Mitsubishi's Very Bad Day in the 6th Circuit

In a case involving a pediatrician who was crippled for life in an automobile accident, allegedly because the seatbelt in his Mitsubishi didn't operate properly, the Sixth Circuit has published an opinion sharply criticizing the trial judge for refusing to admit testimony from the plaintiff's seatbelt expert even though the appellate court had reversed the testimony's exclusion in a previous appeal in the same litigation.

The panel's opinion also holds: (1) that the plaintiff should have been permitted to conduct discovery of other consumers who filed seatbelt complaints with Mitsubishi; (2) that the district court erred in declining to rule on plaintiff's motion for sanctions for Mitsubishi's alleged violations of discovery rules; (3) that the plaintiff should have been permitted to present a strict liability theory to the jury; (4) that the district court erred in barring the plaintiff from calling court-appointed experts at trial; (5) that the plaintiff should have been permitted to offer certain impeachment evidence; (6) that the plaintiff should have been allowed to offer evidence that Mitsubishi declined to perform tests when informed by consumers that its seatbelts had a propensity to unlatch; and (7) that the defense verdict should be vacated, the claims remanded for a new trial, and the case assigned to a new district judge on remand.

See Nemir v. Mitsubishi Motors Corp., No. 02-1780 (6th Cir. Aug. 20, 2004) (Cole, Gilman, & Schwarzer, JJ.).