Shumate v. American Honda Motor Co. CA2/8

Filed 7/7/22 Shumate v. American Honda Motor Co. CA2/8 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION EIGHT

RICHARD FINLEY SHUMATE, B309480

Plaintiff and Appellant, Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BC661850 v.

AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR CO., INC.,

Defendant and Respondent.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Mark H. Epstein, Judge. Affirmed.

The Appellate Law Firm, Aaron Myers and Berangere Allen-Blaine for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Dykema Gossett, James S. Azadian, Derek S. Whitefield, Cory L. Webster and Dmitriy Kopelevich for Defendant and Respondent. ____________________

Richard Finley Shumate was involved in a multi-car collision and brought a products liability case against the distributor of his car, American Honda Motor Co., Inc. The case culminated in summary judgment for Honda. We affirm because Shumate failed to raise a triable issue of material fact on the key issue of defect. The core facts are few. Shumate drove a Honda CR-V. In June 2015, he was at a standstill on the 405 freeway, about 18 feet behind a Chevrolet Equinox. While stopped, a BMW Z3 hit him from behind, pushing his car into the Equinox. Shumate sued and settled with the BMW driver. In 2017, Shumate sued Honda and other companies claiming his airbag was defective and should have deployed when he struck the Equinox. Years passed, the parties tried and failed to settle the case, and then Honda moved for summary judgment on the issues of defect and causation. Honda supplied expert evidence about the airbag system. The system was state of the art, and its benefits outweighed the risks. By design, the airbags should not deploy in all collisions. In low-speed collisions, the deployment force can cause more injury than it prevents. Accordingly, the airbags were designed to deploy only for frontal and side collisions of a certain severity. Crash severity can be viewed in terms of the change in speed a collision produces. According to Honda’s accident reconstruction expert Samuel White, Shumate’s collision with the Equinox fell below the severity threshold, so the airbag performed properly by not deploying. Shumate represented himself in opposing Honda’s motion. He did not dispute many key facts about airbags and their