Beatty v. Trailmaster Products, Inc.

MURPHY, Chief Judge. This case presents a challenge to the entry of a summary judgment in a tort action in favor of three corporate defendants who designed, manufactured, or sold an automobile “Lift Kit” device which had been installed on a motor vehicle subsequently involved in a serious two-car crash. Central to the proper disposition of the case is a provision of Maryland Code (1987 Repl.Vol.), § 22-105(c) of the Transportation Article, which specifies that a Class M (multipurpose) vehicle may not be operated on any highway in the State “with a bumper that exceeds a height of 28 inches.” I On July 17, 1987, Christopher Lee Beatty’s 1981 Honda Civic was involved in a highway collision with a 1982 Ford ⁷³⁰ Bronco operated by Allan Michael Smith. The suspension of the Bronco had been elevated by means of a F-1540 “Lift Kit” which raised its front bumper from the automobile manufacturer’s design of 19 inches to approximately 24 inches above the ground.

When the vehicles collided, Smith’s Bronco rode up onto the hood of Beatty’s Honda, crushing the front part of the Honda and pinning Beatty’s legs in the driver’s side footwell. Beatty sustained serious injuries in the accident; subsequently, he died. 1 After Beatty’s death, his wife, acting as personal representative of his estate, and on behalf of herself and two minor children (the plaintiffs), sued Smith; Alpa, Inc., an automobile parts distributor; and Trailmaster Products, Inc. and Hall Brothers of Michigan, Inc., alleged designers and manufacturers of the F-1540 Lift Kit. Wrongful death and survival actions were instituted against Smith, based on his alleged negligent driving. 2 The damage actions against the corporate defendants, in four counts, were for wrongful death and survival, based on strict products liability in designing, manufacturing, and selling a defective and unreasonably dangerous product, and with negligence in marketing a foreseeably unsafe product. The complaint recited that sometime before November 24, 1982, Trailmaster and Hall designed, manufactured, and placed into commerce an F-1540 Lift Kit that either directly or through a distributor reached Alpa in Maryland.

The complaint described a Lift Kit as “a set of parts and devices intended to alter the suspension of a motor vehicle by lifting or elevating the chassis and body of the motor vehicle higher above the ground than the motor vehicle was designed to ride by its manufacturer.” The complaint averred that the Lift Kit was designed for use on motor vehicles when they are driven off-road, on rough, or irregular or ⁷³¹ uneven terrain. The complaint next recited that the Lift Kit “alters the suspension of the motor vehicle to such a height that the bumper, fenders, and vehicle body rest in a horizontal plane much higher than the bumper, fenders, and vehicle body of a truck or automobile whose suspension has not been altered by use of a Lift Kit.” According to the complaint, the Lift Kit “alters the engineering dynamics and mechanics to such an extent that when a motor vehicle with altered suspension is driven on a public highway and is involved in a crash with a motor vehicle without altered suspension, the bumpers and fenders do not meet, and the bumper, fenders, and entire body of the vehicle with altered suspension override the entire body of the unaltered vehicle, with the result that there is intrusion of the altered vehicle’s bumper, fenders, and body directly into the passenger compartment of the unaltered vehicle.” The complaint charged that Alpa sold the Lift Kit to Smith on or about November 24, 1982 for installation on his 1982 Ford Bronco. Plaintiffs’ strict liability claims against the three corporate defendants averred that the Lift Kit was “defective and unreasonably dangerous because it raised the bumper height of the vehicle on which it was installed to a height that would cause the vehicle to ride over another vehicle in a collision”; and was further defective for failure of the corporate defendants “to warn consumers and users of the product of its defective and unreasonably dangerous condition.” As to the negligence counts against the corporate defendants, the complaint averred that they had a duty, which they failed to exercise, “to design, test, and inspect the Lift Kit so as to render it free of defects and reasonably safe for its reasonably foreseeable and intended uses, and to warn consumers and users of the Lift Kit of any defects and unreasonably dangerous conditions.” The corporate defendants moved for summary judgment. They claimed that the plaintiffs’ sole contention of defect relating to the F-1540 Lift Kit was that it raised the ⁷³² bumper of the Bronco to a height that would cause it to ride over another vehicle in a collision.

The defendants asserted in their motions that the bumper height on the Bronco was in compliance with Code (1987 Repl.Vol.), § 22-105 of the Transportation Article, which sets a maximum bumper height of 28 inches for a multipurpose vehicle like the 1982 Bronco. 3 The defendants asserted that the legislature adopted this standard as a safe bumper height and, in so acting, “clearly contemplated possible hazards associated with disparate bumper heights in vehicle collisions.” They maintained that since the plaintiffs “failed to produce evidence of any special circumstances or dangers beyond those addressed by the statute, compliance with the statute precludes a finding of defect or negligence” as a matter of law. In support of the summary judgment motions was the affidavit of Dr. James A. Kirk, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland. It was thereby shown that, after the 1987 collision, Smith’s insurer declared the Bronco a total loss; that Trailmaster asked Dr. Kirk to replicate the Bronco; that Kirk and his team recreated the vehicle precisely as it existed at the time of the accident, using the same model Bronco, similar tires, and an identical F-1540 Lift Kit. It was further shown in the affidavit that the Ford Motor Company was contacted to ascertain and duplicate the original Bronco’s gross vehicular weight rating (GVWR).

Thereafter, Kirk moved the replica to a level surface and measured its bumpers in accordance with the. Code of Maryland Regulations (CO-MAR) for vehicle inspection. 4 Kirk determined the height ⁷³³ of the front bumper to be 23-5/8 inches at its center, 24-7/8 inches at its right end, and 25 inches at its left end. 5 In opposition to the summary judgment motions, the plaintiffs filed the affidavit of David O. McAllister, an “accident reconstruction consultant.” He held a Bachelor of Science degree in Transportation and was formerly a traffic engineer with the Virginia Department of Transportation. Since 1974, he had supervised a team of private accident investigators; he claimed to have participated in the reconstruction of nearly a thousand motor vehicle crashes. In his affidavit, McAllister said that, having investigated the accident between Smith’s Bronco and Beatty’s Honda, the Bronco had in fact overridden the hood of the Honda and caused more extensive injury than it would have without the Lift Kit.

He opined that a vehicle equipped with a Lift Kit was foreseeably unsafe and unreasonably dangerous insofar as it would predictably override the bumper and hood of a vehicle with which it crashed, such as Beatty’s Honda, and intrude into the passenger compartment. McAllister specifically stated that a bumper that exceeds 24 inches violates standards promulgated by the Vehicle Equipment Safety Commission (VESC), a former standard by the Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association (SEMA), a trade association, and by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA). Under the distinct impression that Smith’s Bronco may have violated published safety standards, the trial court (DeWaters, J.) denied the motions for summary judgment. Thereafter, on October 22, 1991, the defendants deposed McAllister.

They had obtained from him a copy of the ⁷³⁴ VESC standard he had referred to in his affidavit, entitled “Regulation VESC-12: Minimum Requirements for Construction and Equipment of Specialty Motor Vehicles.” The VESC standard provided that the maximum recommended bumper height of a vehicle with a GVWR of less than 4,500 pounds was 24 inches; for vehicles between 4,501 and 7,500 pounds, the standard was 27 inches. In his deposition, McAllister acknowledged that the GVWR of the 1982 Ford Bronco was somewhere between 5,400 and 6,300 pounds. McAllister also admitted that the SEMA and AAMVA standards he had mentioned in his affidavit were derived from and, with respect to the 1982 Bronco, were identical to the VESC standard. Thus, McAllister conceded in his deposition that he was mistaken in his affidavit concerning a 24-inch standard, and that Smith's Bronco, in fact, complied with the relevant 27-inch VESC, SEMA, and AAMVA safety standards. 6 ⁷³⁵ As to the altered Bronco’s dangerousness, McAllister maintained that “I don’t necessarily believe or think that the [27-inch] VESC-12 standard is the safest.

I think it is too liberal. I think it is too high.” McAllister cited no scientific studies to support his opinion that the VESC standard was inadequate, nor did he indicate that others in the field of automobile safety shared his view. He simply insisted throughout his deposition that the altered Bronco bumper was foreseeably unsafe and unreasonably dangerous for operation on public streets, given its height of approximately 24 inches. When asked if the Bronco would still be dangerous at 23 or 21 inches, he opined that it would be safer by degrees but “certainly more dangerous than the one at 18 or 19.” When pressed to name the bumper height limit he would recommend, he responded, “19 inches.” In his deposition, McAllister stated, in answer to inquiries by plaintiffs’ counsel, that the Lift Kit was an unreasonably dangerous addition to the Ford Bronco.

He said that the modification made the vehicle “a foreseeable unsafe or less safe vehicle than what it was at stock” and that the defendants should have been so aware because the Ford Owner’s Manual clearly stated “that the vehicle should not be raised with after market kits.” The Owner’s Manual was neither offered nor received as an evidentiary exhibit at the deposition. After deposing McAllister, the defendants renewed their motion for summary judgment. They argued that McAllister had misled the trial court in his original affidavit by stating that the Bronco, with a bumper height around 24 inches, may have violated safety standards. The defendants pointed out that, by McAllister’s own admission, Smith’s Bronco complied with the Maryland statute regulating bumper heights and with all known safety standards.

The trial court (Smith, J.) agreed, and on March 30, 1992, it granted the motions for summary judgment. The plaintiffs appealed. We granted certiorari prior to consideration of the case by the Court of Special Appeals. ⁷³⁶ II The plaintiffs argue that the trial court erred in granting the motions for summary judgment. They rely upon their expert’s statements, in his affidavit and deposition, that the Lift Kit was defective and unreasonably dangerous, even though it may have been in compliance with § 22-105 of the Transportation Article and industry standards.

The plaintiffs claim that a genuine dispute of material facts existed as to those standards. As to this, the plaintiffs point out that our cases make clear that compliance with a statutory standard does not preclude either a finding of negligence for failure to take additional precautions or a finding of defectiveness in a strict products liability case. Plaintiffs suggest that the 28-inch bumper height limit authorized in the statute is only a measure above which the bumpers of no vehicle may be raised. They also point to their expert’s deposition testimony that the use of the defendants’ Lift Kit violated the Ford owner’s manual in that it alters the vehicle’s stability, impairs its handling in braking and cornering maneuvers, and thereby required appropriate warnings. 7 The plaintiffs emphasize that they produced expert evidence and demonstrated that circumstances existed in which mere compliance with the statute was insufficient as a matter of law since a reasonable person would have done more, thereby permitting a jury to find that the Lift Kit product was defective and that the defendants failed to warn users of its defective- and unreasonably dangerous condition.

Plaintiffs also argue in opposing summary judgment that the defendants violated a “common law duty to warn or that [they] produced a product which reduced the effectiveness of the Bronco’s bumpers or made [it] dangerous in the event of a collision with Beatty’s Honda Civic.” The plaintiffs maintain that nothing in the statute (§ 22-105) was intended to preempt the common law or to indicate that the ⁷³⁷ legislature deemed any vehicle’s bumper heights as safe, regardless of the degree to which that vehicle was modified, as long as the bumper height was 28 inches or less. Ill Under Maryland Rule 2-501(a), a motion for summary judgment may be filed “on the ground that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and that the party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Under subparagraph (b) of the rule, when the motion is supported by affidavit, “an opposing party who desires to controvert any fact contained in it may not rest solely upon allegations contained in the pleadings, but shall support the response by an affidavit or other written statement under oath.” Subparagraph (c) of the rule requires that an affidavit opposing a motion for summary judgment shall set forth, inter alia, “such facts as would be admissible in evidence.” Subparagraph (e) of the rule directs that the court shall enter judgment in favor of the moving party “if the motion and response show that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and that the party in whose favor judgment is entered is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” It is thus clear that under Maryland’s summary judgment rule a trial court determines issues of law; it makes rulings as a matter of law, resolving no disputed issues of fact. Heat & Power v. Air Products, 320 Md. 584, 591 , 578 A.2d 1202 (1990). In this regard, the standard for appellate review of a trial court’s grant of a motion for summary judgment is simply whether the trial court was legally correct.

Id. See also King v. Bankerd, 303 Md. 98, 111 , 492 A.2d 608 (1985). Our cases recognize that in order to defeat a motion for summary judgment, the opposing party must show that there is a genuine dispute as to a material fact by proffering facts which would be admissible in evidence. See Hoffman Chev. v. Wash.

Co. Nat’l Sav., 297 Md. 691, 711-15 , 467 A.2d 758 (1983); Shaffer v. Lohr, 264 Md. 397 , ⁷³⁸ 404, 287 A.2d 42 (1972); Broadfording Ch. v. Western Md. Ry., 262 Md. 84, 89 , 277 A.2d 276 (1971). Consequently, mere general allegations which do not show facts in detail and with precision are insufficient to prevent summary judgment. Lynx, Inc. v. Ordnance Products, 273 Md. 1, 7-8 , 327 A.2d 502 (1974). Moreover, a person opposing summary judgment cannot merely allude to the existence of a document and thereby hope to raise the specter of dispute over a material fact which would defeat a motion for summary judgment.

Brown v. Suburban Cadillac, Inc., 260 Md. 251, 256-57 , 272 A.2d 42 (1971). We take particular cognizance of the recent trilogy of cases decided by the Supreme Court in which it confirmed many of the above principles. • See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 106 S.Ct. 2548 , 91 L.Ed.2d, 265 (1986); Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 106 S.Ct. 2505 , 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986); Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574 , 106 S.Ct. 1348 , 89 L.Ed.2d 538