Duty to Warn – Product Liability

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Civil

7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

Duty to Warn – Product Liability

No. 14-2481 Trad Thornton v. Jeppesen Sanderson, Inc.

No. 14-1707 Trad Thornton v. M7 Aerospace, LP

M7 Aerospace

Appellant inclusion on customer list and general knowledge of entity as an airline does not establish a duty to warn.

“The district court found that there was an insufficient nexus between M7 and Transair to impose an independent duty to warn on M7, and we agree. None of the four Gonzalez factors are met, and the plaintiffs have not presented evidence of any relationship between M7 and Transair with respect to the Aircraft. M7 did not assume any of Fairchild’s service contracts; consequently, the Aircraft was not covered by any service contract. M7 never serviced the Aircraft, and there is no evidence that M7 knew Transair was the current owner and operator of the Aircraft. The plaintiffs argue that because Transair was included on M7’s customer list, M7 knew the identity and location of the operator of the Air- craft. While this evidence may establish that M7 knew of the existence of Transair as an airline in general, the plaintiffs have presented no evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that M7 knew Transair was the operator of this Aircraft. The plaintiffs do not even allege that M7 knew Transair was the operator of the Aircraft.”

Jeppesen

Lack of clarity as to whether pilots utilized Jeppesen charts during descent yields lack of causation.

“There is no evidence from which a reasonable jury could infer that Jeppesen’s charts probably contributed to the crash. No one survived the crash. There is no cockpit voice recording. We do not know for sure whether or not the pi- lots were using the Jeppesen charts when they descended. Even if they were using the charts, there is no evidence from which a jury could infer that the plaintiffs’ version of the accident actually occurred. The plaintiffs do not argue that the Jeppesen charts were inaccurate or did not comply with the ASA’s requirements. They mostly rely on the factual findings of the ATSB report which described various ways that the charts could have been improved. But they have nothing to establish that any flaws in the charts actually caused the pilots to lose situational awareness or otherwise decide to descend below the minimum safe altitude. The plaintiffs would like for us to allow this case to reach a jury based on the argument that because they can establish that the charts were flawed, we can infer that the charts probably contributed to the crash. But this speculation is impermissible. See Tragarz, 980 F.2d at 418; Rahic v. Satellite Air-Land Motor Serv., Inc., 24 N.E.3d 315, 322 (Ill. App. Ct. 2014) (“Liability against a defendant cannot be predicated on speculation, surmise, or conjecture.”).”

Both Affirmed.

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.