Bauer v. Hyundai Motor Am., Inc.

1

DANIEL BAUER, ADMINISTRATOR FOR THE ESTATE OF SANDRA BAUER; DANIEL BAUER, ADMINISTRATOR FOR THE ESTATE OF ANDREA BAUER; DANIEL BAUER, INDIVIDUALLY; PAMELA KENDRICK BAUER, ADMINISTRATOR FOR THE ESTATE OF NEVAEH BAUER; PAMELA KENDRICK BAUER, INDIVIDUALLY; NATHAN BAUER, INDIVIDUALLY; AND BRADEN BAUER, AN INFANT BY AND THROUGH HIS MOTHER AND NEXT FRIEND, PAMELA KENDRICK BAUER APPELLANTS v. HYUNDAI MOTOR AMERICA, INC. AND HYUNDAI MOTOR COMPANY, LTD APPELLEES AND HYUNDAI MOTOR AMERICA, INC. AND HYUNDAI MOTOR COMPANY, CROSS-APPELLANTS v. DANIEL BAUER, ADMINISTRATOR FOR THE ESTATE OF SANDRA BAUER; DANIEL BAUER, ADMINISTRATOR FOR THE ESTATE OF ANDREA BAUER; DANIEL BAUER, INDIVIDUALLY; PAMELA KENDRICK BAUER, ADMINISTRATOR FOR THE ESTATE OF NEVAEH BAUER; PAMELA KENDRICK BAUER, INDIVIDUALLY; NATHAN BAUER, INDIVIDUALLY; AND BRADEN BAUER, AN INFANT BY AND THROUGH HIS MOTHER AND NEXT FRIEND, PAMELA KENDRICK BAUER CROSS-APPELLEES

Nos. 2022-CA-0649-MR, 2022-CA-0737-MR

Court of Appeals of Kentucky

November 15, 2024

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

CROSS-APPEAL FROM FLOYD CIRCUIT COURT HONORABLE THOMAS M SMITH, JUDGE ACTION NO. 16-CI-00829

BRIEFS FOR APPELLANTS / CROSS-APPELLEES:

Joe C Savage

Lexington, Kentucky

John C. Collins

Salyersville, Kentucky

Don McFarland

William Tinker

Salyersville, Kentucky

BRIEF FOR APPELLEES / CROSS-APPELLANTS:

David T. Schaefer

Jeremy S. Rogers

Louisville, Kentucky

Robert W. Maxwell

Covington, Louisiana

C.V. Reynolds

Prestonsburg, Kentucky

BEFORE: CALDWELL, A. JONES, AND TAYLOR, JUDGES.

OPINION

JONES, A., JUDGE:

AFFIRMING

Daniel Bauer, Pamela Bauer, and Nathan Bauer, (collectively, "the Bauers") appeal from a jury verdict in favor of Hyundai Motor America, Inc. and Hyundai Motor Company, Ltd. (collectively, "Hyundai") in a crashworthiness product liability case involving a 2013 Hyundai Tucson. Hyundai cross-appealed. After a thorough review of the facts and the law, we affirm the judgment in favor of Hyundai.

I. Background

On December 24, 2015, a 2013 Hyundai Tucson driven by Sandra Bauer collided with a 2012 Chevrolet Cruze driven by Roland Patrick in Floyd County. Patrick's vehicle crossed the center line of Kentucky Highway 114, causing the two vehicles to collide head-on but slightly offset, with the right front of the Tucson meeting the right front of the Cruze. The combined speed of the two vehicles was approximately 120 miles per hour, and the results of the collision were both tragic and horrifying. Patrick, the only occupant of the Cruze, died. The Tucson was occupied by five members of the Bauer family, three of whom died as a result of the accident. Sandra Bauer was driving, and her daughter, Andrea Bauer, was sitting in the front passenger seat. Pamela Kendrick Bauer^[1] was sitting in the left rear passenger seat. Pamela's two young children were sitting in the back of the Tucson with her. Braden, six years old, was sitting in the right rear seat. Nevaeh, four years old, was sitting in the middle rear seat. Sandra, Andrea, and Nevaeh died as a result of the collision.

Approximately one year after the crash, in December 2016, members of the Bauer family filed suit against Hyundai alleging that certain unspecified manufacturing defects in the Tucson contributed to the injuries sustained by its occupants.^[2] For nearly a year after the Bauers filed suit, Hyundai repeatedly attempted to discover the specific nature of the manufacturing defect upon which the Bauers based their claims. According to Hyundai, it was not until the Bauers' engineering expert, Dr. O. J. Hahn, filed his third expert disclosure in 2021 that the Bauers arrived at an assertion that the welds in the Tucson's front bumper were too short.

For their part, the Bauers were unhappy with the way Hyundai responded to document requests during discovery. First, Hyundai Motor America denied that it possessed any design documents. Rather, it asserted that all design documents were in the possession of Hyundai Motor Company, Ltd., the Korean parent company of Hyundai Motor America. Then, when the parent company eventually provided the discovery, Hyundai provided the documents as they were ordinarily kept, in Korean. These documents included design and manufacturing documents from Hyundai, as well as design and manufacturing documents from the South Korean manufacturer of Hyundai's front bumper assembly, Sungwoo Hitech ("Sungwoo"). The Bauers asked the trial court to compel Hyundai to translate the documents into English, but the trial court declined. There is no indication that the Bauers ever sought out their own translation; however, Hyundai later translated the documents into English for the benefit of its own expert witnesses, and these translated documents were provided to the Bauers.

At this point, it is important to discuss two of the discovery documents and their relevance to the key issue litigated at trial. The first document is designated as Bates Numbered Document 1010, and the second is Bates Numbered Document 976.^[3] By themselves, these documents are almost completely indecipherable to a layman, in either English or Korean.^[4] Nevertheless, a significant portion of the two-week trial centered on the interpretations the parties' dueling experts extrapolated from these documents. As previously stated, Dr. Hahn gave expert testimony on behalf of the Bauers. In his opinion, Bates No. 1010, a "drawings and specifications document" from Hyundai Motor Company, required the front bumper welds to be at or exceeding a particular length, and several of those welds fell short of those lengths when he measured them. The top driver side weld of the front bumper, according to Dr. Hahn, should have measured 40 millimeters according to Bates No. 1010. Yet, when he measured the length of the weld, it was only 31.29 millimeters. In Dr. Hahn's opinion, the short welds were a significant defect that contributed to the injuries sustained by the Tucson's occupants as "[t]he driver side main rail, being separated from the bumper, could not support the passenger side main rail, resulting in substantial, massive intrusion into the passenger compartment." (Appellants' Brief at 7.)

Hyundai argued that Dr. Hahn was mistaken, and the front bumper welds did not require a length of 40 millimeters. As support, Hyundai pointed to Bates No. 976, an inspection document used by Sungwoo, the manufacturer of the front bumper assembly. According to Hyundai, Bates No. 976 indicates that the allegedly short welds identified by Dr. Hahn were only required to be 30 millimeters in length, not 40 millimeters. The reason for the discrepancy in these figures was revealed in further discovery. Prior to the second deposition of one of Hyundai's expert engineers, Jack Ridenour, the Bauers requested production of all of the materials he reviewed for this case. One of these items was an affidavit provided by Kyung Tae Kwak, a senior research engineer with Hyundai in South Korea. Kwak explained that he is familiar with the manufacture and assembly with the front bumper of the Tucson, and the 40-millimeter specification "does not reflect the final accepted dimension of those welds.... The correct accepted length of those welds is 30 mm, with a tolerance of plus 20 percent as indicated in the Sungwoo [discovery documents]." (Record (R.) at 3984-85.)

The Bauers moved to exclude the Kwak affidavit and the English translation of the Sungwoo discovery documents, arguing that Hyundai knew that the length of the welds was at issue, and Hyundai had improperly waited until after Dr. Hahn's depositions to produce this new information. They also moved to exclude one of Hyundai's fact witnesses, Greg Webster, who was to give testimony regarding the foundation of the Hyundai documents. The Bauers argued that Mr. Webster was an employee of Hyundai Motor America, not Hyundai in South Korea, so he had no direct knowledge of the making and retention of the Korean documents for either Hyundai or Sungwoo. For these reasons, they argued that Hyundai should not be permitted to use Mr. Webster to introduce the documents.

On March 4, 2022, after a hearing on the various motions in limine, the trial court granted the Bauers' motion to exclude the Kwak affidavit on grounds that was not timely. (R. at 4135.) However, the trial court also ruled that Mr. Webster would be allowed to testify about the Korean documents, including the Sungwoo documents, as a fact witness.

The two-week trial in this case took place from March 14, 2022, to March 24, 2022. During the trial, the jury heard extensive testimony for the Bauer plaintiffs regarding the facts surrounding the collision, as related by the first responders, eyewitnesses, and the coroner. The jury also heard personal testimony from Daniel Bauer, Nathan Bauer, and a friend of Andrea Bauer, who described how the deaths affected them. Aside from the eyewitness and personal testimonies, however, a substantial portion of the trial involved testimony from experts. Two reconstruction experts gave testimony about the mechanics of the collision. The first was Kenneth Agent, an accident reconstructionist and professor at the University of Kentucky College of Engineering. Jonathan Dixon, a recently retired Kentucky State Police accident reconstructionist, also testified. The reconstruction experts identified the Cruze as the cause of the accident when it crossed the center line and connected with the Tucson in an offset head-on collision. Furthermore, the toxicology report indicated that Patrick, the driver of the Cruze, was under the influence of prescription drugs.

Ultimately however, the Bauers' product defect theory was grounded in the video deposition of Dr. Hahn, which was provided to the jury. As previously...