ATLANTA (Legal Newsline) - Family members pursuing a wrongful-death lawsuit in Georgia can subject GM Chief Executive Mary Barra to questioning even though she has no specialized knowledge about the automotive part that allegedly failed and caused the victim’s death.
Affirming a trial judge’s ruling, the Georgia Court of Appeals said Barra’s public comments about GM’s “safety culture” opened the door for plaintiff lawyers to question her about why the company failed to fix a component of the Chevy Trailblazer’s stability control system that has drawn more than 70,000 warranty claims.
In rejecting GM’s request for a protective order to prevent Barra from being deposed, the appeals court also rejected the so-called “apex doctrine” applied in some federal courts, which restricts plaintiff lawyers from questioning top executives unless they have unique knowledge about the issues in the case.
Lawyers for Robert Buchanan, husband of accident victim Glenda Marie Buchanan, said Barra was “the only person who cans peak to the issue of why GM has not acted” to redesign the stability wheel angle system at issue in the case, which is installed in more than 770,000 GM vehicles A GM executive testified GM had more than 73,000 warranty claims by July 2018 but the company’s internal investigation into the system was closed.
GM argued lawyers could get the information they needed from lower-level executives who had actual knowledge about the part, calling the demand to depose Barra “the very type of harassment” Georgia law is designed to prevent. Barra said in an affidavit she wasn’t involved in the design or development of the part and had no specialized knowledge about it.
The trial judge denied GM’s motions, citing among other things Barra’s public comments about GM’s “safety culture” during another trial over an alleged vehicle defect. The judge ordered a 3-hour deposition to be held in Detroit within 45 days.
In its May 6 decision, the appeals court agreed. While a judge can consider factors including the executive’s unique knowledge, she doesn’t have to, the appeals court ruled. Barra’s public comments about GM’s commitment to safety, including congressional testimony, could be relevant to punitive damages, the court ruled.
“The fact that Barra in her affidavit denied having knowledge of any issues relevant to this case does not demand that the protective order be granted, especially in light of her other statements,” the court ruled in a decision by Judge Amanda Mercier.
In a concurrence, Judge Louis A. Dillard said he agreed with the result worried “about the potential for litigants to use Georgia’s forgiving discovery standards to unduly burden high ranking executives and negatively impact business in our state.”
“I agree with the majority that our hands are tied,” he wrote, because Georgia has not adopted the Apex doctrine even though federal courts in the 11th District, which includes Georgia, use it. Only if the Georgia Supreme Court affirms the apex doctrine, or state legislators mandate it, can the appeals court apply it, he wrote.
“I am not in favor of fashioning such a doctrine out of wholecloth, no matter how desirable the underlying policy may be for Georgia’s business environment,” he wrote. “This issue is, to put it plainly, above our pay grade.