## Facts

- Buick Motor Company assembled an automobile in Flint, Michigan, and sold it to Cicero Buick Sales Company, which sold it to Nathan Rotche in August 1929.
- About 26 days after purchase, after roughly 600 miles of driving without reported brake trouble, the car left the roadway, struck a culvert, and Rotche was injured.
- At the scene, tire marks suggested braking, and the car sustained major front-end damage; a clevis connecting a brake cable to a brake mechanism was later found missing.
- The car was towed to a garage and left in an unlocked shed; three to four weeks after the accident, a mechanic found a loose brake cable, a missing clevis, two missing cotter pins, and some cotter pins not “spread.”
- Rotche alleged negligent construction of the brake mechanism (including missing or improperly installed cotter pins/clevis), asserting a latent defect caused brake failure and the crash.
- Buick presented testimony and records describing systematic inspections and no recorded defect for this vehicle; it also offered evidence of inspection before delivery in Chicago.
- The dealer presented testimony and written records that it inspected the car (including brakes) before sale and that the clevises and cotter pins were properly in place at delivery.
- A jury returned a $20,000 verdict against Buick and the dealer; after the dealer settled and was dismissed, judgment remained against Buick for $17,500; the Appellate Court affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove the automobile was negligently constructed and defective when it left the manufacturer (or was delivered by the dealer) so as to impose liability on Buick.
2. Whether observations of the brake mechanism weeks after the accident, without proof the condition was unchanged, could support an inference of defect and negligent manufacture at the relevant time.
3. Whether the case should have been withheld from the jury because the necessary inferences on defect and causation required speculation.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Illinois reversed the Appellate Court and reversed the judgment against Buick, remanding the cause.
- The court held the evidence was legally insufficient to support a finding that Buick negligently constructed the automobile or that a defect existed when it left Buick or the dealer.
- The court concluded the verdict rested on conjecture because the key defect evidence came from an inspection conducted weeks after the crash while the car had been unsecured.

## Legal Principles

- A manufacturer may owe a duty of reasonable care to an ultimate purchaser where a negligently constructed automobile would foreseeably endanger life or limb, but liability still requires proof of negligent construction and causation.
- Post-accident evidence of a product’s condition is insufficient to prove a defect existed at the time of manufacture or sale unless a proper foundation shows the condition remained unchanged.
- A plaintiff must present competent evidence that (1) a defect existed when the product left the defendant’s control (or at the time of sale) and (2) the defect proximately caused the injury; a verdict cannot rest on speculation.
- Where the evidence, even viewed favorably to the plaintiff, does not reasonably support essential inferences of negligence and causation, the defendant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

## Conclusion

The Illinois Supreme Court set aside the verdict against Buick because the plaintiff did not provide competent, non-speculative proof that a brake defect existed when the car left the manufacturer or dealer, or that such a defect caused the accident, and the later inspection findings lacked a foundation linking them to the relevant time.


Rotche v. Buick Motor Co., 358 Ill. 507, 193 N.E. 529 (Ill. 1934)