Prevailing industry design standards are not a defense to liability for a lawn-mower accident that killed a four-year-old boy, a Virginia judge has ruled in affirming a $2 million jury award to the child's family.

The award was one of the largest of its kind, finding MTD Products liable for the death of Justin Simmons at his daycare center in April 2004. The husband of the center's operator drove a 1988 model MTD mower over him as it rolled backwards on an incline.

The defense called it a “nonsense” verdict since no mower is designed to automatically stop its blades when it rolls backward. But Roanoke Circuit Court Judge Clifford R. Weckstein said the jury properly relied on a plaintiffs' expert who testified that technology to detect rearward motion and stop spinning blades was available at the time of the accident.

“[I]t would be a rare court, in an extraordinary case, that would accept 'no one else does it' as conclusively establishing lack of duty,” he said in an opinion (excerpted here) that denied MTD's motions for a new trial or judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

Weckstein also quoted Judge Learned Hand as saying that “there are precautions so imperative that even their universal disregard will not excuse their omission.”

The jury awarded $1 million to Justin's brother and $500,000 to each of his parents. The plaintiffs dropped the daycare operator, Roberta Reedy, and her husband from the case during the trial, leaving MTD as the only defendant.

The world's largest mower manufacturer had equipped the 1988 model with a device which prevents the blades from turning when in reverse gear. When Orvil Reedy's mower rolled backwards, the blades continued to rotate because he had his foot down on the clutch.

Plaintiffs' expert Dr. Jeffery Warren, a mechanical engineer, testified that the risk of “child rollover” was a “known, specific hazard” with the mower and, if it had been addressed by a blade brake, the blades would have stopped “in a couple of seconds” and Justin would not have been killed.

No mower has been constructed with such a safety feature, but Weckstein rejected the argument that trade practices should be the standard of care for product manufacturers as they are for doctors, lawyers and other professionals:

As the Arizona Supreme Court stated, trades “will be allowed to create their own standards of reasonably prudent conduct only when the nature of the group and its special relationship with its clients assure society that those standards will be set with primary regard to protection of the public rather than to such considerations as increased profitability.”

The defense argued at trial that the Reedys were to blame for the tragedy. Roberta Reedy was changing another child's diaper inside her house when the accident happened and her husband had never read the manual for the mower, which instructs users not to depress the clutch while going backwards.

MTD attorney Nick Leitch said the company is considering an appeal. “MTD has been a real leader and has literally set the standard for safety for this industry,” he told The Roanoke Times.

By Matthew Heller
3/7/08