## Facts

- William Cameron, a below-the-knee amputee, used a prosthetic leg assembled by his prosthetist using components that included an Otto Bock pylon and an Otto Bock clamp.
- Cameron fell and claimed injury when the pylon broke while he was using the prosthesis.
- Cameron and his wife sued Otto Bock in federal court on diversity grounds, asserting negligence and breach of warranty based on an alleged design defect; his wife asserted loss of consortium.
- Otto Bock contested defect and causation, contending the break resulted from the prosthetist overtightening (over-torquing) the clamp screw, contrary to Otto Bock’s warning against overtightening.
- After Cameron’s accident, Otto Bock sent “Dear Customer” letters to prosthetists giving specific torque measurements for tightening the clamp connection.
- Cameron sought to admit the post-accident letters as evidence at trial; the district court excluded them under Federal Rule of Evidence 407 as subsequent remedial measures.
- Cameron also sought to admit post-accident “product failure reports” submitted by prosthetists to Otto Bock about other alleged prosthesis component failures; the district court excluded those reports as well.
- The case was tried to a jury, which returned a verdict for Otto Bock.
- Cameron appealed, challenging the exclusion of the product failure reports and the “Dear Customer” letters.

## Issues

1. Did the district court abuse its discretion by excluding post-accident “product failure reports” offered to show defect or notice, where the proponent did not show the other incidents occurred under substantially similar circumstances and the reports contained hearsay?
2. Did the district court err by excluding Otto Bock’s post-accident “Dear Customer” torque letters as subsequent remedial measures under Federal Rule of Evidence 407, including in a diversity case and as to breach-of-warranty theories?

## Decision

- The First Circuit affirmed the judgment for Otto Bock.
- The court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the product failure reports due to inadequate proof of substantial similarity and because the reports presented hearsay problems not cured by a business-records theory.
- The court held the “Dear Customer” letters were properly excluded under Rule 407 as subsequent remedial measures, and Rule 407 applies in federal diversity cases and bars use of such measures to prove defect or culpable conduct even when framed as breach of warranty.
- The court found no applicable Rule 407 exception because ownership/control and feasibility were not genuinely disputed in a way that justified admitting the letters.

## Legal Principles

- Evidentiary rulings on relevance and hearsay are reviewed for abuse of discretion, and appellate courts give substantial deference to the trial judge’s management of the evidentiary record.
- Evidence of other accidents or failures offered to prove defect, dangerousness, or notice generally requires a showing that the other incidents occurred under substantially similar conditions; generalized or poorly documented reports may be excluded for lack of similarity.
- Reports prepared from information supplied by non-employee outsiders can raise layered hearsay concerns; a document’s status as a business record does not automatically make admissible the outsider statements embedded within it.
- Federal Rule of Evidence 407 bars evidence of measures taken after an injury that would have made the injury less likely, when offered to prove negligence, defect, or other culpable conduct; post-accident warning changes or instruction refinements can qualify as remedial measures.
- In federal court, the Federal Rules of Evidence apply in diversity cases, and Rule 407’s exclusion can apply even where the plaintiff pleads breach of warranty, if the evidence is offered to show the product was defective before the accident.
- Rule 407 permits admission of subsequent remedial measures for limited purposes (such as ownership, control, or feasibility) only when those matters are actually contested in a way that makes the evidence necessary for that non-culpability purpose.

## Conclusion

Cameron’s appeal turned on two post-accident categories of proof: other-failure reports and Otto Bock’s torque-specification letters. The First Circuit left the defense verdict intact, holding the trial judge acted within discretion in excluding other-incident reports that lacked a reliable showing of substantial similarity and contained hearsay, and in excluding the torque letters as subsequent remedial measures under Rule 407, a federal rule applicable in diversity cases and not avoided by labeling the theory as breach of warranty.


Cameron v. Otto Bock Orthopedic Industry, Inc., 43 F.3d 14 (1994)