Pannu v. Land Rover North America, Inc.

120 Cal. Rptr. 3d 605 (2011)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

P was driving his 1998 Discovery traveling about 65 miles per hour. The road was dry. Bret Lusis, a teenager driving an Acura Legend about 75 miles per hour, approached from the rear on the driver's side and collided with the Discovery. This forced the Discovery across the freeway toward the far right lane, where it collided with a Chevrolet Blazer driven by David Beres. Beres was forced off the shoulder and up the embankment adjacent to the freeway. As he steered the Blazer up the embankment, Beres saw the Discovery rolling over several times along the right shoulder of the freeway. The Discovery came to a stop on its roof, which was crushed. P is now a quadriplegic. P is paralyzed below his chest, has limited mobility or dexterity of his arms and hands, cannot drive or groom himself, and suffers from spasms, fevers, urinary tract infections, pressure sores, incontinence, and constant pain. He requires the daily care of an attendant who dresses him, cares for his medical needs, and drives him to his stores. P is no longer involved in the personal management of his family's stores. P's older son abandoned his studies at medical school to care for P and the family stores. His daughters attend local colleges in order to be close to their father. P sued D. Ted Kobayashi, P's accident reconstruction expert, posited that P began a series of five rapid steering maneuvers in an attempt to control his vehicle after it was struck by the Acura. The resulting yawl and tire friction caused the left side wheels to lift from the ground, and the vehicle rolled three and a half times before coming to rest on its roof. P presented another expert, Ed Heitzman, who had devised a protocol to test vehicles for stability and the test vehicle's wheels lifted when the steering mechanism executed consecutive left-right steering inputs of 165 degrees, comparable with the steering parameters suggested by Kobayashi. Testing whether the production Discovery could be modified slightly to improve rollover resistance, Heitzman added spacers to extend the track width by one and a half inches and utilized low-profile tires to lower the center of gravity by 0.44 inches. The wheels of the modified Discovery did not lift up under equivalent steering inputs and resisted rollover when subjected to far more drastic steering inputs. P called a stability and handling engineering expert, John Marcosky, who opined that, when a vehicle traveling on a smooth roadway rolls over as a result of steering input and not as a result of a tripping mechanism, the vehicle is defective. Under steering duress, a vehicle should have sufficient rollover resistance to slide out rather than rollover. D's expert was impeached by a witness who located and measured the distance between the curb gouge and the scrape described by Carr. According to the impeachment witness, the distance between the two marks was 160 inches, not the 100 inches described by Carr. Carr then retook the stand and admitted he had erred in his testimony and concurred the correct measurement was 160 inches. He did not explain how this error would affect his reconstruction of the accident. P's expert, Brian Herbst, showed how adding approximately 109 pounds of steel tubing, sheet metal and rigid polyurethane foam filling at a production cost of $76 and the additional weight to be in the range of 72 pounds would have limited roof deformation to three inches at the A pillar, instead of the 16 to 17 inches of deformation suffered by the unreinforced Discovery. P's medical expert, Joseph L. Burton, showed how Pannu's neck was hyperflexed into his chest by the deforming roof (and corresponding loss of occupant space), which caused the spinal injury that paralyzed him. This would not have happened with a 3-inch deformation. Applying the consumer expectation test, the court concluded D was liable for both stability and roof defects because the Discovery “did not perform as safely as an ordinary consumer would have expected at the time of the accident.” Applying the alternate risk-benefit test, the court ruled P had carried his burden of proving the roof and stability design of the vehicle was a substantial factor in causing his injury, and that D had failed to establish the benefits of the design outweighed its inherent risks. The court also found D strictly liable for a failure to warn of the dangerous propensities of the Discovery. The court assessed damages in the amount of $21,654,000. D appealed. D contends the trial court erred as a matter of law in applying the consumer expectation test and misapplied the alternate risk-benefit test by failing to undertake the considered analysis required to impose liability.