Soule v. General Motors Corp.

Holding that the consumer expectations test was not appropriate for a claim that a car was defective because the wheel assembly detached in accident

Barker v. Lull Engineering Co.

Holding "when a product comes off the assembly line in a substandard condition it has incurred a manufacturing defect"

Whiteley v. Philip Morris Inc.

Holding that where design defect case alleging that defendant's cigarettes were defective was tried under a risk-benefit theory, plaintiff was required to offer competent expert testimony to establish that smoking the defendant's cigarettes was the actual cause of the lung cancer that killed the plaintiff

Campbell v. General Motors Corp.

Holding that jurors were able to evaluate whether absence of "grab bars" on public transportation bus constituted design defect under the consumer expectation test because "public transportation is a matter of common experience"

Frazee v. Seely

In Frazee, the court held that a notice of joinder in the codefendants' motion for summary judgment was procedurally defective, for among other reasons, because the notice was filed on shortened notice.

General Motors Corp. v. Superior Court

In General Motors Corp. v. Superior Court (Jeffrey), 55 Cal.Rptr.2d 871 (1996), decided some eight months after the district court's order granting Saratoga's motion for summary judgment was entered, the court focused only on the defendant's attempt to show that plaintiff had actual knowledge of her cause of action against the defendant prior to filing the complaint.

Galanek v. Wismar

In Galanek v. Wismar, 68 Cal. App. 4th 1417 (1999), the plaintiff brought a legal malpractice action against her former attorney and his law firm based on the attorney's alleged negligent spoliation of evidence while representing the plaintiff in a products liability case against a car manufacturer—i.e., the attorney failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the destruction of the car the plaintiff had been driving when she was injured.

Pruitt v. General Motors Corp.

Finding trial court's refusal to instruct jury on consumer-expectation test appropriate because "the consumer expectations test is reserved for cases in which the everyday experience of the products' users permits a conclusion that the product's design violated minimum safety assumptions" which "are not within the common knowledge of lay jurors."

St. Mary Medical Center v. Superior Court

Dimond v. Caterpillar Tractor Co.

In Dimond, however, the intermediate appellate court did not apply the rebuttable presumption, and was not even faced with a situation in which it had to decide whether the rebuttable presumption applied.