Jauregui v. Paccar, Inc.

── Jauregui v. Paccar, Inc. ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Date: June 05, 2026 Category: General NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUN 5 2026 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT SANDRA JAUREGUI, an individual, on No. 25-2654 behalf of herself and all statutory D.C. No. beneficiaries of deceased Jose Luis Jauregui 2:23-cv-00729-JJT Soto, Plaintiff - Appellant, MEMORANDUM* v. PACCAR, INC., a Delaware corporation; BENDIX COMMERCIAL VEHICLE SYSTEMS, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company; DAIMLER TRUCKS NORTH AMERICA LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, Defendants - Appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona John Joseph Tuchi, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted May 19, 2026 Phoenix, Arizona Before: GOULD, M. SMITH, and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges. Sandra Jauregui (“Plaintiff”) sued Daimler Truck North America LLC * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. (“DTNA”), PACCAR, Inc., and Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems, LLC, after her husband died as a result of a collision between the PACCAR tractor-trailer her husband was driving and a DTNA tractor-trailer that had stalled in the middle of a highway. Plaintiff asserts that design and manufacturing defects in the DTNA vehicle caused it to stall and that a defective Bendix-designed advanced driver assistance system (“ADAS”) in the PACCAR vehicle failed to prevent the accident. The district court granted summary judgment to the three defendants, and Plaintiff timely appealed.1 We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review a summary judgment de novo, Day v. Henry, 152 F.4th 961, 967 (9th Cir. 2025), and a decision to exclude expert testimony for abuse of discretion, United States v. Aubrey, 800 F.3d 1115, 1129 (9th Cir. 2015). We affirm. 1. Plaintiff did not present evidence establishing that the DTNA vehicle “was in a defective condition that made it unreasonably dangerous . . . when the product left the defendant’s control.” Dillon v. Zeneca Corp., 42 P.3d 598, 603 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2002). She contends that applying the consumer expectations test, see Golonka v. Gen. Motors Corp., 65 P.3d 956, 962 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2003), a jury could conclude 1 The operative complaint also asserted claims for negligence, but any issue related to the dismissal of those claims has been “doubly forfeited, as it was not raised in the Plaintiff[’s] district court briefing or in the[] opening brief.” Stockton v. Brown, 152 F.4th 1124, 1138 n.6 (9th Cir. 2025). 2 25-2654 the truck was defective because it stalled and there is no other good explanation. But “when a product fails it does not automatically raise a presumption of a legal defect.” Rix v. Reeves, 532 P.2d 185, 187 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1975). To be sure, the unexplained failure of a new or lightly used product may establish a defect. See, e,g., Dietz v. Waller, 685 P.2d 744, 746, 748 (Ariz. 1984) (finding that a “boat [that] had seen only approximately ten hours of use” was defective when it “broke apart”); Mineer v. Atlas Tire Co., 806 P.2d 904, 905 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1990) (involving a “brand new tire . . . [that] blew over the rim” soon after it was mounted and seriously injured the plaintiff). But those cases are of no aid to Plaintiff, as the DTNA vehicle had been driven approximately 121,000 miles over some three years and had not previously stalled. 2. The district c