United States District Court, S.D. Mississippi, Northern Division
MEAGHIN JORDAN, ET AL. PLAINTIFFS
v.
MAXFIELD & OBERTON HOLDINGS LLC, ET AL. DEFENDANTS
ORDER
CARLTON W. REEVES UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
This
Order resolves four of the pending motions in
limine.
I.
Katherine Cahill
Maxfield
& Oberton first seeks to exclude the testimony of
Katherine Cahill. The plaintiffs designated Cahill as one of
their experts in September 2017. M&O now argues that her
testimony is irrelevant to a disputed fact and must be
excluded under Rules 401 and 702.
To the
extent M&O's argument is timely, see Local
Rule 26(a)(3), it is unpersuasive. M&O may now agree that
“Buckyballs pose a risk of harm to young children and
must be kept away from them”-though the parties have
not entered into any stipulations on this or any other
point-but M&O has not conceded that Buckyballs
will injure children no matter how they are labeled. The jury
can hear Cahill's testimony on this subject. The motion
is denied.
II.
Post-Sale CPSC Proceedings
Next,
M&O argues that the jury should not be permitted to hear
evidence about any proceedings before the Consumer Product
Safety Commission which occurred after the product in this
case was sold to the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs respond that:
(a) one of their medical experts uses a post-sale study to
support his opinions (the “NASPGHAN Report”), and
(b) M&O's post-sale marketing efforts support the
plaintiffs' punitive damages claim.
The
plaintiffs are required to prove that Buckyballs were
defective “at the time the product left the control of
the manufacturer.” Miss. Code Ann. § 11-1-63(a);
see also Dykes v. Husqvarna Outdoor Prod., N.A.,
Inc., 869 F.Supp.2d 749, 758 (S.D.Miss. 2012).
M&O's post-sale marketing efforts do not shed any
light on whether Buckyballs were defective, and therefore
will be excluded from trial. If the plaintiffs receive a
verdict, the Court will hear argument on whether they may
introduce M&O's post-sale marketing efforts during
the punitive damages phase (if one is warranted).
The
admissibility of the NASPGHAN Report is more complicated. In
the Report, an association of pediatric gastroenterologists
wrote the CPSC to support that agency's proposed magnet
safety standards. The Report contains facts supporting the
plaintiffs' case that Buckyballs were defective at the
time they left M&O's control. The study also contains
descriptions of how Buckyballs move through the body when
ingested, i.e., the consequences of the
Buckyballs' design. These kinds of facts are relevant and
admissible. At the same time, the Court does not want to
spend this trial arguing about the CPSC's regulatory
process, settlement, or subsequent litigation. References to
those matters must be redacted from the Report. The parties
are directed to submit an agreed-upon redacted version of the
Report with their final exhibit lists. In the unlikely event
the parties cannot agree on what should be redacted, then
each shall submit its separate version of proposed redactions
at the designated time.
The
Court expects the parties to stick to the MPLA and avoid any
risk of retrying this case at great expense and
inconvenience. The motion is granted in part and denied in
part.
III.
Other Incidents and Injuries
M&O
then seeks to exclude evidence of other magnet ingestion
incidents or injuries. It contends that “admissible
other incidents should be limited to those involving infants
and toddlers who were injured when they found and ingested
Buckyballs unintentionally left within their reach, and only
where probative value of this evidence is not outweighed by
its prejudice.”
The
legal standard is well-established:
Evidence of similar accidents occurring under substantially
similar circumstances and involving substantially similar
components may be probative of defective design. This
evidence might be relevant to the defendant's notice,
magnitude of the danger involved, the defendant's ability
to correct a known defect, the lack of safety ...