No. 5-99-0830 IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF ... - Appellate.net

Bender could not swear that the non-OEM parts selected were fairly representative, nor
could he say whether both cars had been subjected to equivalent treatment. 40/ In any event,
it is absurd to suggest that a single repair with a handful of non-OEM parts could ever
provide a basis for concluding that all of the tens of thousands of non-OEM parts available
in the marketplace are inferior.
Car parts are not fungible: the design of a headlamp differs from the design of a
hood, and the fact that one might have a defect is not probative of the quality of the other.
Numerous courts have made this common sense point. For example, the Fifth Circuit has
held that the plaintiff could not prove that a joint assembly in 1983 Ford Escorts was
defective by offering evidence of defects in different Ford parts, different Ford models, or
Ford Escorts manufactured in different years. Johnson v. Ford Motor Co., 988 F.2d 573,
579-80 (1993). Similarly, in Floyd v. General Motors Corp., 960 P.2d 763, 766 (Kan. App.
1998), the court affirmed exclusion of evidence of a steering defect in GM’s 1992 models
to prove a steering defect in its 1988 model. 41/ And in Rios, the Cook County Circuit Court
refused to certify a class virtually identical to the one here because it would be “illogical for
the Court to examine a [mere] handful of the . . . 30,000 non-OEM parts[,] to make a
comparison to OEM parts[,] and somehow [to] extrapolate from that that therefore the whole
40/
Bender did confess that, when he observed that the hood of the car repaired with GM
parts was misaligned, he instructed GM to fix it. R. 5016. The very nature of the test — as
well as Bender’s apparent desire to ensure that its outcome would be favorable to GM —
demonstrates its inherent unreliability as the basis for forming any general opinions with
respect to the quality of non-OEM parts.
41/
Accord Ducharme v. Hyundai Motor Am., 698 N.E.2d 412, 416 (Mass. App. 1998);
Brock v. Caterpillar, Inc., 94 F.3d 220, 224-26 (6th Cir. 1996); Freund v. Fleetwood Enters.,
956 F.2d 354, 360-61 (1st Cir. 1992); see also Ford Paint Litig., 182 F.R.D. at 220.
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