Reconstruction results show that toy pumpkin contact (if it happened) creates forces less than those of common daily activities.
On September 16, 2006, Jennifer Schwartz was shopping in the holiday aisle in a Florida Walmart, where two workers were stocking an endcap, when she was struck in the upper back with an 8.4oz plastic decorative pumpkin.
Ms. Schwartz claimed that she felt immediate pain, and that the pumpkin hit her so hard, that she sustained severe injuries to her neck, upper back, and shoulder, and had debilitating headaches and aching pain in her right arm. The employees stocking the shelves reported that they were softly tossing the decorative pumpkins and did not see a pumpkin hit Ms. Schwartz.
Plaintiff’s expert recreated the throwing incident using an exemplar pumpkin, and concluded that the pumpkin hit Ms. Schwartz, causing her injuries.
Hayes and Associates was retained by Michael E. Reed of Wicker, Smith, O’Hara, McCoy & Ford (https://www.wickersmith.com) to test the reliability of the expert’s methods and findings, and to offer opinions on whether Ms. Schwartz had been injured.
At trial, H+A President, Wilson C. “Toby Hayes, Ph.D., testified that the experimental design of Plaintiff’s expert was flawed. H+A found that the maximum throw speed of the pumpkin was far lower than reported, and that because the expert’s experiment substantially overestimated the forces on the human body, his conclusions were unreliable. H+A determined that the impact force of the pumpkin hitting Ms. Schwartz fell well below forces sustained by the human body during simple activities of daily living. Based on these findings, Dr. Hayes testified that the contact from the decorative pumpkin did not cause her injuries.
The jury returned a defense verdict, finding that the store was not liable for injury to Ms. Schwartz.
Hayes+Associates, Inc. (https://www.hayesassoc.com) is an expert witness and consulting firm based in Corvallis, OR. The company brings more than 75 years of collective experience in academic research, university teaching and forensic testimony to practice areas that include vehicle collisions, premises safety, slips and falls, products liability, worker safety, sports and recreation, patent litigation and criminal matters.