Green v. Denney
Court of Appeals of Oregon
742 P.2d 639 (1987)
Steven Green (plaintiff) was driving his Ford Pinto when it struck a horse on the highway, and the horse's impact collapsed the roof's header at the top of the windshield, killing his wife instantly; Ford (codefendant) had unusually designed the roof by eliminating a support beam and numerous welds and using thinner metal to accommodate a lighting hole, and had difficulty testing this design. Green presented expert testimony that collisions with large animals were common and foreseeable, that Ford could have reinforced the roof to prevent collapse, and that the force from the horse was actually less than what federal safety tests required the roof to withstand; the trial court denied Ford's motion for a directed verdict, the jury found for Green, and Ford appealed, arguing the accident was too bizarre to have been reasonably foreseeable.
Whether a car's defective roof design is the proximate cause of a fatal injury where a reasonable manufacturer would have foreseen the likelihood of a collision causing that type of injury and factored it into design decisions.