Nathan Deal Judicial Center in Atlanta
ATLANTA - The estate of a man who died of carbon monoxide poisoning after ingesting drugs and leaving his car running in the garage can sue Toyota for failing to install a warning device.
The Georgia Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s dismissal of claims against the owner of the man’s apartment but rejected Toyota’s appeal of an order allowing a plaintiff expert to testify the keyless ignition system of the 2015 Lexus GS 350 was unsafe.
Charles Robinson died after he left his Lexus running in the garage below his apartment. The medical report said he died from carbon monoxide poisoning “with contributing toxic effects from his consumption of fentanyl and methadone.”
Robinson’s father sued the apartment owner and Toyota, accusing both of failing to protect him from carbon monoxide poisoning. The trial court dismissed the claim against the property owner, ruling Georgia law doesn’t require carbon monoxide monitors in apartments. The court also excluded the testimony of Peter Liess, a plaintiff expert who studied keyless ignition systems in general but couldn’t explain how safety devices could have been added to the 2015 Lexus.
The judge refused to exclude William Vigilante, a human factors expert who testified the Lexus was unreasonably dangerous because it lacked “an effective warning system.” Toyota argued Vigilante couldn’t identify any other manufacturers that installed warning systems on 2015 model year vehicles, and that the expert never tested his own proposed system although he recommended testing be done.
Vigilante said he didn’t need to test warning devices because Toyota had done its own tests and found they worked. Toyota couldn’t say why Vigilante’s opinion was unreliable because he hadn’t done his own testing on human subjects, the appeals court said.
“Vigilante’s testimony had other indicia of reliability, including other types of testing of, for example, the decibel level of the warning beeps on Robertson’s Lexus versus the ambient noise of the running engine,” the appeals court said.
The appeals court did rule for Toyota on the issue of punitive damages, finding the trial judge erred by allowing the plaintiff to seek such damages in a wrongful death claim. A century-old Georgia Supreme Court ruling prohibits punitive damages in wrongful death cases under the theory the plaintiff is compensated in full for the value of the decedent’s life. The plaintiffs argued that precedent should be overturned, or that they should have punitive damages based on funeral expenses, but the appeals court refused.
