United States District Court, N.D. Iowa, Western Division
ORDER
Kelly
K.E. Mahoney United States Magistrate Judge Northern District
of Iowa.
Table
of Contents
I.
BACKGROUND
.....................................................................................................................
2
II.
JUDGMENT AS A MATTER OF LAW
..........................................................................
11
A.
Fournier's Expert Testimony
........................................................................................
11
B.
Statute of Limitations
....................................................................................................
14
C.
Sufficiency of the Evidence for Breach of Express
Warranty ................................... 17
D.
Inconsistency of the Jury Verdict
.................................................................................
28
III.
NEW TRIAL
......................................................................................................................
30
IV.
INTEREST AND COSTS
.................................................................................................
30
V.
CONCLUSION
..................................................................................................................
32
This
case involves claims brought under Iowa law by Plaintiffs
Jeffrey and Jennifer Klingenberg[1] after Jeffrey fell from a
ladder in February 2013 and suffered serious injuries. After
a four-day trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of
Defendants, Vulcan Ladder USA, LLC (Vulcan) and G.P.
International Company (GP International), on the
design-defect claim, but in favor of the Klingenbergs on the
breach-of-express-warranty claim. The jury awarded the
Klingenbergs more than $2.4 million in damages. Defendants
now move for judgment as a matter of law under Federal Rule
of Civil Procedure 50(b) or, alternatively, for a new trial
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(a)(1)(A). They argue
that the Klingenbergs' expert should not have been
allowed to testify, that the statute of limitations bars the
Klingenbergs' claims against GP International, that no
evidence supports the verdict, and that the jury's
verdict is inconsistent. They also argue that the great
weight of the evidence demonstrates no breach of warranty
occurred. I deny the motion for judgment as
a matter of law and Defendants' alternative request for a
new trial (Doc. 128).
I.
BACKGROUND
On
February 22, 2013, while working as a home inspector, Jeffrey
fell as he attempted to move from the roof of a house onto a
Vulcan-branded ladder, and he suffered serious injuries. He
had purchased the ladder from a Menards store in September
2011.
The
Klingenbergs initiated this lawsuit on January 26, 2015, by
filing a complaint in state court against Vulcan. Doc. 1-2.
They alleged, among other things, that Vulcan breached an
express warranty based on the ladder's label that its
working weight limit was 300 pounds and that Vulcan
defectively designed the ladder. Id. Vulcan removed
the case to federal court on February 26, 2015. Doc. 1. In a
disclosure statement filed in accordance with the Local Rules
on March 18, 2015, Vulcan stated that GP International, a
Chinese corporation, was Vulcan's parent company. Doc. 5.
After
conducting some discovery, the Klingenbergs moved on July 24,
2015-the deadline to add parties-for leave to file an amended
complaint adding GP International and GP International Co.,
LLC (GP LLC) as defendants. Docs. 7, 9. The Klingenbergs
asserted that they were still not sure of the relationship
between the parties and what role the additional defendants
had in designing, manufacturing, and distributing the ladder.
Id. The court granted the motion on August 11, 2015,
and that same day, the Klingenbergs filed an amended
complaint setting forth the same claims but adding the two
additional defendants. Docs. 10, 11. Vulcan and GP LLC
quickly filed answers to the amended complaint (represented
by the same attorneys), but the Klingenbergs were unable to
serve GP International, and counsel for Vulcan declined to
accept service on GP International's behalf. Docs. 14-17,
74 ¶ 12.
The
case proceeded without GP International. Vulcan and GP LLC
filed a Daubert motion to exclude the testimony of
the Klingenbergs' expert witness, Stephen Fournier. Doc.
26. Vulcan and GP LLC also filed a motion for summary
judgment, largely based on the assumption that the
Klingenbergs' expert testimony would be excluded. Doc.
25. The court[2] granted summary judgment to Vulcan and GP
LLC on the Klingenbergs' manufacturing-defect claim but
denied the Daubert motion and allowed the rest of
the Klingenbergs' claims to proceed. Doc. 39.
On May
30, 2017, having exhausted the requirements for service under
the Hague Convention to no avail, the Klingenbergs moved for
default judgment against GP International. Doc. 56. Two weeks
later, the motion became moot when the attorneys for Vulcan
and GP LLC entered their appearance on GP International's
behalf and filed GP International's answer. Docs. 57-59,
63. GP International's answer set forth the same
boilerplate affirmative defenses that had been in
Vulcan's and GP LLC's answers, including a
statute-of-limitations defense, and added a defense based on
lack of personal jurisdiction. See Docs. 4, 14, 17,
58. GP International also filed a disclosure statement as
required by the Local Rules, stating that no entities were
related to it as a parent, subsidiary, or otherwise and that
no other entities had a direct or indirect pecuniary interest
in the outcome of the case. Doc. 61. GP LLC filed the same
disclosure statement, as did Vulcan, amending (without
explanation) its earlier disclosure statement that had
represented GP International was its parent company. Docs.
60, 62. The court allowed the Klingenbergs to conduct
additional discovery in the form of depositions to try to
discern the relationship between the three defendants. Docs.
74, 83. After the additional discovery, the parties agreed to
the dismissal of GP LLC as a defendant and to stipulate that
the ladder was designed and distributed by Vulcan and
manufactured and sold by GP International. Docs. 99, 107, 113
at 18. They also agreed not to use the additional discovery
at trial. Doc. 99.
The
court held a final pretrial conference on September 11, 2017
(before the additional discovery had been conducted). Doc.
92. The parties discussed with the court the foreseeable
issues for trial, and the court entered a final pretrial
order. Defendants made no mention of a potential
statute-of-limitations defense, and this defense was not
included as a potential issue for trial in the final pretrial
order (even though the final pretrial order does note
“Defendants will argue at the close of Plaintiffs'
case[-]in[-]chief that . . . [GP International] should be
dismissed” based on a lack of evidence that it designed
and distributed the ladder). Docs. 93, 102.
The
parties submitted joint proposed jury instructions. Doc. 86.
They requested the model Iowa instructions for design-defect
claims and breach-of-express-warranty claims. Id.
Defendants also proposed the following instruction related to
the alternative-design element of the design-defect claim:
[T]he Court has instructed you to consider “the
technological feasibility” of the alternative design.
This is also known as “state of the art.” Whether
or not a reasonable alternative design existed must be tested
by what was technologically available at the time of sale, as
opposed to what has developed since that time.
The Defendants contend that the rail bracing design of the .
. . ladder was, at the time of sale, state of the art. You
have received evidence regarding the [American National
Standards Institute (ANSI)] ¶ 14.2 Standard and
[Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)]
1926.1053 Regulation. Those standards and regulations
required this ladder to withstand a thousand pound load when
fully extended at 75˚ in the “straight”
configuration when a single locking pin (or “J”
hook) is engaged. The evidence in this case is uncontroverted
that this model of Vulcan ladders met the ANSI testing
requirements.
You may consider such evidence in determining whether or not
the [ladder] rail bracing design met the state of the art.
Doc. 86 at 12. The Klingenbergs objected that this
instruction was based on a withdrawn model Iowa instruction
that now stated under “Wright v. Brooke Group,
Ltd., 652 N.W.2d 159 (Iowa 2002)[, ] . . . ‘State
of the Art' [is] an element of plaintiff's proof in
product liability cases, but remains an affirmative defense
under Iowa Code section 668.12.” Doc. 86 at 12.
The
court submitted proposed jury instructions on September 15,
2017, and included instructions only on the design-defect
claim because both sides' model verdict forms contained
only that claim. Docs. 88, 89, 94-1. Neither did the court
include Defendants' proposed state-of-the-art
instruction. Doc. 94-1. The court instructed the parties to
file any objections to the jury instructions by 5:00 p.m. on
September 20, 2017, or the objection would be deemed waived.
Doc. 94. The Klingenbergs objected, requesting instructions
on additional claims. Doc. 96. Defendants filed no response.
The
court filed revised proposed jury instructions on September
21, 2017, which included instructions on breach of express
warranty, and ordered the parties to respond by 5:00 p.m. the
next day. Docs. 98, 98-1. The court further stated that
“[a] party may not object to any portion of these
instructions that remains unchanged from the [previous]
version”
and that “[a]ny objection not included in a party's
response will be deemed to be waived.” Doc. 98. By
email, counsel for Defendants requested additional time to
object (Doc. 148 at 1), which the court allowed. When
Defendants filed their response to the jury instructions,
they had no objections to the instructions on breach of
express warranty. Doc. 103. During the pretrial conference on
the first day of trial, the court presented the parties with
the final jury instructions and inquired into whether any
changes needed to be made. Trial Tr. vol. 1,
4-6.[3]
Again, Defendants made no objection to the
breach-of-express-warranty instructions. Id. The
final jury instruction on breach of express warranty included
the following elements (as it had throughout the revision
process):
First,
the Defendants sold the Vulcan ladder and expressly warranted
that the working weight load of the ladder was 300 pounds and
that it could be used in different positions under the
300-pound working weight.
• An express warranty is any promise by a seller about a
product that naturally or ordinarily leads the buyer to
purchase the product.
• For a promise to be an express warranty, no particular
form of words have to be used, nor do the terms
“warrant” or “guarantee” have to be
used, nor does the seller have to intend to make a warranty.
The warranty must relate to a fact and not an opinion about
the quality or condition of the product sold. An expression
of opinion or belief only, a statement of value, or mere
words of praise do not create a warranty.
Second,
the Plaintiffs made the purchase relying on the express
warranty.
• The fact that a buyer may, to some extent, rely upon
his or her own judgment in purchasing goods does not prevent
him or her from also relying upon an express warranty made by
the seller. Third, the Vulcan ladder did not conform
to the express warranty.
• A p1roduct does not conform to an express warranty
when defects are substantial and sufficiently serious so that
the product fails to materially comply with the express
warranty. It is not enough if the defects are small, minor,
or insignificant.
Fourth,
the breach of the express warranty was a cause of the
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