Schofield v. Crandall, Inc.

319 N.E.2d 585, 24 Ill. App. 3d 101, 1974 Ill. App. LEXIS 1666
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedNovember 25, 1974
Docket73-219
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 319 N.E.2d 585 (Schofield v. Crandall, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Schofield v. Crandall, Inc., 319 N.E.2d 585, 24 Ill. App. 3d 101, 1974 Ill. App. LEXIS 1666 (Ill. Ct. App. 1974).

Opinion

Mr. JUSTICE RECHENMACHER

delivered the opinion of the court:

The plaintiff filed a personal injury suit against Crandall, Inc., a tire manufacturer. Counts I and II were based on express and implied warranty; Count III was under a products liability theory and Count IV was a negligence theory. The jury found the defendant not guilty on each count and the plaintiff appeals on two grounds: (1) that the trial court erred in allowing the jury to view a film depicting an experiment with a tire, which experiment was not similar to the actual occurrence, and (2) that the closing argument of the defense counsel was so improper and prejudicial as to deprive the plaintiff of a fair trial.

The plaintiff is the owner of an automobile service station. In the usual course of business he purchased a retreaded tire from the defendant, whose business included the retreading of all makes of tires — this particular tire not having been originally, manufactured by the defendant. The plaintiff sold this tire to a retail customer and mounted it on a wheel and installed it on the customers automobile. The customer, with .his family, started out on a trip and after a very few miles the tire went flat. The customer called the plaintiff for help and the plaintiff left his shop and went to where the customers car was located on the highway, took the wheel off the car and returned with it to his shop to repair the tire. In the process of inflating the tire to check the trouble, the tire, in the words of the plaintiff, “exploded”, that is, it blew off the changer, flew up into the air and injured the plaintiff’s left arm and finger. The extent of the plaintiff’s injuries is disputed.

The plaintiff’s case appears to be based on the premise that the tire in question was defective when it left the defendant’s plant in that the tire’s beading was broken or partially broken, thus causing it to “explode” off the changer while being inflated. The defendant contended,- however, that the cause of the tire precipitately leaving the changer and causing injury to the plaintiff was that the plaintiff was careless, both in the mounting and in the inflating of the tire; that he inflated the tire far beyond its normal pressure of 32 pounds and that the broken beading and the overinflation caused the tire to leave the changer in the violent manner described by the plaintiff as “an explosion.” Testimony of experts at the trial indicated a probability that some and possibly most of the beading was broken in the original manufacturing process. However, the plaintiff contended the beading was broken at the defendant’s plant in the retreading process, and the defendant testified that in his opinion the beading was broken when the tire was overinflated on the changer by the plaintiff. There was thus a sharp disagreement not only as to when the beading was broken but also as to whether the broken beading was the primary cause of the tire “exploding” off the changer.

To bolster its theory that the tire, even with broken beading, would not come off the changer under normal pressure — estimated at 32 pounds —the plaintiff performed an experiment in which the identical tire was inflated on a similar rim to as much as 45 pounds, without leaving the rim. A film was made of this experiment and the judge allowed it to be viewed by the jury. The judge’s ruling that this film could be viewed by the jury is the plaintiff’s main point of appeal. Plaintiff points out that while experiments have in some cases been allowed to establish a point of evidence, these must be under very similar circumstances to the original circumstances and where the experiment does not conform to the original conditions it cannot be introduced as evidence in any form. (Thomas v. Chicago Transit Authority (1969), 115 Ill.App.2d 476; Mack v. Davis (1966), 76 Ill.App.2d 88.) However, the cited cases and others where experiments have been successfully objected to are all cases where , there were many variables which could not be reconciled with the original situation; moreover, these variables were potentially capable of inducing an entirely different result from the original circumstances. Where the circumstances are essentiaUy the same, such experiments are allowable as evidence and it is generaUy taken to be within the discretion of the trial judge as to whether or not such experiments so nearly approximate the original conditions as to be admissible. (Thomas v. Buchanan (1934), 277 Ill.App. 393; People v. Pfanschmidt (1914), 262 Ill. 411; Downing v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. (1941), 314 Ill.App. 222; Hardman v. Helence Curtis Industries, Inc. (1964), 48 Ill.App.2d 42.) In the latter case the appellate court in affirming the trial court’s admission of experimental evidence, at page 54, quoted 20 Am. Jur. Evidence § 758 (1939) (revised edition 29 Am.Jur.2d Evidence § 820 (1967)):

“Evidence may be given of experiments and demonstrations made out of court and not in the presence of the jury upon the same principles which permit experiments to be conducted in the jury’s presence. It is a matter peculiarly within the discretion of the court to decide the admissibility of such evidence in the light of all the surrounding facts and circumstances.”

Speaking generally, the same authority states (29 Am.Jur.2d Evidence § 818 (1967)):

“The courts, although they do not favor the making of tests and experiments by the jury itself, now very generally permit relevant experiments, demonstrations, or tests by others to be performed in court in the presence of the jury, or permit evidence to be given of experiments, demonstrations, or tests performed out of court, when they are made under similar conditions and like circumstances to those existing in the case at issue, for the purpose of aiding the trier of facts, in either a criminal or civil case, in determining the issues of fact.”

It is clear, therefore, that generally speaking evidence of experiments made out of court is admissible if conditions of the experiment are believed by the trial court to be substantially similar even though not identical to the actual circumstances of the case. Identical conditions can rarely if ever be achieved, and it is therefore necessary to allow some latitude to the trial court in determining whether the conditions of the experiment are sufficiently similar to the facts of the actual occurrence to have probative value.

In the case before us there were some variations from the original circumstances. The rim was not the same rim that was on the car originally and it was a different time of year so that the tire might have been colder under the original conditions than when the experiment was conducted. Also, the rate of inflation may have been more rapid in the actual circumstances if, as seems probable, the plaintiff was in a hurry to get back to his stranded customer. There was no precise information as to the sealing lubricants used in either the actual incident or the experiment, so these could have been different. These are variables which the plaintiff contends make the experiment inadmissible. However, the tire was the same tire and the rim was similar. The other variables, the temperature of the tire, the amount of lubricant used and the speed of inflation were all within the control of the plaintiff.

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Bluebook (online)
319 N.E.2d 585, 24 Ill. App. 3d 101, 1974 Ill. App. LEXIS 1666, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/schofield-v-crandall-inc-illappct-1974.