## Facts

- On August 23, 2009, John Ward, his wife Joy Ward, and their daughters Sarah Ward and Hailey Ward were traveling northbound on Delaware State Route 30 in a 2007 Toyota Camry.
- A 1994 Mercedes-Benz, owned by John F. Warfield and driven by Darien Custis, was traveling southbound on the same road.
- Custis became distracted while reaching for a bottle of iced tea on the vehicle’s floor, crossed the center line, and collided head-on with the Camry.
- John, Joy, and Sarah Ward died from injuries suffered in the crash; Hailey Ward survived. Custis was essentially uninjured.
- Custis later pled guilty to vehicular homicide in connection with the three deaths.
- Natalie Wolf, as administratrix of the estates of John, Joy, and Sarah Ward and as guardian and next friend of Hailey Ward, sued Toyota Motor Corporation (and related Toyota defendants) asserting a crashworthiness products-liability claim based on alleged defects in the Camry.
- Wolf did not sue Custis or Warfield.
- Toyota moved for leave under Delaware Superior Court Civil Rule 14(a) to file a third-party complaint against Custis and Warfield (including negligence and negligent entrustment theories) seeking contribution and allocation of fault.
- The court initially denied Toyota’s request in a May 29, 2013 letter opinion, reasoning that the nonparties’ negligence did not legally cause the additional injuries attributed to the alleged vehicle defect.
- Toyota moved for reargument; the December 9, 2013 opinion addressed whether reargument should be granted and whether impleader should be allowed.

## Issues

1. Whether reargument was warranted because the court misapprehended the legal effect of the driver’s and owner’s alleged negligence in a crashworthiness products-liability case.
2. Whether, in a crashworthiness/additional-injury action, a vehicle manufacturer may implead the driver who caused the collision and the vehicle owner under Rule 14(a) as third-party defendants who may be liable to the manufacturer for all or part of the plaintiff’s claim (including via contribution and fault allocation).

## Decision

- The court granted Toyota’s motion for reargument.
- The court vacated its May 29, 2013 order denying Toyota leave to file a third-party complaint.
- The court granted Toyota leave to file a third-party complaint against Darien Custis and John F. Warfield under Rule 14(a).

## Legal Principles

- A motion for reargument may be granted when the court has overlooked controlling legal principles or misapprehended the law or facts in a way that affects the outcome; it is not a vehicle to repeat arguments previously considered.
- Delaware Superior Court Civil Rule 14(a) permits a defending party to bring into the case a nonparty “who is or may be liable” to the defending party for all or part of the plaintiff’s claim, including potential contribution.
- In a crashworthiness (additional-injury) case, the manufacturer is sued for injuries allegedly attributable to a defective design during the crash, but the occurrence of the crash and the conduct that caused it may still be legally relevant to causation and allocation of responsibility among multiple actors.
- When separate conduct combines in a single event producing the injuries for which recovery is sought, questions of causation and allocation may warrant bringing all potentially responsible parties into one action to allow the factfinder to consider their respective roles and to reduce the risk of inconsistent outcomes across separate proceedings.

## Conclusion

Wolf held that, in a Delaware crashworthiness products-liability action, Toyota could implead the alleged negligent driver and vehicle owner as third-party defendants under Rule 14(a). On reargument, the court vacated its earlier denial of impleader after concluding it had taken too narrow a view of the legal relevance of the initial tortfeasors’ conduct to the plaintiff’s claimed injuries and to Toyota’s potential right to contribution and fault allocation.


Wolf v. Toyota Motor Corporation, 2013 WL 6596833 (2013)