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$80 million ruling, trial errors cited Verdict, award voided in GM caseBy JOE LAMBEThe Kansas City StarA Missouri appeals court on Tuesday overturned an $80 million jury award to a Blue Springs couple for injuries allegedly caused by a defective General Motors cruise control. The 10-1 ruling by the appellate judges in Kansas City cited several trial errors, said evidence did not support punitive damages and ordered a retrial. Three years ago, a Jackson County jury awarded $50 million in punitive damages plus $20 million in actual damages to Constance Peters and $10 million to her husband, Randall Peters, for loss of consortium. Three months later, the National Law Journal reported it was the largest known verdict in a case involving the sudden acceleration of a motor vehicle. The September 2000 accident left Hickman Mills teacher Constance Peters in a vegetative state until her death in March 2004 at age 62. Geri Lama, a GM representative, said, “We’re pleased with the appeals court ruling” but declined further comment. Mark Evans, who represented the Peters couple, said he will appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court. Peters was injured while backing out of her driveway in the couple’s 1993 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, which sped up in reverse, traveled about 120 feet, sideswiped a tree and kept going in reverse more than 90 feet back into the couple’s yard. The impact with the tree broke Peters’ skull in several places and injured an arm so severely it had to be amputated. The lawsuit contends that General Motors knew the cruise control in that model of car and some others was defective and changed the design in 1994. GM contended its cruise control was safe and the design was changed because the new one was less expensive. General Motors lawyers said Peters mistakenly pressed the accelerator instead of the brake. When the car failed to stop, she pressed harder and caused the car to go faster, they said. Lawyers for the couple disputed that. They said the car could not have continued more than 90 feet more just by inertia after the tree knocked Peters down in the seat. Her foot clearly was off the accelerator, they said. The appeals court ruled that “the evidence is not persuasive that GM acted with evil motive or reckless indifference when it sold the Cutlass” and that there was no justification for punitive damages. The appeals court also ruled that the trial judge, Marco Roldan, erred in part by allowing testimony from seven witnesses who drove GM cars made between 1988 and 1993. They had the same kind of cruise control and said they had experienced sudden unwanted acceleration in stopped cars when they put the transmission in reverse. There was no proof in any of the cases that the cruise control caused the problem, the appeals court ruled, and the testimony should not have been allowed. The judge also erred, the appeals court ruled, in allowing evidence of 213 reports of driver complaints about sudden, uncontrolled acceleration. There was proof that only 74 of the 213 incidents involved cars with cruise controls, and only the 74 should have been allowed as evidence, the appeals court ruled. Appeals judge Robert Ulrich wrote the majority opinion joined by nine other judges. Appeals judge Harold Lowenstein wrote a dissent that said the verdicts should have been upheld but the amount of the awards reduced to $5 million in punitive damages, $10 million in actual damages for Constance Peters and $2 million for loss of consortium.
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