The recent case of Arizona Chemical Company, LLC v. Mohawk Industries, Inc., 41 Fla. L. Weekly D1213a (Fla. 1^st DCA 2016) is a case I discussed regarding lost profit damages. Check out that article here. But, this case also raised an interesting trial and appellate issue involving “other products” evidence to support an alternate causation argument, such as when a specific product or manufactured component fails.

This case involved a manufacturer of a specific brand of carpet suing the manufacturer of resin that was used in manufacturing the failed carpet brand. The carpet manufacturer claimed that the resin failure caused an increase in warranty claims and consumer complaints.

Applicable here is the carpet manufacturer’s pre-trial motion in limine to prevent the resin manufacturer from introducing evidence about other brands manufactured by the carpet manufacturer (that did not use the resin) that contemporaneously failed and also resulted in spikes in consumer claims. In particular, the resin manufacturer intended to introduce evidence at trial of consumer claim spikes related to three other brands of carpet manufactured by the carpet manufacturer, although none of the other brands used the resin. The resin manufacturer claimed that such contemporaneous failures indicate that something other than the resin caused the failure in all of the brands. An alternate causation argument. Makes sense, right? The trial court, however, granted the carpet manufacturer’s motion in limine since the other products were dissimilar to the failed carpet brand at-issue (as none of the other brands used the resin) precluding this “other products” evidence from being introduced during trial.

Post-trial, the resin manufacturer appealed, among other issues, the trial court’s granting of the motion in limine. The First District held that the relevance of “other products” evidence is reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard of appellate review. In reviewing this issue under this abuse of discretion standard of review, the First District affirmed the trial court’s preclusion of this “other products” evidence finding that such evidence was NOT relevant:

Generally, evidence of “possible explanations” for the plaintiff’s harm other than the defendant’s negligence is relevant and must be admitted. To establish the relevance of particular alternative-causation evidence, however, the defendant must provide a competent evidentiary link between the plaintiff’s harm and the defendant’s theory. This threshold requirement exists as a function of the relevance rule, even though the defendant does not carry a quantifiable burden of proof as to the alternative explanation.

Here, Arizona’s [resin manufactuer] basic argument is that the excluded evidence was relevant to rebut Mohawk’s [carpet manufacturer] point that the timing of Unibond’s [specific failed carpet brand at-issue] claims spike indicates that Arizona’s resin was the cause of the Unibond defects. The excluded evidence established that other products manufactured in the same Mohawk facility without Arizona’s resin experienced claims spikes at approximately the same time as Unibond. When these two points are considered outside the context of the remaining evidence, they make a compelling case for an abuse of the trial court’s discretion. Of course, context is key. When the trial court’s decision is viewed in the context in which Mohawk used the evidence of Unibond’s claims spike and the limitations of the evidence concerning other products’ claims spikes, the basis for the manner in which the trial court exercised its discretion in this case is understandable.

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Arizona argues that the evidence of other products’ claims spikes rebuts Mohawk’s causation theory because this evidence bears on the likelihood that other factors caused the Unibond claims spike. The specific factors Arizona suggests are poor quality control and lack of adherence to manufacturing protocol. However, there is no evidentiary basis in the record for supplying the connection between contemporaneous claims spikes of the four product lines and these factors. The record supports a theory that there may have been some general quality-control failings at the facility, but Arizona has not identified any evidence to substantiate its conclusion that problems with quality control explained the defects in the non-Unibond products. In fact, evidence Arizona submitted in opposition to Mohawk’s motion indicates that Mohawk traced the causes of the defects in the other products to design flaws and choices of raw materials, not quality-control or procedural failures.

Without a more direct connection between the other products’ failures and Unibond’s failures, the evidence of the other products’ failures showed causation, or rebutted Mohawk’s causation theory, only to the extent that it showed Mohawk has a propensity to produce bad carpet. Introducing evidence for this purpose is improper. In light of these considerations, we find no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s decision to exclude the other-product evidence as legally irrelevant to the issue of liability.

Arizona Chemical Company, LLC, supra (internal quotations omitted).

When relying on “other products” evidence to support an alternate causation theory, it is important to connect the dots and create the evidentiary link between the other products’ failures and the failure at-issue. In other words, you need to create the evidentiary link supporting an alternative theory of causation by relying on the “other products” evidence.

Please contact David Adelstein at dadelstein@gmail.com or (954) 361-4720 if you have questions or would like more information regarding this article. You can follow David Adelstein on Twitter @DavidAdelstein1.

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After the plaintiff puts on its case-in-chief, you, as the defendant, move for a directed verdict. (Check out this article too for more on directed verdicts.)  The court denies the motion for a directed verdict. You put on your defense and then the case is submitted to the jury. The jury returns a verdict in favor the plaintiff. You then move to set aside the verdict (also called a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict). The trial court denies your motion and enters final judgment consistent with the jury’s verdict. You appeal the trial court’s denial of the motion for directed verdict / motion to set aside the verdict.

An appellate court must review a trial court’s determination on a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict de novo and “evaluate the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, drawing every reasonable inference flowing from the evidence in the non-moving party’s favor.” Miami-Dade Cnty. v. Eghbal, 54 So. 3d 525, 526 (Fla. 3d DCA 2011). Additionally, we must sustain a jury verdict if it is supported by competent substantial evidence. Hancock v. Schorr, 941 So. 2d 409, 412 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006).

Frieri v. Capital Investment Services, Inc. , 41 Fla.L.Weekly D1189a (Fla. 3d DCA 2016).  

In other words, the appellate court will evaluate the evidence in favor of the non-moving plaintiff (part that did not move for the directed verdict) drawing reasonable inferences in its favor. If there was competent substantial evidence supporting the jury’s verdict, the court will affirm the judgment in favor of the plaintiff.

Now what if after the plaintiff puts on its case-in-chief, you, as the defendant, move for a directed verdict and the trial court grants the directed verdict in your favor and against the plaintiff.   The plaintiff appeals the trial court’s granting of your motion for directed verdict.

While the standard of review for the trial court’s entry of a directed verdict is de novo, an appellate court “can affirm a directed verdict only where no proper view of the evidence could sustain a verdict in favor of the nonmoving party.” Banco Espirito Santo Int’l, Ltd. v. BDO Int’l, B.V., 979 So. 2d 1030, 1032 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008) (quoting Owens v. Publix Supermarkets, Inc., 802 So. 2d 315, 329 (Fla. 2001)).

Frieri, supra.

In other words, the appellate court will evaluate the evidence to see if no proper view of the evidence, and all inferences drawn from the evidence, could support a verdict in favor of the plaintiff. Thus, if the plaintiff fails to introduce any evidence substantiating its claims (or a claim) against the defendant (i.e.,to sustain a verdict in favor of the plaintiff), then the appellate court will affirm the directed verdict.

Please contact David Adelstein at dadelstein@gmail.com or (954) 361-4720 if you have questions or would like more information regarding this article. You can follow David Adelstein on Twitter @DavidAdelstein1.

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The plaintiff puts on her case through circumstantial evidence so that inferences can be drawn from that evidence.  The defendant moves for a directed verdict after the plaintiff put on her case through circumstantial evidence. The trial court denies the motion and the jury enters a verdict in favor of the plaintiff. The defendant appeals the trial court’s denial of the motion for a directed verdict. The standard of review for the denial of a motion for directed verdict is de novo.   Broward Executive Builders, Inc. v. Zota, 41 Fla.L.Weekly D1126a (Fla. 4^th DCA 2016).

In Broward Executive Builders, the plaintiff, a painter, fell and seriously injured herself. No one witnessed the fall and the plaintiff was unable to testify. The plaintiff claimed that defendant general contractor caused her fall by failing to install required guardrails that would have prevented the fall.

[A plaintiff] must introduce evidence which affords a reasonable basis for the conclusion that it is more likely than not that the conduct of the defendant was a substantial factor in bringing about the result. A mere possibility of such causation is not enough; and when the matter remains one of pure speculation or conjecture, or the probabilities are at best evenly balanced, it becomes the duty of the court to direct a verdict for the defendant.

Broward Executive Builders, supra, quoting Sanders v. ERP Operating Ltd. P’ship, 157 So.3d 273, 277 (Fla. 2015).

Without any direct evidence relating to the cause of the plaintiff’s injury, the plaintiff needed to establish the defendant general contractor’s liability through circumstantial evidence, predominantly through an expert accident reconstructionist. While the plaintiff may prove facts in a negligence case through circumstantial evidence, an inference drawn from the circumstantial evidence “must be the only reasonable inference that can be formed from that evidence for the plaintiff to build further inferences upon it.” Broward Executive Builders, supra.

While it certainly could be inferred from the circumstantial evidence that the plaintiff fell and sustained injuries, it could not be reasonably inferred that the plaintiff fell from a location where the guardrails would have prevented her fall. The circumstantial evidence did not exclude other reasonable inferences about the location where the plaintiff fell, what the plaintiff was doing when she fell, or what caused the fall. In other words, it could not be solely inferred that the defendant’s failure to install the required guardrails caused the plaintiff’s injuries—there were other reasonable possibilities relating to the fall that could be inferred.

[B]ecause there is no evidence of how she fell or where exactly she fell from, it would be complete speculation and conjecture for any trier of fact to conclude that the lack of guardrails contributed to causing her injuries. The burden of proof rested upon appellees [plaintiff] to prove appellant’s [defendant] negligence. Where there is evidence that the harm could have occurred even in the absence of the appellant’s conduct, proof of causation cannot be based on mere speculation, conjecture, or inferences drawn from other non-exclusive inferences.

Broward Executive Builders, supra (reversing the trial court and remanding for judgment to be entered in favor of defendant general contractor). 

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Just because the trial court committed an error does NOT mean the error constitutes reversible error warranting a new trial. The trial court’s error could very well be harmless error.

When it comes to a trial court’s error, the recipient of the error should prove that “there is no reasonable possibility that the error contributed to the verdict.” Maines v. Fox, 41 Fla.L.Weekly D1062a (Fla. 1^st DCA 2016) quoting Special v. W. Boca Med. Ctr., 160 So.3d 1251, 1256-57 (Fla. 2014). The trial court’s error is harmless if the recipient of the error proves there is no reasonable possibility that the trial court’s error contributed to the jury’s verdict.

In Maines, the trial court abused its discretion by preventing a defense expert from testifying that in his opinion the plaintiff did not suffer a traumatic injury as the result of the car accident. However, the defense expert was able to testify that only a very fragile person could have sustained a traumatic injury like plaintiff’s injury from the car accident. Hence, while the expert could not specifically testify that the plaintiff did not suffer the injury from the car accident, his other opinions clearly portrayed his causation opinion to the jury. For this reason, the First District held that while the trial court did commit an error, the error was nothing more than a harmless error–there was no reasonable possibility that this error contributed to the jury’s verdict in favor of the plaintiff.

Please contact David Adelstein at dadelstein@gmail.com or (954) 361-4720 if you have questions or would like more information regarding this article. You can follow David Adelstein on Twitter @DavidAdelstein1.

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