Jason Weaver v. PACCAR, Inc. , 614 F. App'x 991 ( 2015 )

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 14-14693
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 2:13-cv-00007-LGW-JEG
JASON RAY WEAVER,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
PACCAR, INC.,
Defendant-Appellee.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Georgia
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(June 11, 2015)
Before MARCUS, WILSON, and WILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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Plaintiff-Appellant Jason Weaver (Weaver) appeals from the district court’s
order granting summary judgment to Defendant-Appellee PACCAR, Inc.
(PACCAR). On December 23, 2011, Weaver, then a diesel mechanic at Wall
Timber Products, Inc. in Georgia, was permanently injured when a model-year
2004 Kenworth T800 semi-truck that he was inspecting rolled over his leg. The
semi-truck was manufactured by PACCAR. Weaver filed suit against PACCAR in
district court, alleging that PACCAR’s failure to install a “neutral safety switch”
on the semi-truck was the proximate cause of the accident and PACCAR was thus
strictly liable under Georgia’s products liability statute for his injuries.1 On
PACCAR’s motion for summary judgment, the district court found that
PACCAR’s design of the semi-truck did not proximately cause Weaver’s injuries
and granted PACCAR’s motion on that ground. Weaver appealed. 2
Proximate cause is a necessary element of a products liability action. See
Talley v. City Tank Corp., 279 S.E.2d 264, 269 (Ga. Ct. App. 1981); Carmical v.
Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc., a Subsidiary of Textron, Inc., 117 F.3d 490, 494
(11th Cir. 1997) (citing O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11(b)(1)) (“To prevail in a Georgia
1
A “neutral safety switch” prevents a truck from starting when the transmission is not in
neutral. The function of the switch is to prevent unintended movement of the vehicle when
starting the engine. The neutral safety switch does not come standard on PACCAR’s vehicles,
but it is “offered . . . as an option.” PACCAR’s witnesses testified below that a majority of
purchasers of PACCAR’s vehicles do not exercise that option.
2
We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, applying the same
legal standards as those applied by the district court below. See Thrasher v. State Farm Fire &
Cas. Co., 734 F.2d 637, 638–39 (11th Cir. 1984) (per curiam).
2
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products liability action . . . a plaintiff must show that the proximate cause of the
injury was a defect which existed when the product was sold.”). “Under Georgia
law ‘proximate cause’ is not the last act or cause, or the nearest act to the injury. It
is the negligent act that actively aids in producing the injury as a direct and existing
cause.” Cain v. Vontz, 703 F.2d 1279, 1282 (11th Cir. 1983). The initial actor is
not always the “direct and existing cause.” Id.Where, for example, “an independent, intervening, act of someone other
than the defendant, which was not foreseeable by defendant, was not triggered by
defendant’s acts, and which was sufficient of itself to cause the injury,” is
interposed between the original negligent act and the plaintiff’s injury, there can be
no proximate cause. Walker v. Giles, 624 S.E.2d 191, 200 (Ga. Ct. App. 2005)
(internal quotation marks omitted). An act is “foreseeable” when it is reasonably
expected to occur, “not merely what might occur.” Jonas v. Isuzu Motors, Ltd.,
210 F. Supp. 2d 1373, 1377 (M.D. Ga. 2002). Thus, when a manufacturer
“reasonably could have anticipated or foreseen the intervening act and its
consequences, . . . the intervening act of negligence will not relieve [the
manufacturer] from liability for the consequences resulting [therefrom].” Lindsey
v. Navistar Int’l Transp. Corp., 150 F.3d 1307, 1317 (11th Cir. 1998) (internal
quotation marks omitted).
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Here, the proximate causal connection between PACCAR’s design of the
T800 sans neutral safety switch and Weaver’s injuries is missing. The facts
relevant to Weaver’s injuries are not in dispute: PACCAR manufactures the T800
and offers the neutral safety switch as an optional feature; the semi-truck at issue
here did not have a neutral safety switch; a truck driver, Chris Manning, brought
the semi-truck to Wall Timber for service and, while Weaver was working
underneath the semi-truck, Manning absent-mindedly cranked the semi-truck,
causing it to lurch forward and crush Weaver’s leg. Manning’s conduct was an
intervening act between PACCAR’s allegedly negligent decision to manufacture a
truck on which a neutral safety switch did not come standard and Weaver’s
injuries. Manning cranked the truck, either at the direction of mechanics at Wall
Timber or on his own volition, knowing it was in gear and would thus lurch
forward, and the parties do not dispute that he acted negligently in doing so.
Manning’s conduct was sufficiently independent of PACCAR’s original allegedly
negligent act and was sufficient itself to cause Weaver’s injuries. See Walker, 624
S.E.2d at 200.
We further agree that Manning’s actions and the resulting consequences
were not foreseeable to PACCAR. See id. PACCAR reasonably expected that the
operator of a T800 semi-truck would be trained in operating large trucks with
manual transmissions, would possess a valid Commercial Driver’s License to
4
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operate the semi-truck, and would operate the semi-truck in accordance with the
rules and procedures attendant to that license. Indeed, Manning was an
experienced, trained semi-truck driver, and he appreciated the risk of cranking the
T800 semi-truck while it was in gear with the parking break disengaged; still,
despite his knowledge and training, he cranked the truck when he “wasn’t
thinking.” As noted by the district court, “Defendant-manufacturers may be
expected to foresee negligence born of ignorance, but they are not expected to
foresee negligence from distraction, inattentiveness, or absent-mindedness.” Here,
Manning’s negligence was born of absent-mindedness, not ignorance. PACCAR
could not have reasonably foreseen or anticipated that an experienced, trained
driver like Manning would abjectly fail to follow protocol in starting one of its
semi-trucks. See Lindsey, 150 F.3d at 1317.
Even if an alleged design defect in the T800 semi-truck left it prone to
lurching, unforeseeable operator error and negligence was the proximate cause of
the accident and Weaver’s resulting injuries. See, e.g., Jonas, 210 F. Supp. 2d at1378–80. Because Weaver cannot show that PACCAR’s design was the proximate
cause of his injuries, we affirm the district court’s order granting summary
judgment to PACCAR. 3 See id. at 1377 (“No matter how negligent a party may
3
Because we agree with the district court that PACCAR’s design of the semi-truck sans
“neutral safety switch” was not the proximate cause of Weaver’s injuries, we need not address
whether the semi-truck was, in fact, defective.
5
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be, if their act stands in no causal relation to the injury it is not actionable.”); see
also Talley, 279 S.E.2d at 269; Carmical, 117 F.3d at 494.
AFFIRMED.
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