In Kirk v. Clark Equipment Co., No. 20-2983 (7th Cir. March 25, 2021), the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s grant of defendant-manufacturer’s motion to exclude plaintiff’s expert witness Dan Pacheco and for summary judgment in plaintiff’s strict products liability action, alleging that he incurred injuries arising out of design defect in defendant’s skid-steer loader, when said loader tipped over on plaintiff and severely damaged his leg, foot and ankle. In sum, Pacheco’s causation opinion rested on speculation that the weight of the load exceeded the rated operating capacity (ROC-maximum load), but Pacheco unfortunately did not know the weight of the load at the time of the accident.
The employer purchased the Loader new in 2008 from a dealership; it was equipped with a 62-inch bucket and components that increased the Loader’s ROC to 1,420 lbs. Kirk regularly used the Loader to scoop up material and move it up a concrete ramp with an approximate 30-degree incline. Kirk claims that on May 12, 2015, while going up the ramp, the Loader began to wobble and tip forward as he raised its lift arms. In an effort to stabilize himself, Kirk braced his foot on the console. His foot slipped out of the cab and he brought the lift-arm down on it. Kirk suffered a permanent leg disability, loss of his job, and medical expenses totaling $433,000.
In a strict liability claim against the Loader’s manufacturer, Clark, Kirk’s only expert witness opined that the Loader was “unreasonably dangerous for its intended and foreseeable use” and that its “design providing for the use of the [62-inch] bucket … made it highly likely” that the bucket would be loaded in excess of” the ROC.
While plaintiff’s expert stated that design of loader, which provided for 62-inch low-profile bucket, made it highly likely that loader would have tipped over on plaintiff where bucket would have been loaded in excess of 1300/1400 pound capacity, the District Judge could properly find that expert’s opinions did not meet standards set forth in Rule 702 and Daubert, since: (1) expert had never used instant skid-steer loader to pick up or move materials and had not tested his design theory on either instant loader or similar loaders or equipment; (2) evidence from others regarding operation of instant loader did not support expert’s opinion, where said individuals disclaimed any personal knowledge or experience with other tipping or bouncing incidents; (3) expert did not know weight of load that plaintiff was lifting at time of accident, and thus expert could only speculate that size of bucket was cause of accident; and (4) expert failed to account for and investigate potential alternative causes of accident. Thus, the District Court did not err in granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment, where plaintiff failed to present any valid expert witness testimony regarding whether instant specialized piece of industrial equipment had defective design that caused plaintiff’s injury.