opinion: Wesley RHEA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MASSEY-FERGUSON, INC., Defendant-Appellant.
  No. 84-1186.
  United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
  Argued May 8, 1985.
  Decided July 3, 1985.
  Ronald R. Pawlak (argued), Birmingham, Mich., for defendant-appellant.
  Gregory Stine, Birmingham, Mich., Mark Granzotto (argued), Detroit, Mich., for plaintiff-appellee.
  Before JONES and KRUPANSKY, Circuit Judges, and EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.
  PER CURIAM.
  Defendant-Appellant Massey-Ferguson, Inc. appeals from a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff-appellee Wesley Rhea in this diversity personal injury suit. On appeal, Massey-Ferguson challenges the district court’s submission of this case to mediation, denial of its motions for JNOV or a new trial, jury instructions, and application of a Michigan interest statute to the jury verdict. After considering these issues, we affirm the jury verdict and the district court’s assessment of interest and attorney fees.
  Rhea was injured when he inadvertently shifted a Massey-Ferguson 245 tractor into gear as he stood ! eside it. The tractor began moving forward, although no one had depressed the clutch lever. The tractor’s right rear wheel first rolled over Rhea’s leg, forcing him under the machine before it rolled over his shoulder and chest. Rhea suffered numerous fractures and lost part of one ear in the accident. Rhea filed this action in state court alleging that Massey-Ferguson was liable for negligent design and breach of implied warranty. Massey-Ferguson removed the action to federal district court. A jury found damages of $300,000, but it also found Rhea 24% negligent. Under Michigan’s comparative negligence doctrine, the resulting verdict was $228,000.
  First, Massey-Ferguson challenges the district court’s referral of this ease to mediation under the Eastern District of Michigan’s Local Rule 32, which provides that a diversity case involving only monetary damages may be referred to mediation before trial. Massey-Ferguson rejected and Rhea accepted the resulting $100,000 proposed award. Therefore, under Local Rule 32.10(d), Massey-Ferguson was liable for actual costs unless the verdict at trial was more than ten percent below the evaluation. The jury returned a verdict that was more than twice the mediation evaluation and the district court awarded $5,400 in actual costs to Rhea.
  Massey-Ferguson contends that this procedure violates its Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial and is inconsistent with various of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The Seventh Amendment “was designed to preserve the basic institution of jury trial in only its most fundamental elements, not the great mass of procedural forms and details.” Galloway v. United States, 319 U.S. 372, 392, 63 S.Ct. 1077, 1088, 87 L.Ed. 1458 (1943). At the core of these fundamental elements is the right to have a “ ‘jury ultimately determine the issues of fact if they cannot be settled by the parties or determined as a matter of law.’ ” Seoane v. Ortho Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 660 F.2d 146, 149 (5th Cir.1981) (quoting Woods v. Holy Cross Hospital, 591 F.2d 1164, 1178 (5th Cir.1979)). See also Ex Parte Peterson, 253 U.S. 300, 310, 40 S.Ct. 543, 546, 64 L.Ed. 919 (1920). Federal courts have repeatedly upheld mandatory arbitration procedures in the face of challenges based on the right to a jury trial. See, e.g., Davison v. Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, Inc., 462 F.Supp. 778 (D.Md. 1978), aff'd, 617 F.2d 361 (4th Cir.1980). In keeping with the Seventh Amendment’s requirements Massey-Ferguson received the jury’s determination of the disputed facts in the present action.
  Massey-Ferguson also characterizes Local Rule 32 as violating numerous Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 83 authorizes district courts to “regulate their practice in any manner not inconsistent with these rules.” The challenged local rule is not inconsistent with Rule 38(b) merely because it interposes an additional step between the jury demand and trial. Nor does the Local Rule require two demands for a jury trial in violation of Rule 39(a). Nor is Local Rule 32 inconsistent with Rules 53 or 72-75, governing referral to masters or magistrates. The mediation panel merely issues a settlement evaluation that has no force unless accepted by the parties. In sum, no flaw requiring this Court to intervene in the district court’s practice under Local Rule 32 has been raised in the present suit.
  Second, Massey-Ferguson appeals from the district court’s denial of its motions for directed verdict and JNOY or a new trial. A federal court sitting in a diversity case must apply the directed verdict standard of the state whose substantive law governs the action. Arms v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co., 731 F.2d 1245, 1248 (6th Cir.1984). Under Michigan law, the court may grant a directed verdict only if it concludes, after viewing all the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, that “all reasonable men would agree that there has been an essential failure of proof.” Snider v. Bob Thibodeau Ford, Inc., 42 Mich.App. 708, 712, 202 N.W.2d 727, 730 (1972). An appeals court in Michigan will not reverse the denial of a directed verdict motion “if any competent and sufficient evidence supports the jury determination.” Kupkowski v. Avis Ford, Inc., 395 Mich. 155, 167, 235 N.W.2d 324, 331 (1975).
  Rhea bore the burden of proving the elements of his negligent design theory: (1) duty; (2) breach of duty; (3) proximate cause; and (4) damages. See Hartford Fire Insurance Co. v. Walter Kidde & Co., 120 Mich.App. 283, 291-92, 328 N.W.2d 29 (1982). Rhea also bore the burden of establishing his implied warranty claim by showing that the product contained a defect which caused plaintiff’s injuries. See Smith v. E.R. Squibb & Sons, Inc., 405 Mich. 79, 89, 273 N.W.2d 476 (1979). There can be no doubt that Rhea created a jury question on the issues of damages and proximate cause. Under Michigan negligence law, a manufacturer breaches its duty of care when it fails to use reasonable care in designing a product to guard against an unreasonable and forseeable risk. Byrnes v. Economic Machinery Co., 41 Mich.App. 192, 201, 200 N.W.2d 104 (1972). A product is defective under Michigan implied warranty law if it is “not reasonably safe for its foreseeable uses.” Fredericks v. General Motors Corp., 411 Mich. 712, 720, 311 N.W.2d 725, 728 (1981). Both Rhea and Massey-Ferguson presented evidence from which the jury could find that Massey-Ferguson’s failure to incorporate a mechanism to prevent inadvertent movement of the “hi-lo” shift lever rendered the tractor unsafe for its forseeable uses.
  Third, the district court instructed the jury pursuant to the Michigan Standard Civil Jury Instructions on products liability. Massey-Ferguson now challenges the district court’s refusal to give the jury a number of requested instructions. The standard instructions must be given by a Michigan court in a civil action if they are applicable and accurately state the law. Javis v. Ypsilanti Board of Education, 393 Mich. 689, 697, 227 N.W.2d 543 (1975). The district court had no duty to give the additional requested instructions if the standard instructions, viewed as a whole, fairly and accurately describe applicable Michigan law. Bach v. Uche, 697 F.2d 741, 743 (6th Cir.1983). See also Young v. E.W. Bliss Co., 130 Mich.App. 363, 371, 343 N.W.2d 553, 557-58 (1983). The district court refused to give eight requested instructions that are generally one-sided at best, frequently misstate Michigan law, are not once concise, and in several instances merely supplement the standard jury instructions that address the same issues. The district court’s instructions fairly and adequately informed the jury of applicable Michigan law.
  Fourth, the district court applied Michigan Statutes Ann. § 27A.6013 [M.C. L.A. § 600.6013] to calculate Rhea’s prejudgment interest on the jury award from the date his complaint was filed. The district court applied the federal post-judgment interest rate provided by 28 U.S.C. § 1961. Massey-Ferguson maintains that under Erie Railroad Co. v. Tomkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938), the federal interest rate should govern both pre-judgment and post-judgment interest. This Court, however, has held that federal courts sitting in diversity cases will apply the forum state’s law in assessing pre-judgment interest. American Anodco, Inc. v. Reynolds Metals Co., 743 F.2d 417, 425 (6th Cir.1984); Clissold v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Co., 600 F.2d 35, 39 n. 3 (6th Cir.1979).
  For the foregoing reasons, we Affirm the jury verdict and the district court’s assessment of interest and attorney fees.
instruction: What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
  Intervenors who participated as parties at the courts of appeals should be counted as either appellants or respondents when it can be determined whose position they supported. For example, if there were two plaintiffs who lost in district court, appealed, and were joined by four intervenors who also asked the court of appeals to reverse the district court, the number of appellants should be coded as six.
  In some cases there is some confusion over who should be listed as the appellant and who as the respondent. This confusion is primarily the result of the presence of multiple docket numbers consolidated into a single appeal that is disposed of by a single opinion. Most frequently, this occurs when there are cross appeals and/or when one litigant sued (or was sued by) multiple litigants that were originally filed in district court as separate actions. The coding rule followed in such cases should be to go strictly by the designation provided in the title of the case. The first person listed in the title as the appellant should be coded as the appellant even if they subsequently appeared in a second docket number as the respondent and regardless of who was characterized as the appellant in the opinion.
  To clarify the coding conventions, consider the following hypothetical case in which the US Justice Department sues a labor union to strike down a racially discriminatory seniority system and the corporation (siding with the position of its union) simultaneously sues the government to get an injunction to block enforcement of the relevant civil rights law. From a district court decision that consolidated the two suits and declared the seniority system illegal but refused to impose financial penalties on the union, the corporation appeals and the government and union file cross appeals from the decision in the suit brought by the government. Assume the case was listed in the Federal Reporter as follows:
  United States of America,
  Plaintiff, Appellant
  v
  International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
  Defendant, Appellee.
  International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
  Defendants, Cross-appellants
  v
  United States of America.
  Widgets, Inc. & Susan Kuersten Sheehan, President & Chairman
  of the Board
  Plaintiff, Appellants,
  v
  United States of America,
  Defendant, Appellee.
  This case should be coded as follows:Appellant = United States, Respondents = International Brotherhood of Widget Workers Widgets, Inc., Total number of appellants = 1, Number of appellants that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officials" = 1, Total number of respondents = 3, Number of respondents that fall into the category "private business and its executives" = 2, Number of respondents that fall into the category "groups and associations" = 1.
  Note that if an individual is listed by name, but their appearance in the case is as a government official, then they should be counted as a government rather than as a private person. For example, in the case "Billy Jones & Alfredo Ruiz v Joe Smith" where Smith is a state prisoner who brought a civil rights suit against two of the wardens in the prison (Jones & Ruiz), the following values should be coded: number of appellants that fall into the category "natural persons" =0 and number that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials" =2. A similar logic should be applied to businesses and associations. Officers of a company or association whose role in the case is as a representative of their company or association should be coded as being a business or association rather than as a natural person. However, employees of a business or a government who are suing their employer should be coded as natural persons. Likewise, employees who are charged with criminal conduct for action that was contrary to the company policies should be considered natural persons.
  If the title of a case listed a corporation by name and then listed the names of two individuals that the opinion indicated were top officers of the same corporation as the appellants, then the number of appellants should be coded as three and all three were coded as a business (with the identical detailed code). Similar logic should be applied when government officials or officers of an association were listed by name.
  Your specific task is to determine the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "private business and its executives". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the appellant is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.