Mary Bessie Reese was paralyzed and died 22 days after the 1994 Ford Tempo she was driving was rear-ended by a dump truck. Her surviving children brought this wrongful death and survival action against Ford Motor Company in which they contended that Reese’s seatback collapsed in the rear impact due to a defective design, causing Reese to suffer more severe injuries than she otherwise would have suffered in the collision. The jury returned a verdict against Ford. On appeal, Ford contends that the trial court erred by instructing the jury on a duty to recall when no such duty exists under Georgia law; by giving an incomplete and misleading jury instruction regarding the crashworthiness doctrine; by allowing the plaintiffs to introduce complaints from other lawsuits against Ford to establish notice of the alleged seat defect; and by admitting the deposition testimony of the plaintiffs in five of the other lawsuits concerning the injuries they or their children suffered. As explained below, absent special circumstances not applicable here, Georgia law does not impose a duty upon a manufacturer to recall a product after the product has left the manufacturer’s control. We therefore reverse the judgment and remand for a new trial. The record shows that in the early morning hours of November 2, 2002, Reese was driving her 1994 Ford Tempo down a two-lane rural highway when a loaded 58,000 pound dump truck ran into the rear of her vehicle. The impact of the collision caused the Tempo to accelerate 15 miles per hour in a tenth of a second. The Tempo traveled 371 feet down a steep embankment before coming to a stop at the edge of the woods. Reese was paralyzed due to a fractured spine and died 22 days later in the hospital.
The plaintiffs sued Ford, alleging that Reese’s seatback had collapsed at the time of the rear impact due to a design defect. They asserted claims for defective design under theories of negligence and strict liability, for negligent failure to warn of the alleged defect, and for negligent failure to recall the Tempo seat and seatback. At trial, the plaintiffs presented expert testimony that Reese’s seatback was defective because the metal on the seat frame tore upon rear impact, causing the seatback to collapse rearward such that Reese’s head and shoulders were thrown against the rear seat, and resulting in a T12 compression spinal fracture and fatal injuries to her head and brain. According to the plaintiffs’ experts, Ford could have devised a warning that would have alerted customers to the potential risk of seatback collapse upon rear impact, and could have utilized an alternative seat design at the time of manufacturer or retrofitted the Tempo through a recall campaign that would have made the seatback safer and would have prevented Reese’s injuries and death.
