[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
No. 06-13783 ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
December 26, 2006
Non-Argument Calendar
THOMAS K. KAHN
CLERK
D. C. Docket No. 00-00085-CV-6
JOEY THREATTE, as surviving parent of
Courtney Threatte, deceased,
BEULAH THREATTE, as surviving parent
of Courtney Threatte, deceased,
Plaintiffs,
versus
TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION,
TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, INC., U.S.A.,
Defendants-Third-Party
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
SOUTHEAST TOYOTA DISTRIBUTORS, INC.,
Defendant-Appellee,
versus
ALLEN AUTOMOTIVE, INC.,
d.b.a. Heyward Allen Toyota,
Third-Party-
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Georgia
(December 26, 2006)
Before TJOFLAT, ANDERSON and BARKETT, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
This case is before us for a second time. In Threatte v. Toyota Motor
Corporation et al., No. 02-14971, we vacated the district court’s order granting
Toyota summary judgment on an issue not involved in this appeal, and remanded
the case for further proceedings.
The salient facts are fairly straightforward. In August 1998, Ms. Courtney
Threatte, a college student driving her 1997 Toyota Corolla home from college,
failed to negotiate a sharp curve in the road and hit a tree. The Corolla’s air bag
failed to deploy, Ms. Courtney’s body struck the steering wheel, and she was
killed. The cause of death, according to the Death Certificate, was “massive head
and internal injuries.”
Threatte’s parents sued Toyota for wrongful death. During discovery, a
Toyota engineer and a plaintiffs’ expert concluded that the air bag failed to deploy
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because the air bag computer was not fully connected electrically and therefore
could not function. The computer had been replaced by Toyota dealer Allen
Automotive, Inc., d.b.a. Heyward Allen Toyota (“Allen”), pursuant to a voluntary
recall program paid for by Toyota.
Toyota called on Allen to indemnify it for any sums it might be required to
pay the plaintiffs and to participate in settlement negotiations. Allen refused.
Toyota therefore joined Allen as a third-party defendant in the Threattes’ wrongful
death action. Toyota subsequently settled the Threattes’ claim for $900,000, and
the case proceeded to trial on Toyota’s third-party indemnity claim against Allen.
Prior to trial, Allen stipulated that it was negligent in failing properly to
install the air bag computer and that such negligence caused the non-deployment,
that Toyota was not negligent, and that the $900,000 payment to the Threattes was
“correct and proper.”
At trial, the jury found Allen liable to Toyota on the theory of implied
indemnity, and, after denying Allen’s renewed motion for judgment as a matter of
law and Allen’s alternative motion for new trial, Record, Vol. 15 at 254, entered
judgment for Toyota. Allen now appeals, arguing: (1) that there was no evidence
that Allen’s negligence was a proximate cause of Ms. Threatte’s death; hence, the
court should have granted its judgment as a matter of law; and (2) that the court
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abused its discretion in denying Allen’s alternative motion for a new trial.
Allen’s first argument is based on the court’s overruling Allen’s objection to
the expert testimony of Roger Brown, a Toyota engineer, who testified on the
causation issue. According to Allen, the court should have found Brown
incompetent to testify under Fed. R. Evid. 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow
Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786 (1993); had it done so, proof of
causation would have been lacking and the court would have been required to
dismiss Toyota’s indemnity claim. We disagree. We find no error in the court’s
findings regarding Brown’s qualifications as an expert to testify and that the court
did not abuse its discretion in permitting Brown’s testimony to come before the
jury. Finally, we conclude that, with his testimony, the jury had ample proof of
causation to render the verdict in question.
As Allen properly recognizes, we review a trial judge’s denial of a motion
for new trial for abuse of discretion. We have examined each of the grounds Allen
cites in its motion for a new trial, and conclude that it was within the trial judge’s
sound discretion whether to grant the motion. We find no abuse of discretion in
the judge’s ruling.
AFFIRMED.
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