## Facts

- Lucille McCabe drove a Honda Civic equipped with a driver’s-side airbag.
- While turning left at a controlled intersection, her vehicle was struck head-on by an oncoming Cadillac alleged to be traveling at high speed.
- The airbag did not deploy; McCabe’s head struck the steering wheel, causing facial and dental injuries.
- McCabe sued the manufacturer/distributor and the dealer on strict products-liability theories, alleging a design and manufacturing defect based on the failure to deploy in a severe frontal collision.
- Defendants moved for summary judgment supported by an engineering expert who reconstructed the crash and opined the airbag was not intended to deploy under the collision dynamics and performed as designed.
- McCabe offered no counter engineering expert; she relied on her testimony about expecting deployment, photographs of vehicle damage, and eyewitness descriptions of speed and the head-on impact.
- The trial court granted summary judgment, concluding the consumer-expectation test was inapplicable as a matter of law and that McCabe’s evidence was insufficient to raise a triable issue.

## Issues

1. Whether the consumer-expectation test for design defect could apply to an airbag’s nondeployment in the disputed circumstances of a frontal collision.
2. Whether defendants met their summary-judgment burden on an alternative risk-benefit design-defect theory by presenting evidence that the design’s benefits outweighed its risks.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal reversed the summary judgment and remanded.
- The court held that McCabe raised triable issues under the consumer-expectation test and the trial court erred by excluding that theory as a matter of law.
- The court held defendants failed to negate the alternative risk-benefit design-defect theory because they presented no evidence that the challenged design choice reflected a benefits-over-risks balance.

## Legal Principles

- Under the consumer-expectation test, a product is defectively designed if it fails to perform as safely as an ordinary consumer would expect when used in an intended or reasonably foreseeable manner.
- The consumer-expectation test turns on whether jurors can evaluate the product’s safety performance using common experience and “minimum safety assumptions”; it is not limited to “simple” products.
- In consumer-expectation cases, expert testimony is not invariably required to create a triable issue; lay testimony and physical evidence may support an inference of defect when the failure occurs in a context within ordinary experience.
- Under the risk-benefit test, a product may be defectively designed even if consumer expectations are met; once a prima facie causal showing is made, the manufacturer bears the burden to show the design’s benefits outweigh its dangers considering relevant factors.
- A defendant seeking summary judgment must negate at least one essential element of the claim or show the plaintiff cannot reasonably obtain evidence; when both consumer-expectation and risk-benefit theories are fairly at issue, the motion must address each.

## Conclusion

The court reinstated the design-defect claims because a jury could assess whether an ordinary driver would expect airbag deployment in a severe frontal crash based on lay evidence, and because defendants did not carry their separate burden to justify the design under the risk-benefit framework.


McCabe v. Am. Honda Motor Co., 100 Cal. App. 4th 1111 (Cal. Ct. App. 2002)