Quadriplegia After Subaru Roof Collapse: $6.5 Million Verdict Affirmed on Appeal

On the night of February 19, 1988, a group of teenagers were driving a 1982 Subaru GL Station Wagon along U.S. Highway 83 in Kansas when one occupant grabbed the steering wheel. The driver lost control. The wagon skidded into a ditch and rolled twice. Steven Compton, who was riding unbelted in the rear seat, suffered a catastrophic spinal cord injury during the first roll and was left a quadriplegic.

Compton sued Subaru of America and its Japanese parent, Fuji Heavy Industries, arguing that the car's roof was defective. His claim was not that Subaru caused the rollover, but that the vehicle failed to protect its occupants once the rollover began. Evidence at trial showed that the roof and side of the passenger compartment intruded excessively during the crash, collapsing inward onto Compton's head in a way a properly designed structure should have resisted.

Shamberg, Johnson and Bergman attorney Lynn R. Johnson led the plaintiff team at trial. The defense challenged the admissibility of the plaintiff's engineering expert, arguing his opinions failed the reliability standards the Supreme Court had set out in Daubert v. Merrell Dow. The district court admitted the testimony, and the jury found Subaru 56 percent at fault for Compton's injuries.

After apportioning fault, the court entered judgment against Subaru and Fuji in the amount of $6,574,081. Subaru appealed to the Tenth Circuit, pressing both the Daubert issue and a sufficiency-of-evidence argument under Kansas law. The appellate court rejected both. On the expert question, the panel held that Daubert's methodology-focused factors do not apply to testimony grounded in engineering experience and observation rather than a specific scientific method. On the merits, the court found the trial record contained sufficient evidence of specific design defects to support the verdict.

The Tenth Circuit affirmed the full judgment in a published opinion, Compton v. Subaru of America, Inc., 82 F.3d 1513 (10th Cir. 1996). No remittitur was ordered. The decision became a notable Tenth Circuit reference on the scope of Daubert in product-liability cases involving experience-based expert witnesses.