In Lance Belville et al. v. Ford Motor Co., case number 18-1470, (2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 8838).the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit bounced an entire plaintiffs? class action because their experts failed to test their theories regarding a sudden acceleration defect in the vehicles? software under real world conditions. In doing so, the Fourth Circuit affirmed U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers of West Virginia. “Here, the district court properly considered appropriate factors and did not abuse its discretion in excluding the experts’ opinions based on their lack of relevance and reliability.” The appeals panel said Chambers properly vetted and then excluded reports and testimony from the plaintiffs’ three experts.
Judge Chambers properly noted that the experts used questionable or “suspect” testing methods and couldn’t prove that the alleged defect in Ford’s electronic throttle system actually caused sudden or unintended acceleration, according to the panel. Furthermore, Judge Chambers correctly pointed out that none of the three experts tested or inspected the plaintiffs’ actual vehicles or tried to connect their testing to any of the thousands of Ford vehicles in the purported class that supposedly had the acceleration issues, the panel said. “Of the multitude of vehicles the plaintiffs claim to be defective, the record does not reflect they attempted to test even one vehicle purported to have had [an unintended acceleration], much less conduct such a test under real-world conditions,” the panel said. “Most importantly, none of the proffered expert opinions purport to tie their testing to any alleged [unintended acceleration] so as to show the fundamental element of causation.” The Fourth Circuit concluded that the plaintiffs couldn’t establish the existence of a defect, let alone a risk or danger from it. “Ford does not have a duty to warn consumers of an unproven risk or danger associated with a hypothetical and unproven defect,” the panel said.