Dallas District Judge Dale Tillery on Friday affirmed a jury verdict from August that found Toyota Motor Corp. liable for a 2016 rear-end accident that caused permanent brain damage to two small children.
In a four-page ruling, Judge Tillery preserved the bulk of the $242 million jury verdict, awarding more than $213 million in actual and punitive damages to Benjamin and Kristi Reavis, the parents of 7-year-old Emily and 5-year old Owen.
In a separate ruling, Judge Tillery denied Toyota’s request to enter a judgement notwithstanding the verdict.
“The court’s judgment fairly reflects the intentions of the jury, and the jury did an excellent job weighing the evidence,” Frank Branson and Eric Stahl, who represented the Reavises, told The Texas Lawbook in a joint call on Friday.
In a written statement, Toyota spokesman Eric Booth revealed the company’s plans to ask for a new trial.
“While we respect the court’s decision, we believe that the judgment suffers from serious flaws and that the law requires entry of judgment in Toyota’s favor,” Booth said. “We look forward to presenting the trial court with additional arguments for a new trial, and, if necessary, pursuing further review.”
Judge Tillery’s ruling – though $28 million less than the jury verdict – matches the amount that Eric Stahl, a lawyer for the Reavises, argued should be awarded during Thursday’s final judgment hearing. The difference acknowledges statutory caps on damages under Texas law.
The jury originally slapped Toyota with $131 million in punitive damages – $129.6 million on Toyota Motor Corp. and $14.4 million on its North American subsidiary, Toyota Motor Sales.
Due to damages caps that plaintiffs can recover in Texas, Stahl argued that Toyota’s $131 million figure should be reduced to $95 million. Because the $14.4 figure did not exceed damages caps, Stahl argued TMS’s liability should stay the same.
The amount Judge Tillery awarded includes more than $98 million in actual damages, which accounts for a $560,000 post-verdict settlement the Reavis family reached with the driver who rear-ended their Lexus ES 300. Between the two Toyota defendants, Judge Tillery ordered TMC to pay 95 percent of Friday’s final judgment and TMS to pay the remaining 5 percent.
Judge Tillery also awarded the plaintiffs around $800,000 in prejudgment interest.
In an hour-long hearing conducted Thursday, lawyers for Plano-based Toyota had argued that Judge Tillery should enter a judgment notwithstanding the jury verdict (JNOV) for multiple factors that they said the evidence at trial did not prove.
In an Aug. 17 verdict, nine men and three women ruled Toyota was consciously indifferent to fixing seatback failure issues in its vehicles and as a result subjected 7-year-old Emily Reavis and 5-year-old Owen Reavis to permanent harm that could have been avoided.
During Thursday’s hearing, Gibson Dunn partner Allyson Ho argued Toyota’s JNOV motion should be granted on four major grounds:
· As a matter of law, TMS cannot be found liable since this branch of Toyota merely markets Toyota’s vehicles and does not participate in any of the manufacturing;
· Toyota Motor Corp. (TMC) can’t be held liable because the trial did not reveal adequate evidence of any safer design alternatives that would have prevented the injuries of the Reavis children with certainty;
· The evidence at trial established that warnings would not have prevented the injuries at issue, plus: “the plaintiffs admitted they didn’t read the manual, so no warning would have made a difference,” and;
· There was not enough evidence presented at trial to prove that Toyota was grossly negligent – “There was no evidence that Toyota opted to use a more dangerous design.”
Stahl countered that even though TMS did not manufacture the vehicles, “TMS was wholly responsible for the marketing of the vehicles, including safety information.”
In regard to Toyota’s warning argument, Stahl pointed out that the Reavises testified at trial that if they had known of the seatback failure issues, “they wouldn’t have put their kids at risk.
“There should have been a public disclosure,” Stahl said. “If Toyota had made one, the Reavises would have seen it and bought a different vehicle.”
“The facts are strongly in favor of a significant punitive damages award… our punitive damages award is appropriate,” Stahl said.
But Toyota lawyer Elizabeth Brandon countered that punitive damages should be not be considered as presented by Stahl since the method “increases the cap by assessing the damage of TMS and TMC as opposed to combining all the liability from the verdict on a percentage basis.”
Before issuing his final judgment, Judge Tillery gave the plaintiffs until the end of business on Friday to produce discovery related to a pending settlement agreement the Reavises have reached with Michael Mummaw, the driver who rear-ended the Reavises, and Mark Howell, the owner of the vehicle Mummaw was driving.
Toyota had requested a hold-off on the ruling because its legal team “should be allowed to examine and inspect the final settlement agreement to determine whether any bias ultimately impacted the jury’s verdict,” one of Toyota’s briefs says.
Brandon pointed out that Mummaw was found liable for 5 percent of the Reavis children’s injuries – a figure she implied was much higher than the $560,000 Mummaw settled for with the plaintiffs.
The case number is DC-16-15296 in Dallas County.