California Third District Appellate Justice Stacy Boulware Eurie
SACRAMENTO - A California state appeals court says manufacturer Daimler Truck can be sued by the family of a woman killed in a crash involving a Daimler-made semi, because the truck maker didn't equip that semi with collision avoidance technology.
On June 24, a three-justice panel of the California Third District Appellate Court revived the lawsuit filed in Butte County against Daimler Truck North America on behalf of the family of Lupe Ortiz.
In the ruling, the justices reversed the ruling of a Butte County Superior Court judge, who had ruled that Ortiz's family couldn't sue Daimler over a crash that claimed Ortiz's life, because the collision was allegedly the fault of the truck driver and not the fault of a manufacturer for not installing the technology on a particular semi.
In the ruling, the appellate justices said a jury should be given the chance to decide if Daimler is also at fault for allegedly failing in their "duty" to protect the public by not equipping this particular truck with a collision avoidance system that may have prevented the fatal crash at the heart of the case.
The appellate decision was authored by Justice Stacy Boulware Eurie. Justices Laurie M. Earl and Elena J. Duarte concurred in the decision.
Allowing the lower court decision to stand "would mean that manufacturers would have no duty to install these safety features, even if they were undeniably inexpensive, feasible, and effective at preventing accidents and saving lives," Justice Boulware Eurie wrote. "Rather than find manufacturers never have a duty to install collision avoidance systems, no matter the underlying facts, we find it best to retain a duty of care in this context.
"That is not to say that commercial truck manufacturers have a duty to install collision avoidance systems in every case, as Daimler Trucks fears. It is to say only that they must exercise due care when choosing whether to install these systems."
The case centered on a crash in June 2020 in which Ortiz died. According to court documents, Ortiz was driving with a passenger on State Route 99 in Butte County and was stopped at a red light.
Ortiz's vehicle was then struck from behind by a 2018 Daimler Cascadia semi, owned by trucking company Shaheen Transport and driven by a driver identified as Jobanjit Singh. According to court documents, Singh was driving his truck at 55 mph when it struck the rear of Ortiz's vehicle.
Both Ortiz and her passenger were killed in the crash.
According to court documents, the crash would not have occurred if the Daimler truck had been equipped with a collision avoidance system, known as Detroit Assurance 4.0.
According to court documents, that system would have alerted the driver to the stopped vehicle in his path and the automatically slowed and perhaps stopped the truck, using the vehicle's transmission, engine brake and service brake.
According to court documents, the system is considered standard equipment, and adds about $4,300 to the cost of a Daimler Cascadia truck. According to court documents, Daimler has allowed customers to purchase trucks without the crash avoidance tech at a reduced cost, compared to trucks including the system.
In court, Daimler argued it could not be sued, because the truck was not "defective" in any way, but merely lacked a feature provided on other trucks. Rather, they said, the legal blame for the crash lies with the driver.
In Butte County Superior Court, Judge Tamara L. Mosbarger sided with Daimler, rejecting the plaintiffs' claims that the truck involved in the crash should be considered "defective" for lacking a crash avoidance system.
On appeal, the Third District justices said that is a question for a jury to answer.
Daimler asserted the practical effects of such a ruling will be to essentially order Daimler and all other truck makers to install such safety equipment or face costly lawsuits in California courts.
While insisting that was not their intent, the appellate justices still devoted much of the decision to detailing how deadly semi truck crashes can be and how many lives may be spared by the use of such collision avoidance systems.
They repeatedly asserted the cost of installing such systems are "relatively low" or "a fraction of" the purchase price of a truck.
The justices said allowing Daimler to escape a jury trial in this case would be "providing a roadmap for manufacturers to evade liability for defective products" - asserting, once again, that a product that doesn't contain the safety features the court believes it should is "defective."
"A manufacturer would just need to offer, along with its defective product, a non-defective product as an upgrade option," Boulware Eurie wrote. "And then when the consumer or some third party is harmed by the defective product, the manufacturer could claim a lack of causation."
Ortiz's family is represented in the action by attorneys Michael von Loewenfeldt and Jocelyn Sperling, of the Complex Appellate Litigation Group; and Michael A. Kelly and Andrew McDevitt, of the firm of Walkup Melodia Kelly & Schoenberger.
Daimler is represented by attorneys David K. Schultz and J. Alan Warfield, of Polsinelli; and Philip R. Cosgrove and Ryan E. Cosgrove, of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough.
A spokesperson for Daimler Truck has not responded to a request for comment on the decision.
