LOS ANGELES (Legal Newsline) - Yamaha can be held liable for a dealer’s failure to install a motorcycle throttle assembly correctly, a California appeals court has ruled, in a decision a dissenting judge said “creates a sweeping new rule of tort liability that has no basis in California law.”
The decision by the Fourth Appellate District, Division Two, interprets a 1966 opinion by the California Supreme Court to make manufacturers liable for the negligence of dealers who sell their products. The ruling gives plaintiffs another avenue for suing manufacturers beyond traditional products liability by allowing lawsuits claiming the product was assembled incorrectly by someone else.
Chad Defries sued Yamaha and Langston Motorsports, an authorized dealer, after he wiped out in 2017 on a dirt-bike course in Perris. He claimed the throttle assembly came off the handlebar while he was navigating through bumps or “whoops.” Langston settled before trial and Defries dropped any claims of design or manufacturing defect, leaving only claims that Langston had improperly installed the throttle assembly and Yamaha hadn’t issued proper instructions for doing it.
The jury returned a verdict for Yamaha and awarded the company costs. Defries appealed, arguing the trial judge had improperly rejected his proposed jury instructions based on CACI 3713, which deals with the nondelegable duty of a “hirer” for the negligence of an independent contractor. Defries argued Langston, the dealer, fit the definition of an independent contractor and thus Yamaha was liable for any negligence on Langston’s part.
A majority on the Fourth Appellate District agreed, citing a landmark 1966 decision by the California Supreme Court, Vandermark v. Ford. In that case, the Supreme Court held Ford might be sued for the alleged negligence of a dealer by a man who claimed the brakes failed on his car. A trial judge had dismissed claims against Ford after it argued the plaintiff had to prove the car was defective when it left the factory.
Yamaha argued that Defries had dropped his products-liability claims and it couldn’t be sued for the dealer’s alleged negligence. The company also argued friends of Defries had unbolted the throttle after the accident to “help” him.
The appeals court rejected those arguments in an Oct. 26 decision by Judge Michael J. Raphael and joined by Judge Art. W. McKinster that relied extensively upon Vandermark.
“Contrary to what the trial court stated, if Langston Motorsports had negligently assembled Defries’s dirt bike, then Yamaha would be liable as a matter of law,” the appeals court ruled. The plaintiff would still have to prove Langston had done something wrong, the court went on, as opposed to simply proving the motorcycle was defective as in a conventional products-liability lawsuit.
“This rule has the laudable effect of encouraging a manufacturer or distributor like Yamaha to act to safeguard proper assembly by its various dealers, including attempting to ensure that negligent conduct in one location does not repeat elsewhere,” the judges wrote.
Judge Frank J. Menetrez dissented, saying the majority had created a new a rule holding manufacturers liable for the negligence of their dealers.
“The majority opinion purports to find that rule in Vandermark, where it has escaped the notice of every lawyer and judge in California for the last 58 years,” the judge wrote. “Not a single published opinion of any California appellate court has interpreted it in the manner adopted by the majority opinion.”
The California Supreme Court in Vandermark held that Ford couldn’t escape liability by claiming dealer negligence was to blame for a car’s allegedly defective brakes, Judge Menetrez wrote. The opposite isn’t true, however; manufacturers generally only have a duty to ensure their products are safe when they leave the factory, he said.
The majority also made a mistake on the issue of jury instructions, the judge said. CACI 3731, which Defries’ attorneys wanted to use, deals only with independent contractors that are hired by a principal to do work. Yamaha doesn’t hire its dealers, he wrote, so those jury instructions don’t apply.
The majority rejected Judge Menetrez’s criticism in a footnote.
“The dissent suggests that if we are correct that Vandermark held that a manufacturer could be liable for its dealer’s negligent assembly of its product, the decision `would have been a bombshell,’” they said. “That is in fact how the leading torts scholar of the day, William L. Prosser, viewed Vandermark, calling it `the most extreme decision of all those applying strict liability to date.’”
Defries was represented by James A. Morris and Barbara M. Sharp of the Morris Law Firm. Todd Lundell, Daniel Rodman and Jing (Jenny) Hua represented Yamaha.