Lydford v. Nissan North America, Inc.
We successfully defended Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. and Nissan North America, Inc. in an action for strict liability and negligence. Plaintiff alleged that when she was backing her 1988 Nissan Pathfinder out of her garage, it started to “shake all over” and accelerate out of control in reverse. She claimed that although she continued to apply the brake pedal, she could not stop the vehicle and, in fact, its rate of acceleration increased. As the vehicle entered the roadway, the plaintiff became concerned that the vehicle would strike her neighbor's house, so she shifted from reverse to drive to get back into her driveway.
The Pathfinder then crashed into the foundation wall of her garage. The plaintiff maintained throughout the litigation that she never moved her foot from the brake to the gas pedal during the entire incident.
Plaintiff specifically claimed that her vehicle was defective because the Pathfinder’s throttle body injector became stuck in the open position, which caused the vehicle to accelerate suddenly at the time of the accident. Plaintiff’s experts maintained that the sealed ball bearings used on the throttle shaft were defective because they allowed gas vapors to pass the seals on the bearings and dissolve the grease used to lubricate the bearings. Her materials expert maintained that gas vapors caused a gradual degradation of the grease during the 11 years it was in use until, at the moment of the accident, the frictional resistance in the bearings caused the throttle to stick open. However, he acknowledged that the gradual increase in frictional resistance would have been noticeable prior to the accident. The plaintiff’s automotive expert testified that in order for the throttle to have stuck open, it must have been opened to the position where it stuck and that it could have been opened only by the plaintiff’s depressing the gas pedal. Since the plaintiff had admitted that the throttle had worked well immediately before the accident, he conceded that the condition of the throttle must have changed between the time of the accident and the time of the inspection. Nissan’s experts testified that during the 6 ½ months while the vehicle was in storage following the accident, the throttle body injector, along with other components, corroded and rusted to the point where the throttle stuck and would not move freely. The plaintiff’s experts further proposed alternate designs for the throttle body injector that other manufacturers had used in the past, but Nissan established that those same manufacturers subsequently adopted a design resembling Nissan’s.
Following two weeks of testimony, a jury rendered a defense verdict after deliberating for just over a half hour.
