Seat Belt Maker Held 80 Percent at Fault in Jeep Rollover Ejection Death, Reduced to $3.71 Million

On September 23, 2007, Penney Bruner was riding in the front passenger seat of a 2003 Jeep Wrangler that rolled over in Georgia. Her 17-year-old daughter was driving on a learner's permit. Both were wearing their seat belts. Mrs. Bruner was thrown from the Jeep anyway.

The lap portion of the passenger belt tore into her lower abdomen and upper legs, and she was ejected with severe injuries. She survived for a short time and told people at the scene that she could not understand how she had come out of the vehicle when she had been buckled in. She then died of her injuries. Her husband, William Bruner, sued individually and as personal representative of her estate in the State Court of Gwinnett County.

The suit named several defendants, but the one that went to trial and mattered on appeal was Key Safety Systems, Inc., which designed and built the belt system installed in the Jeep. The claims were failure to warn, failure to recall or retrofit, strict products liability and negligence. Mechanical engineer Steven Meyer testified for the family that the passenger retractor used a ball and cup crash sensor, a design that was meant to lock the belt in a crash. He said the shoulder belt's latch plate worked loose at several points during the rollover, which let slack form in the lap belt and allowed Mrs. Bruner to slide out. He compared that sensor with web sensors and locking latch plates, which work differently. Counsel for the family on appeal included Christopher D. Glover of Beasley Allen.

Mr. Bruner told the jury his wife was fanatical about wearing a seat belt, and that police at the scene had first reported her as unbelted. He said he expected the belts to keep an occupant in the seat in a rollover and that nobody had warned him a belted passenger could be ejected. A witness who heard Mrs. Bruner's last words at the scene also testified.

In November 2013 the jury found for the family and awarded about $4.64 million. It put 80 percent of the fault on Key and 20 percent on the driver, the Bruners' daughter. Applying that split to the full award leaves about $3.71 million attributable to Key.

Key moved for a new trial and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, and the trial court denied both. Key appealed, arguing that the failure to warn claim should not have reached the jury, that Meyer's testimony should have been excluded, and that the jury should not have seen his video demonstration of the retractor. On November 23, 2015, the Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed on all three points. It held that Mr. Bruner's testimony and the evidence from the scene supported the failure to warn claim, and that the video was used only to illustrate Meyer's testimony.