Patton & Ryan

Brannon v. Pep Boys
Lake County Circuit Court in Waukegan, Illinois

Patton & Ryan achieved a defense verdict on behalf of nationally-known target defendant, The Pep Boys, in a products liability jury trial before the Lake County Circuit Court in Waukegan, Illinois.  As is so often the case in large-exposure matters, Patton & Ryan received the trial assignment and took over the case from prior counsel only 45 days before trial was scheduled to commence.  The plaintiff, Jimmie Brannon, was a 30 year old resident of Trevor, Wisconsin, who fell and sustained numerous injuries, including open headed severe traumatic brain injury, while operating his Panterra Kamikaze motorized skateboard on a street near his home.  Those injuries included cognitive defects and impairment of sensory perception in all five senses brought about by massive skull fractures that produced an open head brain injury. Those injuries were objectively documented and not subject to serious dispute.  He alleged that his injuries were the result of the unreasonably dangerous condition of the product.  He purchased the product at a Pep Boys location in Lake County, Illinois.  The accident occurred during Plaintiff’s first use. The skateboard was made in China and imported, packaged, and distributed by a now-defunct California corporation. At trial, the plaintiff alleged that the skateboard was inherently dangerous in design, had numerous manufacturing defects, and had inadequate warnings. A battery of plaintiff’s well known and experienced engineering experts had examined the product and concluded that it had a misaligned motor, misaligned wheels, poor throttle and brake controls and an operator emergency egress design that prevented safe exit. All of these defects, they opined, caused the board to wobble throwing Brannon to the asphalt road at 15 mph. The plaintiff requested in excess of $12 million in damages: including a $7 million life-care plan and $2 million in lost wages. Plaintiff alleged that his brain injury rendered him unable to work and in need of substantial future medical treatment for life.

Patton & Ryan successfully argued for the application of Wisconsin law rather than Illinois law to this action.  This allowed the defense of contributory negligence, which is unavailable in Illinois in strict products liability actions.  The plaintiff was operating the skateboard on a public roadway, on the wrong side of the street, and approaching a blind turn in the road.  He also was not wearing a helmet or other safety equipment.  To that end, Patton & Ryan also successfully argued that the “helmet defense” was valid in this case under Wisconsin law, as a matter of failure to mitigate damages.  Under Illinois law, little or none of this evidence would have been admitted, and the defense would have been unable to argue that Mr. Brannon was contributorily negligent.

At trial, John W. Patton, Jr., convincingly argued, from the physical and circumstantial evidence, that the plaintiff’s injuries occurred when he swerved to avoid a van that may have been rounding the blind turn.  The van driver was never named as a party in the case.  Moreover, there was no competent evidence, Patton argued, that any condition of the product contributed to causing this accident.

Following Wisconsin law, this Illinois jury answered a verdict consisting of special interrogatories, as requested by Patton and vigorously opposed by plaintiff’s counsel.  When asked whether the condition of the product was a cause of the plaintiff’s injuries, the jury answered “NO.”  In response to the question as to what percentage of the plaintiff’s injuries were caused by the product as opposed to the plaintiff’s negligence, the jury answered that the plaintiff’s negligence represented 100% of the cause of the accident.  Upon reading those answers, the court announced a defense verdict.