Padilla v. Robertson

Filed 3/21/06 Padilla v. Robertson CA5

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 977(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 977(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 977.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIFTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Kern County. Sidney P. Chapin, Judge.

Borton, Petrini & Conron, Calvin R. Stead and Roger A. Parkinson for Defendants, Cross-complainants and Appellants.

Russell S. Kerr & Associates, Kerr & Sheldon and Brian P. Trela for Plaintiff and Respondent.

Bradley & Gmelich, Frederick B. Hayes, Thomas P. Gmelich and Darryl C. Hottinger for Defendant, Cross-defendant and Respondent.

-ooOoo-

This is an action to recover for injuries suffered when Louis Padilla's car collided with a flatbed trailer that had come unhitched from the pickup truck that was towing it on Interstate 5 in Kern County. Padilla sued the driver of the pickup and his company for negligence. They, in turn, filed a cross-complaint for indemnity against the trailer's manufacturer, whereupon Padilla amended his complaint to add a cause of action against the manufacturer for products liability.

The manufacturer later moved for summary adjudication of the products liability claim, based on Padilla's admissions in discovery that he had no evidence the trailer was defective. Recognizing that summary adjudication of Padilla's claim against the manufacturer would jeopardize their derivative claim against the manufacturer for indemnity, the driver and his company both opposed the motion and amended the cross-complaint to assert their own products liability and breach of warranty causes of action against the manufacturer.

The trial court granted summary adjudication in favor of the manufacturer as to Padilla's products liability claims, and dismissed the corresponding indemnity claims in the driver and his company's cross-complaint against the manufacturer. It then severed what remained of the cross-complaint (for breach of warranty) from Padilla's negligence action and stayed all further action on the cross-complaint until the negligence action was resolved. The negligence action went to trial, absent any evidence of possible fault on the part of the manufacturer, and resulted in a judgment for Padilla against the driver and his company in the amount of $231,013.87.

On appeal, the driver and his company challenge (1) the judgment, (2) the trial court's order granting summary adjudication for the manufacturer, and (3) the trial court's order staying prosecution of their cross-complaint against the manufacturer. We will affirm the judgment.

FACT UAL AND PROCEDURAL SUMMARY

The Accident

Contractors Equipment Rental, Inc. (Contractors) is a Bakersfield company in the business of renting construction equipment. Guy Eugene Robertson, Jr., is one of the company's three owners and its vice-president. He worked mainly in sales, which included hauling equipment to and from his customers' job sites. He did this on an almost daily basis, using one of Contractors's two identical equipment trailers: a 16-foot, tandem-axle, flatbed model having an unladen weight of 3,000 pounds. Contractors had purchased the trailers new from the Shur Shar Manufacturing Company (Shur Shar) in August of 2000. It used them only for hauling its own equipment and did not rent them to the public.

The trailers were designed to attach to the towing vehicle by way of a ball hitch. A coupler on the tongue of the trailer fit over a two-and-five-sixteenths-inch ball connected to the frame of the towing vehicle, beneath the rear bumper. The coupler was held on the ball by a latch that â€