Janjua v. Cooper Tire & Rubber Company et al

Filing 75

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER granting in part and denying in part 67 Plaintiff Khurram Janjua's Motion for Summary Judgment. Signed by Judge William M Nickerson on 2/2/2015. (bmhs, Deputy Clerk)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND

KHURRAM JANJUA
v.
COOPER TIRE & RUBBER
COMPANY et al.

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Civil Action No. WMN-12-2652

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MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
Before the Court is Plaintiff Khurram Janjua’s “Motion for
Summary Judgment as to Seatbelt Defense.”

ECF No. 67.

motion is fully briefed and ripe for review.

The

Upon a review of

the papers, facts, and applicable law, the Court determines that
no hearing is necessary, Local Rule 105.6, and that Mr. Janjua’s
motion will be granted in part and denied in part.
Mr. Janjua brings this products liability action arising
from an accident that occurred in Illinois, when a tire exploded
on the Dodge Caravan in which Mr. Janjua was a passenger.

Mr.

Janjua contends that the tire, which was manufactured by
defendant Cooper Tire & Rubber Company (Cooper Tire), was
defective and was the cause of his severe and permanent
injuries, including broken bones and extensive burns.

At the

time of the accident, Mr. Janjua was sitting in the second row
of the three row van, between two other passengers.

It is

undisputed that the second row of the van is designed for two
passengers, with two seating areas with seat belts.

None of the

passengers seated in this row were wearing seat belts.

The back

tire exploded, the driver lost control of the car and hit a
tree, and the van rolled one and a half times to come to a rest
upside down.

During the accident, Mr. Janjua and the other

passengers in the second row were ejected from the van and Mr.
Janjua came to rest on the van’s undercarriage.

As a result,

Mr. Janjua suffered broken bones and severe burns.
The parties are in the process of discovery, and Mr. Janjua
filed this motion after receiving a report from Cooper Tire of
two biomedical experts asserting that Mr. Janjua’s injuries were
exacerbated because he was not wearing a seat belt at the time
of the accident.

Mr. Janjua’s motion requests that this Court

“dismiss [Cooper Tire’s] assertion of the seat belt defense,”
ECF No. 67-1 at 2, and bar Cooper Tire “from attempting to
inject any seat belt evidence into this case.”

Id. at 7.

Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires a
movant to “identify each claim or defense – or the part of each
claim or defense – on which summary judgment is sought.”

As

Cooper Tire points out, it has raised defenses of superseding
cause, misuse of products, lack of causal relation, contributory
or comparative negligence, failure to mitigate, assumption of
the risk, and failure to use proper restraints but nothing
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styled as a “seat belt defense” as construed by Mr. Janjua.

A

review of Mr. Janjua’s motion demonstrates that he is not
seeking summary judgment in relation to a factual issue, but
rather he is seeking a ruling excluding all evidence relating to
seat belts in any form.

ECF 67-1 at 7.

As such, Mr. Janjua’s

motion is more properly considered as a motion in limine rather
than a motion for summary judgment.

See Fed. R. Civ. P. 1

(“[The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure] should be construed and
administered to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive
determination of every action and proceeding.”); Monge v.
Portofino Restaurant, 751 F. Supp. 2d 789, 791 n. 1 (D. Md.
2010) (noting that the Court does not exalt form over substance
in considering motions filed by parties).
Against this motion in limine, Cooper Tire argues that Mr.
Janjua’s motion is prohibitively broad, and if granted, would
practically exclude mention that a van was involved in an
accident.

Cooper Tire argues that prohibiting use of any

evidence that may implicate Mr. Janjua’s seat belt non-use will
hamper its ability to defend itself by demonstrating that Mr.
Janjua decided “to sit in a place not intended for an occupant”
thus placing himself at risk.

ECF No. 70 at 11.

Although Mr.

Janjua requests an extremely broad prohibition that the court is
disinclined to grant, the law of Illinois provides articulated
boundaries as to what Cooper Tire may or may not refer to in
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defending itself in the instant action.

It is clear from these

boundaries that there are opinions and matters in Cooper Tire’s
expert report by Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Stovik, ECF No. 70-6, that
would be inadmissible.

Other evidence that may implicate seat

belt usage requires a delicate balance between complying with
Illinois law and establishing relevant and probative facts.

The

admissibility of such evidence will be considered as it arises
at trial or is ruled on in any future in limine motion.
“A federal court sitting in diversity applies the choice of
law rules of the state in which it sits.”

Chubb & Son v. C&C

Complete Services, LLC, 919 F. Supp. 2d 666, 673 (D. Md. 2013).
In actions sounding in tort law, Maryland employs the principle
of lex loci delicti from the First Restatement of Conflict of
Laws, which requires the Court to apply the law of the place of
the harm.

Wells v. Liddy, 186 F.3d 505, 522 (4th Cir. 1999).

Under lex loci delicti, the “place of the harm is defined as the
state where the last event necessary to make an actor liable for
an alleged tort takes place.”

Id.

Here, as the allegedly

defective tire exploded in Illinois, which Plaintiff claims was
the cause of his injuries, Illinois law will apply.
Mr. Janjua cites to an Illinois statute stating that
“[f]ailure to wear a seat safety belt in violation of this
Section shall not be considered evidence of negligence, shall
not limit the liability of an insurer, and shall not diminish
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any recovery for damages arising out of the ownership,
maintenance, or operation of a motor vehicle.”
603.1(c).

625 ILCS 5/12-

This law is meant to codify the common law provision

articulated in Clarkson v. Wright that “evidence of failure to
wear a seat belt should not be admitted with respect to either
the question of liability or damages.”

483 N.E.2d 268, 270

(Ill. 1985); See also Bonney v. CRST Malone, Inc., No. 06-CV345-WDS, 2007 WL 1500206 (S.D. Ill. May 21, 2007) (“[A]fter the
Illinois Supreme Court articulated this rule in Clarkson, the
Illinois General Assembly codified it in its Vehicle Code.”).
Cooper Tire notes, correctly, that when the accident
occurred, in 2009, only drivers and front seat passengers were
obligated to wear a seat belt and, as such, the statute does not
apply to Mr. Janjua as a second row passenger.

See Walsh v.

Emergency One, Inc., No. 89-C-9402, 1992 WL 180134, at *3 (N.D.
Ill. July 20, 1992) (Section 12-603.1(c) “only refers to the use
of seat belts by drivers and front seat passengers. . . .
Because [plaintiff] is not alleged to have violated the section,
the qualifier cannot be applicable.”).

The statute, as amended

in 2012, now requires all passengers to wear a seat belt.
Although the operative statute at the time of the accident
does not make Mr. Janjua’s conduct illegal and thus perhaps not
technically covered by the statutory prohibition against
admissibility, Section 12-603.1 did not supersede the common law
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prohibition against admitting evidence of a lack of seat belt by
a back seat passenger plaintiff.

See Cimaglia v. Union Pacific

R.R. Co., No. 06-3084, 2009 WL 499287, at *3 (C.D. Ill. Feb. 25,
2009) (“[W]hile [Section 12-603.1] does not apply to backseat
passengers riding with drivers over the age of 18, the Illinois
Supreme Court has held that absent a statutory duty to wear a
seatbelt, evidence of seatbelt nonuse is inadmissible to prove
either liability or damages.

Therefore, defendant may not

introduce evidence that any of the occupants of the minivan wore
a seatbelt unless it first makes an offer of proof . . . that
its evidence of seatbelt use goes to some relevant issue.”)
(citing Clarkson, 483 N.E.2d at 270).
Therefore, Illinois law prohibits the reference to seat
belt use when sought as evidence to establish a plaintiff’s
comparative fault or reduce his damages, even if the plaintiff
is a backseat passenger.

Evidence involving seat belts,

however, is not automatically excluded by the law when offered
for purposes other than those articulated by Section 12603.1(c), such as to demonstrate the design of the vehicle.

See

Bachman v. General Motors Corp., 776 N.E. 2d 262, 297 (holding
that Section 12-603.1(c) “does not preclude all seat-belt
evidence, but only evidence of nonuse in determining whether the
person was negligent in failing to utilize the vehicle’s seatbelt system”).
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Cooper Tire casts much of the evidence in question as that
which tends to prove that Mr. Janjua decided “to sit in a place
not intended for a passenger.”

ECF No. 70 at 10.

Cooper Tire

further posits that this decision is inextricably linked with
Ms. Janjua’s injuries and any such evidence is relevant to the
action at hand.

The expert report of Mr. Wheeler and Mr.

Stovik, ECF No. 70-6, however, does not attribute Janjua’s
injuries to his decision to sit in a place not intended for an
occupant.

Instead, the report explicitly draws a connection

between Mr. Janjua’s seat belt use and his injuries, finding
that “[i]f Mr. Janjua was properly restrained wearing the
available and functional seat belt and restraint in position 5 .
. . the [serious and severe] injuries would not have occurred.”
ECF No. 70-6 at 6.

This analysis and potential testimony is

plainly the type that is intended to be barred from a jury when
considering the issue of negligence.

It explicitly establishes

that Mr. Janjua’s failure to wear a seat belt was the proximate
cause of his injuries and such opinion could be used to make the
existence of negligence on Mr. Janjua’s part more likely.

Such

testimony is inadmissible under Illinois law to prove a
plaintiff’s negligence and this opinion testimony will not be
admitted.
Therefore, the Court will grant in part and deny in part
Mr. Janjua’s motion in limine.

Reference to Mr. Janjua’s
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decision not to wear a seat belt must be excluded when the
purpose of the testimony in question is to establish Plaintiff’s
negligence or comparative fault or reducing his damages.
Harnischfeger Corp. v. Gleason Crane Rentals, Inc., 585 N.E.2d
166, 175 (Ill. App. Ct. 1991) (“[T]he legislature has made a
judgment as to the plaintiff’s duty to wear a seat belt by
providing that the failure to do so cannot be considered either
as evidence of contributory negligence or in diminution of
damages.”).

Mr. Janjua worries that allowing Cooper Tire to

admit evidence that implicates seat belt non-use, such as his
position in the van or his trajectory when he was ejected from
the van, is tantamount to “introduc[ing] seat belt evidence
through the backdoor.”

ECF No. 72 at 2.

Mr. Janjua cites to

Kassela v. Stonitsch, 373 N.E.2d 608 (Ill. App. Ct. 1978) to
support the proposition that Illinois has barred the backdoor
introduction of seat belt evidence.

While the Illinois

Appellate Court did prohibit the use of otherwise impermissible
seat belt evidence to impeach a witness, the Court did not
address whether evidence that gives rise to an inference of seat
belt non-use was also barred.

Id. at 612.

To the extent that

Courts have considered this particular issue under Illinois law,
such evidence has not been categorically prohibited.

See

DePaepe v. General Motors Corp., 33 F.3d 737, 745 (7th Cir.
1994) (affirming the district court’s limited admission of a
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restraining system when such evidence was offered for reasons
not relating to plaintiff’s negligence or damages).
As such, evidence that may lead to the inference that Mr.
Janjua was not wearing a seat belt is not automatically excluded
but must be taken up on a case by case basis at trial.
Accordingly, it is this 2nd of February, 2015, Ordered
that:
(1)

Plaintiff Khurram Janjua’s Motion for Summary
Judgment, ECF No. 67, is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN
PART IN PART; in that
a. Opinions expressed in the expert reports of
Defendant Cooper Tire & Rubber Company are
inadmissible to the extent that they are offered
as evidence of negligence or for the purpose or
reducing damages; and
b. The Motion is otherwise denied.

(2)

The Clerk of Court shall transmit a copy of this
Memorandum and Order to all counsel of record.

______________/s/__________________
William M. Nickerson
Senior United States District Judge

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