SCHUMAN, P.J.
A young child was severely injured when a riding lawnmower driven by her father backed into her. Plaintiff, the child's conservator, brought this product liability action against the lawnmower's manufacturer, Deere and Company, and the company that sold the girl's father the lawnmower, Ramsey-Waite Company. A jury returned a verdict for the defense. Plaintiff appeals, raising assignments of error regarding several of the court's evidentiary rulings and several of its jury instructions. We affirm.
The following basic historical and procedural facts are undisputed. In May 2006, while mowing his lawn with a Deere riding lawnmower purchased from Ramsey-Waite, Kirk Norton came to a spot where he wanted to drive the mower in reverse. The mower was equipped with a "Reverse Implement Option," or "RIO" feature, that cuts power to the spinning blade, causing it to slow and stop. However, the mower also had a small button on the dashboard that, when pressed, would override RIO, allowing the operator to move in reverse while the blades are engaged. Norton pressed the override button; at approximately the same time, he also looked over his right shoulder and did not see any hazards. Tragically, his two-year-old daughter had approached the tractor from the left, in Norton's "blind spot." Moving in reverse with the cutting blades engaged, Norton backed into her. She sustained serious injuries resulting in the amputation of one of her legs.
Plaintiff brought this product liability action, ultimately alleging negligence as to both defendants and strict liability against Deere. As developed at trial, plaintiff's theory of the case was that Deere designed and marketed a defective and unreasonably dangerous mower, and both Deere and Ramsey-Waite failed to provide Norton with adequate warnings and instructions. In particular, plaintiff alleged that the mower was defective in three respects: because it "had mowing blades that could be engaged and rotating while driving in reverse" by virtue of the RIO override button; because that button was located in front of the operator on the mower's dashboard, instead of behind the seat, so that the operator could choose to keep the blades fully powered without turning completely around to look to the rear; and because defendants provided inadequate instructions "in the safe operation of a lawnmowing machine that had mowing blades that could be engaged and rotating while driving in reverse." Defendants' theory was that the mower was not defective or unreasonably dangerous because ordinary consumers know that all riding lawnmowers inherently present certain dangers, and Deere had taken all reasonable steps to ensure that, when delivered to Norton, the product was as safe as a riding mower possibly could be. Defendants also argued that the child's injuries would have occurred even if Norton had not engaged the RIO button, because, even though the mower's power to the blades would automatically have shut down when he put the mower in reverse, the blades would have continued to move by momentum for several seconds, during which time the accident would have occurred. After a 13-day trial, the jury returned a defense verdict.
On appeal, plaintiff raises 10 assignments of error. Four concern trial court rulings that disallowed evidence of "other similar incidents" involving Deere riding mowers, in particular, testimony from parents of other children injured in back-over incidents both before and after the incident in this case, as well as documents from Deere's files (but not generated by Deere) containing evidence of other back-over injuries before the injury in this case. According to plaintiff, the testimony and documents regarding incidents before the one in this case were relevant to show that Deere had notice of the mower's potential to inflict injury in backup accidents, and the evidence regarding incidents after the one in this case were relevant to show "continuing
At the outset, defendants raise an argument that, in many ways, preempts most of plaintiff's assignments of error. That argument derives ultimately from Shoup v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 335 Or. 164, 61 P.3d 928 (2003), and more directly Lyons v. Walsh & Sons Trucking Co., Ltd., 337 Or. 319, 96 P.3d 1215 (2004), a case decided in the wake of Shoup. Shoup itself involved a defendant's appeal from a general jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff, who had alleged three specifications of negligence. 335 Or. at 166-67, 61 P.3d 928. This court held that one of the specifications did not state a claim under Oregon law, but that two did; we remanded the case for a new trial. Id. at 166-68, 61 P.3d 928. In doing so, we relied on a line of Supreme Court cases adopting the so-called "we can't tell" rule: If the lower court's judgment could have been based on an erroneous rationale, the appellant was entitled to a remand for a new trial. Id.
The Supreme Court allowed review, rejected its earlier line of cases, and adopted a new rule that, the court reasoned, more accurately captured the legislative mandate of ORS 19.415(2), under which an appellate court may reverse "except for error substantially affecting the rights of a party." Id. at 166, 173-74, 61 P.3d 928. Where the former rule called for reversal or remand of a judgment if the record disclosed that the lower court's judgment might have been prejudicial — that is, might have derived from an erroneous argument or specification — the new version calls for reversal or modification only if the appellant can identify something in the record to demonstrate that the jury in fact did base its verdict on the erroneous argument or specification. Id. at 169-70, 177-79, 61 P.3d 928. Only then, the court reasoned, can it be said that "the error `substantially affect[ed] the rights of a party.'" Id. at 174, 61 P.3d 928 (quoting ORS 19.415(2)) (brackets in Shoup). Further, the burden of showing that the error was harmful — that it did substantially affect the rights of a party because the disputed verdict could not have been based on a nonerroneous argument — falls on the appellant, who must prove not only error but prejudice. Id. at 173-74, 61 P.3d 928.
Shoup involved a general verdict that did not indicate which of several specifications of negligence the verdict was based on, where only one of them was erroneous. Id. at 166, 61 P.3d 928. Lyons applied the teaching of Shoup in somewhat different circumstances. The plaintiffs' son was killed when a car in which he was a passenger collided with a truck driven by the defendant's employee. Lyons, 337 Or. at 321-22, 96 P.3d 1215. The plaintiffs, in their capacity as the deceased's personal representatives, brought a wrongful death action. Id. at 321, 96 P.3d 1215. Over the plaintiffs' objection, the court allowed the defendant to introduce some evidence that the car's driver was at least partly responsible for the collision, and it refused to instruct the jury that it could not consider the driver's conduct unless that conduct was the "sole and exclusive" cause of the accident. Id. at 322-23, 96 P.3d 1215. The court gave the jury a special verdict form. Id. at 323, 96 P.3d 1215. The first question was:
Id. The jury answered that question in the negative and returned a defense verdict. Id. On appeal, the plaintiffs challenged the court's evidentiary ruling and jury instruction, arguing that the instruction and the evidence involving the alleged contributory fault of the driver misstated the law. Id. at 323-24, 96 P.3d 1215. This court disagreed and affirmed. Id. at 324, 96 P.3d 1215.
The Supreme Court allowed review, but it did not address the merits of the plaintiffs' assignment of error. Id. Rather, it
Lyons, 337 Or. at 325-26, 96 P.3d 1215 (last brackets in original; footnote omitted). Thus, where a compound question on a verdict form asks whether a defendant's conduct failed to meet the relevant standard of care and, if so, whether that failure was the cause of the plaintiff's damages, a single answer of "no" does not reveal whether the jury's answer means "no failure to meet the standard of care," or "failure to meet the standard of care, but no causation." See id. at 325, 96 P.3d 1215. In such a situation, any assignment of error that addresses only one question must be rejected if there is sufficient evidence to support the other ("either decision would have been permissible on the evidence"): If the assignment of error challenges the jury's determination that there was no failure to meet the standard of care, the plaintiff cannot prevail because, even if the argument is well taken, it is irrelevant (and the error, therefore, harmless) if that failure did not cause injury. Id. Likewise, if the assignment of error challenges causation, that argument may be well taken, but it is irrelevant (and the error, therefore, harmless) if there was no failure in the first place.
Defendants in the present case argue that the questions presented to the jury in this
Thus, according to defendants, Shoup and Lyons require us to reject all of plaintiff's assignments of error involving evidentiary issues and jury instructions addressed to culpability only; even if those assignments of error are well taken, plaintiff has still not established that the errors were prejudicial, because plaintiff has not eliminated the possibility that the jury found for the defense based on a conclusion that no mower defect or failure to provide adequate operating instructions caused the injury.
Plaintiff responds that, as this case was argued, the verdict form did not actually present compound questions; rather, the question of defendants' failure to meet the appropriate standard of care was simply another way of phrasing the question of Norton's failure to properly apprehend the inherent danger of the mower and to operate it correctly; if the mower or the instructions were defective, that conclusion necessarily implied that the operator was not at fault and did not cause the injury.
Defendants' causation argument, however, is not that the accident was caused by Norton's operation of the mower. Rather, defendants assert, "It is possible [that] the jury's verdict was based on a lack of causation," because defendants "argued that any alleged defect or negligent conduct did not cause Isabelle Norton's injuries." There follows a citation to certain pages in defendants' closing argument. Those pages, in turn, refer to the testimony of Stricker, a recently-retired Deere engineer. He testified that, even if Norton had not disabled the RIO function and the mower had automatically shut off the blades, the blades would nonetheless have continued to rotate by momentum. He also testified that, by calculating how long the blades would have continued to rotate and how fast the mower could move in reverse, he could determine that the blades would have continued to rotate while the mower moved approximately six feet backwards. He then testified that on-site evidence indicated that the accident occurred only two and one-half to three and one-half feet behind the spot where Norton began to move backwards. He concluded, "So the injury would have long been over by the time this tractor stopped even if Mr. Norton had not pushed the RIO [override] button." Thus, the jury could have decided that the mower was, in fact, defective in one of the ways alleged (it had the button that allowed the operator to override the system that would otherwise automatically shut off power to the blades), but that the defect did not cause the injury, because even without the RIO override button — even if the mower automatically shut off power to the blades when put in reverse — under the facts of this case, the child would have been injured anyway.
If defendants' causation argument was not supported by sufficient evidence, then causation cannot stand as a valid alternative basis for the defense verdict, and the only valid basis would be defendants' culpability; in that case, plaintiff's assignments of error directed at defendants' culpability would be relevant and, if well taken, prejudicial. See Lyons, 337 Or. at 325, 96 P.3d 1215 ("Did the jury decide that Walsh was not negligent or, instead, did the jury decide that Walsh, although negligent, did not cause damage to plaintiffs? The answer is that we cannot tell; either decision would have been permissible on the evidence presented." (Emphasis added.)). We therefore must address the question of whether there is admissible evidence supporting the theory that the injury would have happened even if there had been no button to override the RIO system, as relevant to the product liability claim, or, with respect to the negligent failure to instruct claim, even if defendants' instructions were inadequate. Regarding instructions, the question is easily answered. Norton testified that he did not read the instructions that were provided; the jury permissibly could have inferred from the testimony that no amount of additional instructions would have prevented the accident.
The question whether the evidence supported a finding that the accident would have happened even if there were no RIO override — that is, even if the power to the blades automatically and inevitably ceased when the mower was put in reverse — is more complicated. As noted above, there is detailed testimony by Stricker to that effect. That fact, however, does not end our inquiry, because one of plaintiff's assignments of error, if meritorious, would render that evidence inadmissible: According to plaintiff, Stricker was not qualified to give accident reconstruction testimony.
We review the trial court's decision that a witness was or was not qualified as an expert for legal error. State v. Rogers, 330 Or. 282, 315, 4 P.3d 1261 (2000). Qualification criteria derive from OEC 702:
(Emphasis added.) The appropriate question is whether the witness was "qualified to give testimony relative to a particular topic [.]" Rogers, 330 Or. at 315, 4 P.3d 1261 (emphasis in original). Plaintiff acknowledges that Stricker "undeniably had experience and expertise regarding the engineering of the Deere lawn mower, [but] he had no experience and expertise in reconstructing an accident." According to plaintiff, this case is analogous to Myers v. Cessna Aircraft, 275 Or. 501, 553 P.2d 355 (1976). In that case, the trial court refused to allow accident reconstruction
Id. at 520-21, 553 P.2d 355 (footnote omitted).
Myers is not helpful to plaintiff. It was decided before Rogers definitively held that the standard of review for expert qualification issues is for legal error; the court in Myers applied an abuse of discretion standard, id. at 519, 553 P.2d 355, in affirming the trial court. Concluding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting the testimony does not mean that the trial court would have erred as a matter of law by admitting it.
Further, unlike Jensen, Stricker was not without relevant experience or training. Stricker was a recently retired 40-year Deere employee with 30 years of experience designing tractors and mowers. He was one of the designers of the mower that was involved in the accident, including its mowing deck, and he was involved in the group that performed all of the tests and evaluations of the mower's components and parts, including the deck, whose operation he had studied extensively. He was also past chair of Deere's Product Safety Committee, and had spent over 2,000 hours riding Deere mowers, either professionally or personally.
Stricker's accident reconstruction testimony relied almost entirely on analysis of the function of the mower, focusing on the cutting deck. He described for the jury (1) where the mower was located when, according to the undisputed testimony, Norton put it in reverse; (2) where the accident occurred based on the pattern of debris that it ejected; (3) based on the above, how far the mower had travelled before the accident occurred; (4) how fast the mower could operate in reverse; (5) based on the above, how much time had elapsed between when Norton put the mower in reverse and when the accident occurred; and (6) how fast the blades would have been rotating at that time. He summarized his findings for the jury as follows:
Stricker, then, had extensive experience in how the mower worked, which constituted the gist of his reconstruction testimony. The only aspect of that testimony in which he was not obviously highly qualified involved transposing distances in photographs into actual distances. Yet he carefully described that process, and, in fact, the jury viewed video and photographs that demonstrated the process in a lucid and step-by-step fashion.
"Proper application of OEC 702 requires assessment of the particular qualifications of each witness." Rogers, 330 Or. at 316, 4 P.3d 1261. In light of the nature of
Because Stricker's testimony was admissible, the jury could permissibly have concluded that, even if Deere's decision to allow RIO override, and Deere's and Ramsey-Waite's instructions about the override, did not meet the appropriate standard of care, those facts did not cause the accident; the accident would have happened even if there were no override option. Plaintiff did not meet his burden of establishing that the jury did not reach its verdict on that basis. Thus, because all of plaintiff's assignments of error except the one directed toward Stricker's qualifications focused on defendants' culpability and not causation, it is not relevant whether those assignments of error are well taken; even if plaintiff is correct and the court erred, plaintiff has not demonstrated that the error was prejudicial. Only one assignment of error was directed toward causation — the one alleging that Stricker was not qualified — and we reject that one. We therefore affirm.
Affirmed.
