Romero v. Toyota Motor Corp.

916 F. Supp. 2d 1301, 2013 WL 125729, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5408
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Florida
DecidedJanuary 7, 2013
DocketCase No. 10-21699-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 916 F. Supp. 2d 1301 (Romero v. Toyota Motor Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Romero v. Toyota Motor Corp., 916 F. Supp. 2d 1301, 2013 WL 125729, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5408 (S.D. Fla. 2013).

Opinion

ORDER

KATHLEEN M. WILLIAMS, District Judge.

THIS MATTER is before the Court on several post-verdict motions: Plaintiffs’ [1303]*1303Motion for New Trial (DE 173); Plaintiffs’ Motion to Alter and Amend Judgment (DE 174); Defendants’ Renewed Motion for Directed Verdict (DE 176); Defendants’ Motion to Alter Judgment (DE 177); and Plaintiffs’ Motion to tax Costs (DE 178). The Court received considerable briefing and heard argument on the motions on September 21, 2012. For the reasons discussed in the Court’s analysis below, the Court will grant Defendants’ renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law, deny the remaining motions, and enter an amended final judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

On June 9, 2009, Ritzy Romero — a healthy and pregnant 32 year old — was involved in an automobile accident. The accident, a roll-over, occurred in broad daylight and at a speed of approximately 35 miles-per-hour. Another driver, Osiris Nunez, struck Ms. Romero’s automobile, causing only bumper damage to his vehicle, but catastrophic damage to hers after it overturned twice.1 As a result of this accident, Ms. Romero sustained a spinal injury causing quadriplegia, lost her unborn child, and incurred extensive medical bills. Ms. Romero is now unable to care for her two children or to work for even the modest wages she earned as a housekeeper before the accident. Through this action, she brought suit against Defendants Toyota Motor Corporation and Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. (“Toyota”)— the manufacturer of the 1994 “second generation” Four Runner she was operating— for strict liability, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, and failure to warn.2 She also brought claims on behalf of her two minor children who, although not in the vehicle at the time, alleged a loss of support and companionship caused by their mother’s injuries.

The parties proceeded to trial on January 31, 2012. After two-and-a-half weeks of testimony from numerous fact witnesses including Ms. Romero and her family, Toyota employees involved in the Four Runner’s development and sale, as well as design and safety experts, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Plaintiff. It found that the subject Four Runner was defective and unreasonably dangerous, negligently designed, and a legal cause of Ms. Romero’s injuries. The jury awarded Plaintiffs $12,254,745.00 in past and future medical and life care expenses. However, the jury did not award any damages for pain and suffering or past and future lost wages; for the loss of parental services; for mental pain and suffering; for loss of parental comfort of her minor children; or for punitive damages. The jury’s award was reduced by 80 percent to $2,450,949.00 to account for the actions of Mr. Nunez as a-non-party tortfeasor, because the jury determined was at fault for most of Ms. Romero’s injuries.

The motions presently before the Court contend that Plaintiffs’ suit is time-barred, necessitating judgment in favor of Toyota; that the jury’s verdict was a compromise between damages and liability, necessitat[1304]*1304ing retrial on liability and. damages; that the award failed to take into account any non-economic damages and certain categories of economic damages that were uncontested and supported by unrebutted evidence, necessitating additur or a trial on damages alone; that the award should not have been reduced to account for Mr. Nunez’s comparative negligence; that the final judgment entered after the trial failed to account for all claims for relief and should be amended; and that the Plaintiff, as the “prevailing party,” should be compensated for her costs in. bringing this action. As the Court indicated to the parties at oral argument, however, only the first of these issues is dispositive.

Principally, in their renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law, Defendants contend that Plaintiffs’ claims are barred by a statute of repose applicable to products liability actions in Florida. Section 95.031 of the Florida Statutes precludes products liability claims under certain circumstances:

An action for products liability under s. 95.11(3) must begin within the period prescribed in this chapter, with the period running from the date that the facts giving rise to the cause of action were discovered, or should have been discovered with the exercise of due diligence .... Under no circumstances may a claimant commence an action for products liability ... if the harm was caused by exposure to or use of the product more than 12 years after delivery of the product to its first purchaser or lessee who was not engaged in the business of selling or leasing the product or of using the product as a component in the manufacture of another product, whichever is later.

Fla. Stat. § 95.031(2)(b) (emphasis added). The Court previously held that the statute of repose is applicable to this action because: (1) the Four Runner at issue is a product that is not subject to any of the exceptions listed in the statute; (2) Plaintiffs’ Four Runner was originally delivered to a purchaser not engaged in the business of selling or leasing the vehicle; and (3) the accident occurred more than twelve years after delivery to the vehicle’s first purchaser.

An additional exception exists, however, where the plaintiff can show knowledge of the defect and concealment on the part of the defendant: “[t]he repose period ... is tolled for any period during which the manufacturer through its officers, directors, partners, or managing agents had actual knowledge that the product was defective in the manner alleged by the claimant and took affirmative steps to conceal the defect.” Fla. Stat. § 95.031(2)(d). In order to invoke tolling, the “claim of concealment ... shall be made with specificity and be based upon substantial factual and legal support.” Id.

The repose question has been at issue at least since Defendants presented it as an affirmative defense in their answer. (See DE 21, ¶ 25.) When Defendants raised it as the sole basis for their summary judgment motion, the Court concluded that there was “marginally sufficient” evidence to allow the issue to proceed to trial on whether the statute was subject to the tolling exception. In particular, Plaintiffs had adduced the following evidence: internal roll-over tests showing that Toyota knew the Four Runner was capable of overturning at 35 miles-per-hour through steering input alone (Engineering Report (DE 64-10)); a jury verdict finding a design defect in the subject Four Runner (see McCathern v. Toyota Motor Corp., 332 Or. 59, 23 P.3d 320 (2001)); and evidence that the model was subsequently redesigned specifically to improve rollover resistance (which was accomplished, as proven through subsequent testing). (Dobashi Dep. 29:4-30:9 (DE 64-7); Engineer[1305]*1305ing Report (DE 64-14).) As evidence of concealment, Plaintiffs presented the testimony of an advertising executive who stated that Toyota does not communicate a roll-over propensity to the public because it would be “impossible” for Toyota to do so (Cecconi Dep: 37:2-25 (DE 65-5)); product brochures illustrating vehicular moves that Toyota’s representative was unsure the SUV could make without rolling over

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916 F. Supp. 2d 1301, 2013 WL 125729, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5408, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/romero-v-toyota-motor-corp-flsd-2013.