Supreme Court - Result Driven

In June 1997, Mr. Mendez was driving his Mazda minivan carrying six passengers on Interstate 25 in New Mexico. The left rear tire, a steel-belted radial tire manufactured by Cooper Tire, lost its tread. Mendez lost control of the vehicle, and it rolled several times, ejecting six passengers. Four of the passengers died at the scene or shortly thereafter. The jury heard from three separate experts presented by the Mendez family, Mr. Milner who is a professional engineer with degrees in metallurgy and engineering. Mr. Grogan who authored a book entitled An Investigator’s Guide to Tire Failures and numerous articles on tire failures and Mr. Crate who has a degree in chemistry. After a long and detailed trial in which the judge ruled that the experts were qualified and the jury heard from experts and witnesses for both sides, they found in favor of the Mendez family and held that the Cooper tire had a manufacturing defect which caused the tire to fail and and the van to roll over.
Almost a decade later, in January 2006 the Texas Supreme Court determined that all three experts testimony was inadequate to support the verdict. This despite the undisputed evidence and testimony that the tire lost it tread while driving down the road in a normal manner. The jury heard all the evidence and could judge the credibility of each witnesses with their own eyes and hear the truth in their words with their ears. Yet, the Supreme Court years later determines that the trial judge was wrong in letting the testimony in, that the jury was wrong in deciding the case after listening and evaluating the evidence and only they who have not seen or heard any of the actual testimony can determine who is qualified and who is telling the truth. Is it any wonder our Supreme Court wants to do away elections for their positions and wants to reduce the juries ability to decide cases? It is so much easier just to decide what the result should be.
On the next blog, we will look at another case in which the Supreme Court threw out the work of the trial judge and jury and reversed the case. In that one, they even changed the rules of the trial after the trial was over.