United States Ninth Circuit

In a product liability case arising from the death of a three year-old who was killed when plaintiffs-parents' parked Ford pickup truck rolled over him in the family's driveway, a decision finding that a second jury's award of $52 million in punitive damages on remand was not unconstitutional is reversed for a new trial on punitive damages so that the district court can provide a proper harm to nonparties jury instruction, and instruct the jury that: 1) plaintiffs received $2,305,435 in compensatory damages; 2) Ford's brake defect did not proximately cause the accident; and 3) plaintiffs were found to be 40 percent responsible for the accident.

Appellate Information

• Argued
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• Decided 08/30/2007
• Published 08/30/2007

Judges

• FISHER, Circuit Judge:, Before:  ALEX KOZINSKI and RAYMOND C. FISHER, Circuit Judges, and FREDERIC BLOCK, District Judge.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Jonathan M. Hoffman, Martin Bischoff Templeton Langslet & Hoffman LLP, Portland, OR, for amicus curiae The Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc., Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr., Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Los Angeles, CA;  and Theodore B. Olson and Thomas H. Dupree, Jr., Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Washington, D.C., for amicus curiae The Business Roundtable., Robin S. Conrad and Amar D. Sarwal, National Chamber Litigation Center, Inc., Washington, D.C.;   and Walter Dellinger, Jonathan D. Hacker, Matthew M. Shors and Charles E. Borden, O'Melveny & Myers LLP, Washington, D.C., for amicus curiae The Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America.


• For Appellees:
  
• Malcolm E. Wheeler (argued), Wheeler Trigg Kennedy LLP, Denver, CO;  Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr. (argued), Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Los Angeles, CA;  and Andrew L. Frey, Evan M. Tager and Adam C. Sloane, Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP, Washington, D.C., for the defendant-appellant., Shanin Specter (argued) and David J. Caputo, Kline & Specter, Philadelphia, PA;  Don Nomura, Laxalt & Nomura, Ltd., Reno, NV;  and Peter D. Durney, Durney & Brennan, Ltd., Reno, NV, for the plaintiffs-appellees.