What is a Design Defect Case?

Crashworthiness cases involve claims that a design defect caused or enhanced the injuries of a vehicle’s occupants during a crash. In Texas, design defect law has been developed over many years. “The duty to design a safe product is ‘an obligation imposed by law.’” Grinnell, 951 S.W.2d at 432 (citing McKisson v. Sales Affiliates, Inc., 416 S.W.2d 787, 789 (Tex. 1967)). “Whether a seller has breached this duty, that is, whether a product is unreasonably dangerous, is a question of fact for the jury.” Id. (citing Turner v. General Motors Corp., 584 S.W.2d 844, 848 (Tex. 1979)).

In a design defect case, the plaintiff contends that the product has been manufactured in accordance with the manufacturer’s specifications, but its design renders the product unreasonably dangerous for its intended and reasonably foreseeable uses. The design defect is alleged either to have caused the accident or to have increased the plaintiff’s injuries.

In any design defect case, the trier of fact must balance the product’s utility as designed against the likelihood and the gravity of injury from its use. Boatland of Houston, Inc. v. Bailey, 609 S.W.2d 743,745-46 (Tex. 1980); Turner, 584 S.W.2d at 851. A major focus in that balance will be the availability and feasibility of design alternatives. As the Texas Supreme Court stated in Boatland of Houston, Inc. v. Bailey:

Whether a product was defectively designed must be judged against the technological context existing at the time of its manufacture. Thus, when the plaintiff alleges that a product was defectively designed because it lacked a specific feature, attention may become focused on the feasibility of that feature – the capacity to provide the feature without greatly increasing the product’s cost or impairing usefulness. This feasibility is a relative, not an absolute concept; the more scientifically and economically feasible the alternative was, the more likely that a jury may find that the product was defectively designed. A plaintiff may advance the argument that a safer alternative was feasible with evidence that it was in actual use or was available at the time of manufacture. Feasibility may also be shown with evidence of the scientific and economic capacity to develop the safer alternative.

609 S.W.2d at 746; see also Temple Eastex, Inc. v. Old Orchard Creek Partners, Ltd., 848 S.W.2d 724 (Tex.App.—Dallas 1992, writ denied).

In Grinnell, the Texas Supreme Court recounted the relevant factors a jury may consider in making the risk-utility assessment:

In Turner we held that evidence of the following factors of risk and utility were admissible in design defect cases: (1) the utility of the product to the user and to the public as a whole weighed against the gravity and likelihood of injury from its use; (2) the availability of a substitute product which would meet the same need and not be unsafe or unreasonably expensive; (3) the manufacturer’s ability to eliminate the unsafe character of the product without seriously impairing its usefulness or significantly increasing its costs; (4) the user’s anticipated awareness of the dangers inherent in the product and their avoidability because of general public knowledge of the obvious condition of the product, or of the existence of suitable warnings or instructions; and (5) the expectations of the ordinary consumer.

Grinnell, 951 S.W.2d at 432 (citing Turner, 584 S.W.2d at 846, 847; Caterpillar, Inc., 911 S.W.2d at 384; Bailey, 609 S.W.2d at 746 n. 2 (Tex. 1980)); see also Hernandez v. Tokai Corp., 2 S.W.3d 251, 257 (Tex. 1999); Whitmire v. Terex Telelect, Inc., 390 F.Supp.2d 540 (E.D. Tex. 2005). The determination of whether a product is unreasonably dangerous because of a design defect is often one that involves factual disputes that a party is entitled to have a jury resolve. Id. at 260. The issue is one of law only if reasonable minds cannot differ on the risk-utility analysis considerations. Id. at 261.