District Court makes interesting observations regarding evidence of industry standards and alternative designs in ruling on motion to preclude experts.

In this product liability action, the trial court granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ motions to preclude the plaintiff’s experts. This case involved an allegedly defective lift gate on the rear of a truck trailer. The court permitted the plaintiff’s biomechanical expert to rely on international safety standards not applicable to the lift gate at issue; the expert was not opining that the lift gate failed to meet those standards, but was simply using those data points, among others, to reach a conclusion as to the appropriate amount of force that should be required to operate a lift gate. The takeaway here is that defendants may want to advance an analogous argument when their product does comply with a relevant standard. 

In contrast, the court precluded the plaintiff’s engineering expert from testifying to alternative lift gate designs. Although the plaintiff’s expert drew on practical experience and reportedly relied on his own “risk-utility analysis,” he offered no mathematical calculations, diagrams, product testing, or other quantitative analysis to demonstrate how his proposed alternative designs would reduce the force-related hazard alleged to be at issue. 

Although plaintiffs in product liability cases do not always offer proposed alternative designs, this decision offers helpful guidance as to the level of analysis that should be required when such claims are advanced. 
 

_{Case Law Alerts, 2nd Quarter, April 2023 is prepared by Marshall Dennehey to provide information on recent developments of interest to our readers. This publication is not intended to provide legal advice for a specific situation or to create an attorney-client relationship. Copyright © 2023 Marshall Dennehey, all rights reserved. This article may not be reprinted without the express written permission of our firm.}