SALT LAKE CITY (Legal Newsline) - A man who claims a defective safety harness caused him to fall 37 feet to the ground can’t sue the distributor in Utah after his case was tossed out for lack of evidence in New Jersey, the Utah Supreme Court ruled.
The doctrine of issue preclusion prevents plaintiffs from relitigating a case after suffering a final judgment on the same questions in a different court, even if the issue never went before a jury, the Supreme Court ruled. And instead of Utah law, the law of the state in which the federal court sits applies in cases of issue preclusion, the high court said.
Nicholas Kuhar and his wife Julie sued a number of companies including Thompson Manufacturing in federal court in New Jersey after he was injured while cleaning gutters in that state. The court dismissed Utah-based Thompson for lack of personal jurisdiction and went on to dismiss the rest of the case after ruling the Kuhars’ expert, Dr. Richard Lynch, provided inadmissible evidence. Lynch “merely told the jury what result to reach” without supporting his conclusion the harness was defective, the New Jersey court ruled.
The Kuhars then sued Thompson in its home state of Utah. A trial court dismissed the case but an appeals court reversed, applying Utah law to determine that the exact question of whether the harness was defective had never been decided.
The Utah Supreme Court reversed the appeals court in an April 25 decision by Justice Paige Petersen.
Federal common law dictates that federal courts hearing cases in diversity – where the plaintiff and defendants are from different states – must apply the law of the state where the case is being heard, the Utah Supreme Court ruled. And applying New Jersey law to the question of issue preclusion, the Kuhars lost their entire case when the federal court disqualified their expert.
It was understandable for the Utah appeals court to read things differently, the Supreme Court said, especially since the New Jersey judgment was narrowly written. “But generally, a summary judgment ruling that plaintiffs have not met their burden of proof functions as a determination on the merits,” the Supreme Court said.
“Although the Kuhars’ case did not proceed to trial in New Jersey, we conclude that the existence of a design defect was actually litigated there,” the court concluded.
The Kuhars were represented by Colin P. King and Paul M. Simmons, while Thompson was represented by Robert L. Janicki and Michael L. Ford.