Eskridge v. Pac. Cycle, Inc.

JORDAN ESKRIDGE, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. PACIFIC CYCLE, INC., a foreign corporation; WAL-MART STORES EAST, LP, Defendants - Appellees,andWAL-MART STORES, INC., a foreign corporation; KUN TENG INDUSTRY CO., LTD,a foreign corporation, Defendants.

No. 13-1259

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

Argued: December 10, 2013

Decided: January 17, 2014

UNPUBLISHED

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, at Charleston. Joseph R. Goodwin, District Judge. (2:11-cv-00615)

Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, and WILKINSON and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ARGUED: Christopher Brinkley, MASTERS LAW FIRM, LC, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant. Tanya Annette Hunt Handley,MACCORKLE LAVENDER PLLC, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: John L. MacCorkle, Charleston, West Virginia, Heather M. Noel, MACCORKLE LAVENDER PLLC, Morgantown, West Virginia, for Appellees.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

PER CURIAM:

Jordan Eskridge appeals a district court order granting summary judgment against him in his products liability action. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for trial.

I.

This case arises out of injuries that Eskridge suffered while riding his Mongoose XR100 bicycle when he was 13 years old. Eskridge's father bought the bicycle, which was equipped with a Quando quick-release hub, at a Wal-Mart in Beckley, West Virginia. The bicycle was preassembled and it came with an owner's manual. Eskridge enjoyed the bike for more than three years without incident, but then one day, as he was riding over a speed bump, he crashed and suffered very serious injuries.

Eskridge eventually filed suit in West Virginia state court, naming as defendants - as is relevant here - Pacific Cycle, Inc., which designed the bike, and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., which sold it to Eskridge's father.¹ He alleged that as he rode over the speed bump on the day he was injured, the bicycle's front wheel separated from the front forks and when the bicycle came down the front wheel was jammed into the forks, stopping the bicycle suddenly and causing him to strike the handlebarsand fall to the ground. Eskridge asserted causes of action for strict liability, negligence, and breach of warranty, and he sought compensatory and punitive damages. He claimed that "[a]s a result of deficiencies in design, testing, assembly, inspection, and provision with instructions and warnings, the Mongoose XR100, and/or its Quando quick-release hub, were defective" in several respects. J.A. 25.

Defendants later removed the action to federal district court and eventually moved for summary judgment. Defendants maintained that Eskridge could not prove that the quick-release hub in the Mongoose XR100 ("Mongoose") was defectively designed because Eskridge's expert, James Green, conceded that, if used properly, the quick release is "one of the best clamping mechanisms in the world." J.A. 220. The Defendants also maintained that no failure-to-warn or inadequate-labeling theory could succeed because neither Green nor Eskridge offered evidence of the "industry standard, exemplar owner's manuals or any other document or standard" and because Green offered no basis for believing that providing warnings and instructions in the owner's manual was an inadequate method by which to communicate the applicable warning to the user. J.A. 62.

Eskridge then filed a response detailing his theories, based on Green's report and testimony, that the Mongoose was defective in several different respects. Understanding Green'sopinions requires a little background regarding the quick-release mechanism.

A quick-release mechanism allows a bicycle's front wheel to be removed quickly and without tools. Although originally designed for racing bicycles, the device also can benefit the casual rider who is removing the wheel for any reason, such as to transport the bicycle, lock it up in public, or change a flat tire. Consequently, even most bicycles sold for casual use are equipped with a quick-release hub.

On a bicycle equipped with such a device, the front "fork blades," which are the arms of the bicycle holding the wheel, each have a u-shaped "dropout" on their end. And, the axle of the front wheel has a cylindrical hollow space running through it. The quick-release mechanism is a rod that is threaded on one end and that has a lever-operated cam assembly on the other. With such a system, the wheel is connected to the bicycle when the rod is placed through the hollow part of the front wheel axle so that it protrudes a little bit on either end. The wheel is then situated between the fork blades so that both ends of the rod fit in the dropouts. To secure the wheel, a nut on one end of the rod is tightened and the lever on the other side is pressed inward. The lever tightens the rod so that the mechanism is pushing on each dropout from the outside. Thispressure keeps the wheel attached while the bicycle is being ridden.

Green inspected Eskridge's bicycle and concluded that it was defective in three ways. First, the fork holding the front wheel was defective because the fork blades' ends were open rather than closed. Green opined that open-fork systems created the reasonably foreseeable risk that a user would install his quick-release hub improperly, which would cause the hub to separate from the fork during use. Green noted that even for intelligent users who are attempting to follow perfect instructions, fastening a quick release is a "subtle" process that is often done incorrectly. J.A. 208. Green also opined that there was no benefit to a casual rider of an open-fork system.

Second, Green concluded that, the inherent problems with the open-fork system aside, the design of the Mongoose's open-fork system differed from that of the vast majority of open-fork designs in the industry, such that it was a far trickier process to install the hub correctly on the Mongoose. The problem as Green described it is that protuberances at the end of each dropout in an open-fork mechanism generally serve to keep the wheel from separating from the bicycle in the event that the hub has not been installed correctly. However, with the Mongoose, "you can put the wheel on" and yet not "get it over theprotuberances completely." J.A. 210. "[I]f you don't have it seated just perfectly, [so] that it's off just a little bit on either side so that it's not completely clearing the protuberance when you fasten it, it comes right out of there" during use. J.A. 210. Green testified that his investigation indicated that that most likely is exactly what happened to Eskridge to cause the accident. Green explained that, in contrast, with the industry-standard open-fork design, "it's almost impossible to . . . fasten the quick release in there with it at an angle or onto the tips. You have to get over the tips in order to fasten it." J.A. 211. Thus, the risk of mistakenly believing that the hub is properly installed is much greater on the Mongoose.

Finally, Green opined that the bicycle's warnings and instructions regarding the quick release were inadequate because they were contained only in the owner's manual. In Green's experience, most bicycle owners do not read their owner's manuals, and he has found that quick-release warnings are effective only when a warning label is placed on the quick-release itself or warnings are actually provided to the consumer at the point of sale.

Eskridge also argued in his response memorandum that Green's acknowledgement that the quick release is one of the world's best clamping systems if used properly did not doom hisdesign-defect theories because it was reasonably foreseeable that the quick release would not in fact be used properly. He further contended that he was not required to prove noncompliance with government or industry standards to prove defectiveness under either a failure-to-warn or a design theory. And he argued that he had created a jury issue regarding his entitlement to punitive damages because, prior to the manufacture of the bicycle, Defendants were aware of the potential for mis-installation of quick-release hubs and the associated dangers to riders; they were aware of customer complaints of quick-release wheels separating from bicycles and causing accidents; they conducted no technical quality assurance on the bicycle; and they made no effort to ensure that their warnings and instructions regarding quick-release hubs were actually reaching owners and were effectively conveying necessary instructions and warnings.

Defendants then filed a reply generally reiterating the arguments they presented in their initial memorandum. In a footnote, however, they also added that while Green "may be an expert on bicycles, there has been nothing offered to suggest that [he] is an expert in labeling or in the retail industry." J.A. 324 n.2 (citing a case in which Green was held unqualified to offer an expert opinion "on the standards or customs of theretail industry because he has not indicated any background in that area" (internal quotation marks omitted)).

The parties then argued the summary judgment motion before the district court. During that argument, Defendants did not challenge the admissibility of any expert testimony that Green would provide. Following argument, the court took the motion under advisement.

While the summary judgment motion was still pending, Defendants moved in limine to preclude Green from testifying: (1) concerning deficiencies in the owner's manual; (2) that most bicyclists do not read owner's manuals; (3) that the labeling on the bicycle was inadequate; (4) or about retail industry standards. The motion was based on contentions that Green had not criticized the substance of the warnings contained in the owner's manual, that he was not an expert in labeling or the retail industry, and that Eskridge had not...