneys for Petitioner

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page TABLE OF AUTHORITIES...ii STATEMENT OF THE CASE AND FACTS...1 SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT...2 ARGUMENT...4 Issue I Issue II WHETHER THE DISTRICT COURT S OPINION CONFLICTS WITH DECISIONS OF THIS COURT AND THE FIRST AND FOURTH DISTRICT COURTS OF APPEAL ON SUBSTANTIAL SIMILARITY OF PRIOR ACCIDENT EVIDENCE IN PRODUCTS LIABILITY CASES...4 WHETHER THE DISTRICT COURT S OPINION CONFLICTS WITH DECISIONS OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT ON THE SCOPE OF OTHER ACCIDENT EVIDENCE ADMISSIBLE TO PROVE PUNITIVE DAMAGES...8 CONCLUSION CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE CERTIFICATE OF FONT STYLE AND SIZE i

3 TABLE OF AUTHORITIES Page Chambers v. Loftin 67 So. 2d 220 (Fla. 1953)...6 Hessen for Use and Benefit of Allstate Ins. Co. v. Jaguar Cars, Inc. 915 F.2d 641 (11th Cir. 1990)...8 Jackson v. H.L. Bouton Co., Inc. 630 So. 2d 1173 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994)... 3, 7 Merrick v. Paul Revere Life Ins. Co. 500 F.3d 1007 (9th Cir. Nev. 2007)... 3, 9 Perret v. Seaboard Coast Line R.R. Co. 299 So. 2d 590 (Fla. 1974)... 2, 5-6 Philip Morris USA v. Williams 127 S.Ct (2007)... 3, 8-9 Rodriguez v. Loxahatchee Groves Water Control Management District 636 So. 2d 1348 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994)... 3, 6-7 State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell 538 U.S. 408 (2003)... 3, 9 TXO Production Corp. v. Alliance Resources Corp. 509 U.S. 443 (1993)... 3, 8 Wood v. Walt Disney World Co. 396 So. 2d 769 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981) (reh. dnd.)... 3, 7-8 ii

4 STATEMENT OF THE CASE AND FACTS On April 20, 1997, Lance Hall lay asleep in the front passenger seat of a 1996 Ford Explorer when its driver lost control. Lance was ejected in the ensuing rollover and died at the scene. Lance s mother, Joan Hall-Edwards, brought a products liability action against Ford Motor Company in which she asserted that Ford had manufactured the vehicle with certain stability and handling defects. The jury concluded that the 1996 Ford Explorer had a stability and handling defect that caused the vehicle to roll over in an emergency handling situation. The jury awarded Lance s parents equal damages for the pain and suffering they sustained as a result of his death; $30 million to Ms. Hall-Edwards and $30 million to Mr. Hall. (A. 2-6). Ford appealed the final judgment to the Third District Court of Appeal, contending that the trial court erred in allowing certain evidence of other accidents to be introduced at trial. According to Ford, Ms. Hall-Edwards failed to establish that those other accidents were substantially similar. As noted in the Third District s opinion, Ms. Hall-Edwards established that one of her expert witnesses had personally investigated 45 other rollover accidents involving the 1996 Ford Explorer. Further, this expert testified that those rollovers were un-tripped rollovers, like the one in this case. Other experts including a defense expert 2

5 testified that they, too, had personally reviewed more than 100 other accidents involving serious injury or death to occupants of 1996 Ford Explorers that had rolled over. (A. 3-6). The Third District concluded that Ms. Hall-Edwards evidence regarding these prior accidents was not sufficient because the evidence failed to pass the following four-part test, which test has never before been proposed by a Florida court: There are four required elements that must be satisfied prior to admitting similar accident evidence. See Perret v. Seaboard Coast Line R.R., 299 So. 2d 590, (Fla. 1974). (1) Evidence of similar accidents may not be offered to prove negligence or culpability, but may be admissible to show the dangerous character of an instrumentality and to show the defendant s knowledge. (2) The similar accidents must pertain to the same type of appliance or equipment under substantially similar circumstances. (3) The similar accident evidence must have a tendency to establish a dangerous condition at a specific place. (4) The accident must not be too remote in time to the accident at issue, thereby causing it to lack sufficient probative value. (A. 7-8). [Footnotes omitted]. The Third District also held that the above quoted test applies even though the other accident evidence is introduced to prove notice of defect and reprehensibility in a punitive damages case. 3

6 SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT Petitioner Hall-Edwards submits that the Third District s creation of (and adherence to) a four-part test for the admission of other accident evidence in a products liability action involving a defective motor vehicle conflicts with: (a) this Court s decision in Perret v. Seaboard Coast Line R.R. Co., 229 So. 2d 590 (Fla. 1974), which differentiated the similarity requirements for accidents at a fixed location (such as a railroad crossing) from accidents involving a movable product (such as a motor vehicle); (b) the Fourth District s decisions in Rodriguez v. Loxahatchee Groves Water Control Management District, 636 So. 2d 1348 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994) (again, focusing on a fixed premises as opposed to a moving vehicle) and Wood v. Walt Disney World Co., 396 So.2d 769 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981) (reh. dnd.) (also illustrating the premises vs. product distinction); and (c) the First District s decision in Jackson v. H.L. Bouton Co., Inc., 630 So. 2d 1173 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994) (holding that the similarity standard is relaxed when evidence is offered to prove notice). Ms. Hall-Edwards further submits that the Third District s adherence to the four-part test relative to punitive damages evidence conflicts with the following decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court which, read in concert, show that the Court imposes a far milder standard on other accident evidence when used to prove the 4

7 reprehensibility element that lies at the heart of a punitive damages case: (a) TXO Production Corp. v. Alliance Resources Corp., 509 U.S. 443 (1993); (b) Philip Morris USA v. Williams, 127 S.Ct (2007), as clarified by Merrick v. Paul Revere Life Ins. Co., 500 F.3d 1007 (9th Cir. Nev. 2007); and (c) State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408 (2003). ARGUMENT ISSUE I THE DISTRICT COURT S OPINION CONFLICTS WITH DECISIONS OF THIS COURT AND THE FIRST AND FOURTH DISTRICT COURTS OF APPEAL ON SUBSTANTIAL SIMILARITY OF PRIOR ACCIDENT EVIDENCE IN PRODUCTS LIABILITY CASES This case involves a defective automobile a 1996 Ford Explorer manufactured with a stability and handling defect that caused it to roll over when its driver reacted in a foreseeable manner to an emergency situation. Ms. Hall- Edwards established at trial that (a) identical injuries (i.e., fatalities) had resulted from (b) rollover accidents (c) triggered in the same manner as the subject accident (un-tripped) (d) during the operation of products virtually identical to the subject vehicle (other Ford Explorers) which (e) contained the same stability and handling defect as the subject vehicle. The Third District s decision creates a standard regarding the predicate facts necessary to establish the admissibility of this evidence in a products liability action that is in conflict with both Perret and Rodriguez. 5

8 The decision below holds that the prior accidents a plaintiff seeks to introduce must themselves be similar: i.e., occurring under substantially similar circumstances such that the similar accident tends to prove a dangerous condition at a specific place. (A. 8). The Third District concludes that other accident evidence in a products liability action must meet a four-part test before it may be admitted (A. 7-8), despite the fact that the third prong of this test is clearly inapplicable to a products liability action. The Third District s decision confuses the standard of admissibility of other accident evidence in cases where the dangerous condition is on real property with cases alleging the existence of a product defect. This places the Third District in direct conflict with Florida law that has traditionally admitted evidence of other accidents in products liability actions to show notice to the defendant of that defect, so long as similar injuries resulted from the same defective product. As this Court recognized in Perret v. Seaboard Coast Line R.R. Co., 299 So. 2d 590 (Fla. 1974), the substantial similarity test is significantly different where the dangerous condition inheres to fixed property as opposed to a motile product. In Perret, the plaintiff contended that trees on a railroad s right-of-way obstructed the line of sight for automobile drivers approaching the railroad crossing. The trial court rejected the plaintiff s request to introduce evidence of a prior accident that 6

9 had occurred at the same crossing. The allegedly dangerous condition (overgrown trees) remained the same at the time of both accidents. Thus, the defect causing injury was fixed in place. Because both accidents occurred at approximately the same time of day, under the same weather conditions, with both cars approaching the track from the same direction and being struck by trains coming from the same direction, this Court held that evidence of the prior accident was admissible. Thus, where the case involved an allegedly dangerous condition on the defendant s property, the automobile accidents themselves had to be substantially similar. However, in cases involving a product alleged to be defective as the jury found in this case evidence of prior similar injuries resulting from the same appliance [or product] as the injury in suit, is admissible for the purpose of showing the existence of dangerous or defective... appliances [or products]. Perret at 592. In discussing the application of this standard to products cases, this Court relied on Chambers v. Loftin, 67 So. 2d 220 (Fla. 1953). In Chambers, the Court concluded that, where the plaintiff alleged that a saw table was defective if operated without a safety guard, evidence of other accidents involving the same saw table was admissible. Thus, in cases like the one at bar, other accident evidence is admissible where similar injuries result from use of the same defective 7

10 product. Perret at The Third District s decision sets a different standard and therefore conflicts with Perret. The Fourth District Court of Appeal followed this Court s precedent in Rodriguez v. Loxahatchee Groves Water Control Management District, 636 So. 2d 1348 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994). In Rodriguez, the liability question was whether a roadway that ran alongside a canal had been defectively designed. The decedent was killed when his vehicle rolled over into the canal. The plaintiff introduced evidence at trial that other vehicles had gone into canals alongside the roads, not only in the specific area where the decedent s accident occurred, but throughout the district. Id. at The plaintiff contended that these other accidents were relevant because the other roadways were constructed in the same defective manner. Id. The jury returned a verdict in the Rodriguez s favor, but the trial court granted a new trial believing that its admission of this prior accident evidence had been erroneous. Id. at The Fourth District disagreed, holding that the trial court had based its decision on an erroneous presumption of law, i.e., that showing the roadway system was deficient and that other vehicles had gone into the canals did not constitute sufficient similarity to admit the prior accident evidence. Id. at Thus, the plaintiff properly established sufficient 8

11 similarity with respect to the injuries (motorists injured by going into the canals) and the defect causing those injuries (the defectively designed roadways). There was no requirement that each vehicle be substantially similar or that each accident occur in a substantially similar way. The Fourth District properly followed Perret by concluding that the substantial similarity requirement applied to the injuries and the defective condition. The Third District s decision conflicts with Rodriguez because it requires that the potentially innumerable circumstances surrounding the accidents themselves be substantially similar. The Third District s decision also conflicts with the following holdings: (a) Jackson v. H.L. Bouton Co., Inc., 630 So. 2d 1173, 1176 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994) (Evidence of previous complaints about safety glasses was admissible, even in the absence of substantial similarities, because the evidence went directly to the issue of the manufacturer s knowledge of an alleged defect in its safety glasses); and (b) Wood v. Walt Disney World Co., 396 So. 2d 769, 770 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981) (reh. dnd.) (Illustrating the distinction between defective premises as opposed to defect motor vehicles). See also, Hessen for Use and Benefit of Allstate Ins. Co. v. Jaguar Cars, Inc., 915 F.2d 641, (11th Cir. 1990) (Evidence of a recall campaign and consumer complaints were admissible because the vehicles therein, though differing by model year, shared the same defect as the subject vehicle). 9

12 It is evident that the Third District s holding directly conflicts with the established Federal and State law of Florida. ISSUE II THE DISTRICT COURT S OPINION CONFLICTS WITH DECISIONS OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT ON THE SCOPE OF OTHER ACCIDENT EVIDENCE ADMISSIBLE TO PROVE PUNITIVE DAMAGES At page 9 of its opinion, the Third District holds that the substantial similarity requirement applies in its strictest sense even when the evidence of other accidents is offered to prove punitive damages. (A. 9-10). This pronouncement conflicts with the U.S. Supreme Court. In TXO Production Corp. v. Alliance Resources Corp., 509 U.S. 443, 449 (1993), the Court held: It is appropriate to consider the magnitude of the... possible harm to other victims that might have resulted if similar future behavior were not deterred. Likewise, the Court observed in Philip Morris USA v. Williams, 127 S.Ct. 1057, (2007): Respondent argues that she is free to show harm to other victims because it is relevant to a different part of the punitive damages constitutional equation, namely, reprehensibility. That is to say, harm to others shows more reprehensible conduct. Philip Morris does not deny [this]. Nor do we. Evidence of actual harm to nonparties can help to show that the conduct that harmed the plaintiff also posed a substantial risk of harm to the general public, and so was particularly reprehensible. 10

13 This rule was later distilled in Merrick v. Paul Revere Life Ins. Co., 500 F.3d 1007, 1016 (9th Cir. Nev. 2007): Williams clarified that a plaintiff may offer evidence of harm to other victims to show the reprehensibility of a defendant's conduct in this case. Finally, four years prior to Williams the Court had emphasized the significance of the reprehensibility element in State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408, 419 (2003): [T]he most important indicium of the reasonableness of a punitive damages award is the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct. Gore, 517 U.S., at 575, 116 S.Ct We have instructed courts to determine the reprehensibility of a defendant by considering whether: the harm caused was physical as opposed to economic; the tortious conduct evinced an indifference to or a reckless disregard of the health or safety of others; the target of the conduct had financial vulnerability; the conduct involved repeated actions or was an isolated incident; and the harm was the result of intentional malice, trickery, or deceit, or mere accident. It is thus evident that the U.S. Supreme Court does not impose on punitive damages evidence the same similarity standard that applies to liability evidence. In the case at hand, Respondent Ford s bifurcation waiver forced Ms. Hall-Edwards to offer her reprehensibility evidence alongside her liability evidence. In such a situation, the Third District would erase the distinction between the two standards of proof, a distinction the U.S. Supreme Court has clearly preserved. 11

14 CONCLUSION Petitioner Joan Hall-Edwards, as the Personal Representative of the Estate of Lance Crossman Hall, respectfully submits that the Third District Court of Appeal s decision in this case conflicts with decisions from this Court, the First and Fourth District Courts of Appeal, and the United States Supreme Court; therefore, this Court should accept jurisdiction to resolve that conflict. Respectfully submitted, Respectfully submitted, LAW OFFICES OF GUSTAVO GUTIERREZ BRUCE KASTER, ESQUIRE 2964 Aviation Avenue 125 N.E. 1 st Avenue, Suite 3 Coconut Grove, Florida Ocala, Florida Telephone (305) Telephone (352) DENNEY & BARRETT, P.A. ALTERS, BOLDT, BROWN, 870 Copperfield Drive RASH & CULMO, P.A. Norman, Oklahoma Southeast 5 th Street, Suite 200 Telephone (405) Boca Raton, Florida Telephone (561) Attorneys for Petitioner Attorneys for Petitioner By: By: RICHARD L. DENNEY KIMBERLY L. BOLDT Oklahoma Bar Assoc Florida Bar No CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE WE HEREBY CERTIFY that a true and correct copy of Petitioner s Brief on Jurisdiction was mailed this 17 th day of December, 2007 to: Wendy Lumish, 12

15 Esquire, Carlton Fields, P.A., 4000 International Place, 100 SE Second Street, Miami, Florida 33131, Counsel for Respondent; F. Rand Wallis, Esquire, Cabaniss Smith Toole & Wiggins, PL, Maitland Promenade One, Suite 401, 485 N. Keller Road, Maitland, Florida 32751, Counsel for Respondent; Henry Salas, Esquire, Salas Ede Peterson & Lage, 6333 Sunset Drive, South Miami, Florida 33143, Counsel for Respondent; and Richard M. Mogerman, Esquire, Richard M. Mogerman, P.A., 150 South Pine Island Road, Suite 330, Plantation, Florida 33324, Counsel for statutory survivor Lester Hall. CERTIFICATE OF FONT STYLE AND SIZE Undersigned counsel here certifies that the Times New Roman font in 14 point type is utilized in Petitioner s Brief on Jurisdiction. 13