Texas Supreme Court overturns $14 million judgment awarded to Mercedes family

MCALLEN - An Hidalgo County jury erred in awarding $14 million to a Mercedes family who alleged a design defect in their clothes dryer started the fire that caused their son’s 2003 death, the Texas Supreme Court has found.

The state’s high court ruled that lawyers for Santos and Margarita Camacho relied too heavily on the testimony of one engineering expert, who neither tested nor reviewed his theories before presenting them to jurors.

"It is incumbent on an expert to connect the data relied on and his or her opinion to show how that data is valid support for the opinion [he] reached," Justice Phil Johnson wrote in an opinion handed down Dec. 11.

"If courts merely accept ‘experience’ as a substitute for proof … an expert can effectively [fill] gaps in testimony with almost any type of data or subjective opinion."

The Camachos filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Whirlpool Corp. two months after their 15-year-old son Joab died Feb. 11, 2003. Margarita Camacho testified two years later that while she ran from her burning home, she saw flames coming from inside the drier.

As her lawyers argued at trial, lint caught in the dryer’s air circulation system likely ignited and caused the blaze. Engineer Judd Clayton testified that corrugated tubing used in the air system allowed lint to hazardously build up in its grooves.

Jurors found this argument plausible. But attorneys for Whirlpool maintained on appeal that even if lint had caught fire, it couldn’t have stayed lit long enough and that there was no physical evidence to prove the fire started in the dryer.

The Supreme Court agreed. Justices noted that Clayton had not tested any of his theories before testifying and that when Whirlpool performed tests of its own, it could not duplicate the hazardous circumstances he described.

"The data on which Clayton relied does not support his opinions," the court said. "There is no evidence to support the finding that a design defect in the dryer caused the trailer fire."

The Camachos’ case was originally heard by Judge Noe Gonzalez in the 370th state District Court. The judgment will now be overturned unless the family decides to appeal its case to a higher court.