Opinion ID: 3015153
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Paper-Making Process

Text: Forrest’s underlying lawsuit arises out of injuries he suffered on November 30, 1999, during the course of his employment at a paper mill operated by Jefferson-Smurfit. Forrest suffered his injuries while trying to clear a paper jam in an eighty- to one-hundred yard line of machines that transform wood pulp slurry into large rolls of dry paper. At the dry end of the line, the paper is run through two sets of calenders, or “dry stacks,” which are large rotating rollers that feed the Gloss Calender. As the paper is propelled from the dry stacks towards the Gloss Calender, it first passes under an “air shower” and then over a lead-in roller known as a “Mount Hope roll.” The air shower and Mount Hope roll were not part of the original Gloss Calender when it was designed and manufactured by Beloit in 1963. The Gloss Calender itself is an additional set of multi-ton rollers, consisting of a top roll, called the “gloss roll” or “dryer roll,” and a lower roll called the “pressure roll” or “mate roll.” William Brody, Forrest’s crew supervisor and a seventeen-year employee of Jefferson-Smurfit, testified that paper is generally run through the Gloss Calender regardless of whether gloss is applied, because the Gloss Calender rolls smooth the paper and support it as it moves toward the cutter at the end of the line. The opening between the Gloss Calender’s 6 two rollers is referred to as a “nip”; the size of the nip may vary depending upon whether gloss is being applied. Trial testimony indicated that Beloit’s original design for the Gloss Calender called for the opening between the two rolls to be approximately eight feet, five inches off of the floor. Beloit’s former chief engineer, George Wong, also testified that the Gloss Calender was originally designed to be threaded with the user standing on the floor. However, testimony from multiple Jefferson-Smurfit employees indicated that a different procedure was employed during paper breaks. In these situations, an employee would climb a set of steps located near one of the dry stacks, and would lean over the air shower and manually feed the paper through the Gloss Calender rolls to an employee waiting on the other side.