Products Liability Law Daily Wrap Up, EXPERT EVIDENCE—SPORTS AND RECREATIONAL EQUIPMENT—S.D. Ga.: Golf club makers, designer win summary judgment in consumer injury case, (Aug 22, 2025)

By Pankhuri Bhatnagar, B.A. LL.B.

The consumer failed to show that the product contained any defect that could have proximately caused his hand injury, and he could not rely on the product’s failure itself to establish his case.

In an action brought against several golf club manufacturers, designers, and an assembler, by a man who suffered a hand injury when his club’s shaft broke during a regular swing, a federal district court in Georgia granted the companies’ summary judgment motions. The court found that it lacked personal jurisdiction over the foreign assembler; that the companies’ expert opinions were reliable and admissible; that there was no evidence to establish a manufacturing, design, or warning defect; that the consumer failed to eliminate other possible causes of the shaft’s failure; and that the doctrine of res ipsa loquitor did not apply because the product was within the man’s exclusive control, had gone through several intermediaries, and its condition was substantially altered while in his possession (Spivey v. Topgolf Callaway Brands, Corp., No. CV 624-004 (S.D. Ga. Aug. 20, 2025)).

Background. A man received a new set of Callaway Rogue X 20 golf clubs as a gift, purchased by a relative from a Dick’s Sporting Goods store in Atlanta, Georgia, in December 2021. The clubs, inspected in-store, were given to the man in unopened packaging. After swinging the clubs a few times on Christmas Day and storing them, he took the set to a driving range in January 2022. On his first swing with the Callaway Five Iron, the club’s shaft broke cleanly in half at the grip area, injuring the consumer’s hand and purportedly leading to missed athletic opportunities in college. He filed suit against Topgolf Callaway Brands (club designer), True Sports (shaft manufacturer), True Temper Sports (alleged participant in the club’s design/manufacture), and Vision International (club head manufacturer and assembler). He sought compensatory and punitive damages on claims of strict liability, breach of warranty, and negligence based on theories of a product defect and failure to warn. All claims against Vision were challenged on jurisdictional grounds. True Sports, Vision, and Callaway each moved for summary judgment. The designer and shaft maker also sought to exclude the consumer’s expert witness, while the man moved to exclude the designer’s engineering expert.

Personal jurisdiction. The consumer sought to establish personal jurisdiction over Vision International under Georgia’s long-arm statute, O.C.G.A. § 9-10-91(1) and (3), for transacting business in the forum and causing damage in Georgia through its out-of-state negligence. Vision submitted an affidavit showing that it (1) was a Vietnamese company; (2) had no employees, property, accounts, or business contacts in Georgia; (3) sold to Callaway only in Asia; and (4) had no knowledge or control over the clubs' destination. The consumer argued Vision purposefully availed itself of Georgia’s market through its relationship with Callaway. However, this "stream of commerce" theory—that simply selling to a national distributor is sufficient to constitute transacting business in Georgia—has been repeatedly rejected. Montoya v. Samsung SDI Co., No. 4:22-CV-6 (S.D. Ga. Dec. 28, 2022). For a defendant to be liable for a tortious act committed outside Georgia, it must conduct "regular, persistent," or "substantial" business in the forum. Since the consumer failed to show that Vision purposefully transacted any business in Georgia, the club head manufacturer was terminated as a party from this suit.

Evidence exclusion. True Sports and Callaway sought to exclude, for lack of reliability, relevance, and qualifications, the consumer’s expert’s testimony that (1) the fracture occurred during a normal golf swing and was not the result of misuse or abuse; and (2) a properly designed and manufactured golf club is not expected to fracture during a normal golf swing. The court admitted the first opinion, noting that the expert had a master’s degree in metallurgical engineering; had been conducting root cause failure analysis investigations for several decades; and properly conducted a visual, metallographic, and compositional analysis to find that the club markings and shaft deformity were consistent with a single event overstress fracture. However, the second opinion was excluded because he did not render any design opinions or calculate the Five Iron's load bearing capacity, making his opinion speculative.

The consumer challenged Callaway’s engineer’s testimony that his examination did not reveal any design or manufacturing defect that could cause the shaft fracture and that such fracture could have been caused by misuse, mishandling, or abuse of the subject club. However, the engineer used the same scientific methodologies as the man’s own expert and properly explained how the Five Iron’s features—such as an unknown red material, dirt, scuff marks, misalignments, and the shaft's deformity—were consistent with misuse or abuse. Although he admitted that the deformity, hypothetically, could have been introduced in manufacturing, he added that manufacturing inspection processes would have flagged any such deformity. As such, his opinions were reliable and admissible.

Manufacturing defect. The man argued that the club breaking in half during regular usage was direct evidence that the club was, in fact, defective. But circumstantial evidence to infer a manufacturing defect is only appropriate when the product is completely destroyed and not “where [the] parties had ample opportunity to examine and test [the product] and the existence of a manufacturing defect is not the only plausible explanation for the product's failure.” Crews V. Tahsin Indus. Corp. USA, No. 20-14078 (11th Cir. May 18, 2022). Here, the club was available for inspection and testing, and multiple other causes of failure existed such as damage during prior use or mishandling. Further, all metallurgical experts in this case agreed that the Five Iron met True Sports' specifications, that there were no issues with the Five Iron's material properties, and that there was no evidence of metallurgical defects. As such, the record was insufficient to create doubts as to whether there was a manufacturing defect.

Design and warning defects. Proving a design defect here required determining the proper load bearing strength of a metal component, which goes beyond the understanding of an average juror and requires the use of expert testimony. Moore v. Wright Med. Tech., Inc., No. 1:14- CV-62 (S.D. Ga. Mar. 31, 2016). The man’s expert explicitly stated that he had no opinions as to the design of the Five Iron or its shaft, which was fatal to the design defect claim. Since the man failed to show a defect and proximate causation, summary judgment was warranted on his failure to warn claims, as there is no need to warn unless the product is in a defective condition. Sheffield v. Conair Corp., 821 S.E.2d 93, 97 (Ga. Ct. App. 2018).

Causation. Assuming arguendo that the shaft deformity established a product defect, it was still unclear whether such defect was the proximate cause of the subject injury. The man relied on sparse comments made by Callaway’s engineer which implied that if the deformity pre-existed the fracture, it could have contributed to the fracture. But proximate causation is determined by inferences based on probabilities rather than mere possibilities. The manufacturers’ experts believed that the deformity likely occurred after manufacturing and, most likely, was a result of the fracture event itself, which in turn was caused by the product’s misuse or abuse. These theories barred summary judgment on proximate causation.

Res ipsa loquitor. For the res ipsa loquitor doctrine to apply (to infer negligence from the occurrence of an injury-causing incident), it is essential that the injury was “caused by an agency or instrumentality within the defendant's exclusive control.” Matthews v. Yoplait USA, Inc., 835 S.E.2d 393, 396 (Ga. Ct. App. 2019). The consumer contended that this element was satisfied since he only had access to the Five Iron before it fractured and there was no evidence of him misusing it, and he only had the club for a few weeks. But the length of time for which a product has been out of a manufacturer’s control is immaterial; it is the condition of the product that matters. Macon Coca-Cola Bottling Co. v. Chancey, 114 S.E.2d 517, 519 (Ga. 1960). Even assuming an absence of abuse or misuse, the man did not prove that the club’s condition was not otherwise altered in his possession—for example, during its transport from Atlanta to South Georgia, or from his home to the driving range, or his prior use. Its condition also materially changed from looking brand new to being covered in scuffs, dirt, and an unknown red material. There were several intermediaries such as the sports shop and the man’s relative, and not every intermediary must have handled the item properly. As such, the exclusive control element was not met and the doctrine could not be invoked. The manufacturers’ summary judgment motions succeeded.

The case is No. CV 624-004.

Judge: Hall, J.

Attorneys: Anna C. Chumley (Savage & Turner, PC) for Caden Spivey. Claire C. Murray (Weinberg, Wheeler, Hudgins, Gunn & Dial, LLC) for TopGolf Callaway Brands, Corp. f/k/a Callaway Golf Co.

Companies: TopGolf Callaway Brands, Corp. f/k/a Callaway Golf Co.

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