Boyle, Personal Representative of the Heirs and Estate of Boyle v. United Technologies Corp. (487 U.S. 500)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 27, 1988 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 487 U.S. 500 · 108 S. Ct. 2510
- Decided
- June 27, 1988
- Term
- October Term 1987
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Scalia
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court. This case requires us to decide when a contractor providing military equipment to the Federal Government can be held liable under state tort law for injury caused by a design defect. I On April 27, 1983, David A. Boyle, a United States Marine helicopter copilot, was killed when the CH-53D helicopter in which he was flying crashed off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia, during a training exercise. Although Boyle survived the impact of the crash, he was unable to escape from the helicopter and drowned. Boyle’s father, petitioner here, brought this diversity action in Federal District Court against the Sikorsky Division of United Technologies Corporation (Sikorsky), which built the helicopter for the United States. At trial, petitioner presented two theories of liability under Virginia tort law that were submitted to the jury. First, petitioner alleged that Sikorsky had defectively repaired a device called the servo in the helicopter’s automatic flight control system, which allegedly malfunctioned and caused the crash. Second, petitioner alleged that Sikorsky had defectively designed the copilot’s emergency escape system: the escape hatch opened out instead of in (and was therefore ineffective in a submerged craft because of water pressure), and access to the escape hatch handle was obstructed by other equipment. The jury…
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