General Motors Corporation v. Sanchez,

997 S.W.2d 584 (1999)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

There were no witnesses to this event. Sanchez (P) left his home to feed heifers. Eventually the next day, the ranch foreman found P's lifeless body. From the circumstantial facts, P stopped his truck and mis-shifted into what he thought was Park, but what was actually an intermediate, 'perched' position between Park and Reverse where the transmission was in 'hydraulic neutral.' Expert witnesses explained that hydraulic neutral exists at the intermediate positions between the denominated gears, Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive, and Low, where no gear is actually P walked toward the gate, the gear shift slipped from the perched position of hydraulic neutral into Reverse, and the truck started to roll backward. It caught P at or near the gate and slammed him up against it, trapping his right arm and knee. P suffered a broken right arm and a damaged right knee where the gate crushed him against the door pillar, the vertical metal column to which the door is hinged. P bled to death from a deep laceration in his upper right arm. P's estate sued D for negligence and products liability and gross negligence based on a defect in the truck's transmission and transmission control linkage. P offered circumstantial evidence of how a miss-shift could occur. At trial, D presented alternative theories, but those were rejected by the jury. D was found to be negligent, and the transmission was found to be defectively designed with inadequate warnings. P was also found to be 50% at fault for the accident. The trial court disregarded the fault finding and rendered judgment for P for $8.5 million in actual and punitive damages. The court of appeals affirmed. D appealed. D challenges the trial court's refusal to apply the comparative responsibility statute. P responds that the evidence supports both the negligence and strict liability findings and that P's negligence was nothing more than a failure to discover or guard against a product defect. Thus, they contend, comparative responsibility does not apply here as a defense to strict liability.