Polston v. Boomershine Pontiac-Gmc Truck, Inc.

952 F.2d 1304 (11th Cir. 1992)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

P's Pontiac Sunbird and Banks' Oldsmobile Delta 88 collided head-on. P suffered serious multiple injuries. She brought suit against D and others. P argued that her Sunbird was defectively designed in that it was not crashworthy and she suffered enhanced injuries that would not have occurred if the car had been crashworthy. The district court found that in crashworthiness cases 'the law of Georgia places the burden of proof on the P to prove that D was the sole cause of the enhanced injury.' P was required to prove both the existence and extent of enhanced injury caused by the allegedly defective design. P argued that her Sunbird lacked crashworthiness in two respects: (1) the seat belt was defective because of the 'window shade' feature which allowed P, either accidently or deliberately, to introduce slack in the belt so that in the collision the belt was ineffective in restraining her; (2) the Sunbird had insufficient crush space in the front end such that in this head-on collision the front end of the car was allowed to cave in on P. P relied primarily on the testimony of three expert witnesses to prove the existence and extent of her injuries and damages. The first two experts, Dr. Joseph Chandler, Polston's treating physician, and Dr. Harold Goldstein, an economist, testified to Polston's total injury, impairment and disability. They did not distinguish between injuries or damages caused by the initial collision and those caused by the fact that the vehicle was not crashworthy. P's third expert, Murray Burnstine, did testify to the existence of enhanced injuries. Burnstine was a mechanical engineer with experience as an automobile accident investigator. He gained this experience while employed at Harvard Medical School in the department of legal medicine. During his employment with Harvard, Burnstine was one member of a five-member team that investigated the scenes of fatal automobile accidents. Burnstine was experienced in determining how certain injuries were caused in a collision and, more specifically, what injuries were caused by the vehicle's lack of crashworthiness. P's attorney attempted to elicit testimony from Burnstine concerning what injuries were caused by, or enhanced by, the alleged defective condition of the Sunbird. Burnstine was asked to base his conclusions on a reasonable degree of medical certainty. D objected. The district court sustained the objection based on Burnstine's lack of qualifications to testify about medical probability. The court eventually ruled that P had not met her burden of proof. P appealed in part on that issue.