A. H. v. Midwest Bus Sales, Inc., No. 15-2317 (8th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseA.H. and Renna Yi, both minors, were passengers on a school bus that collided with a pickup truck, causing them serious injuries. A.H. and Yi's parents, on behalf of the minors, filed suit in Missouri state court alleging, among other things, that the brakes were defective. Midwest Bus, the retail seller of the bus, originally was a party to each action, but was omitted from subsequent amended complaints. The jury found in favor of all remaining defendants and the state trial court entered judgment. The minors also each filed suit against Midwest Bus in federal court in diversity actions under Missouri law. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal on the alternative ground that their claims are barred by collateral estoppel, as oppose to res judicata, because the jury unambiguously decided that their injuries were not caused by improper installation of automatic slack adjusters (ASAs) on the bus, and that the ASAs were not the cause or a contributing cause of the crash.
Court Description: Chief Judge Riley, Author, with Loken and Benton, Circuit Judges] Civil Case - diversity. Following a state court trial on strict liability and negligence claims which resulted in verdict in favor of defendants, parallel diversity action in federal court against the retail seller of the bus (who was not named in the amended complaint in the state court action) for negligence was dismissed on grounds of res judicata because Midwest Bus was in privity with the state court defendants. In this appeal, collateral estoppel, not res judicata, precludes the relitigation in federal court on the improper installation issue, as the state court jury unambiguously decided the injuries were not caused by improper installation of automatic slack adjusters on the bus, and the failure to warn claim could not be relitigated because the jury had to have concluded that the automatic slack adjusters were not the cause or contributing clause of the crash.
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