Opinion ID: 2831507
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Utility of the Lift

Text: The evidence regarding the lift’s utility is essentially undisputed in this case. As the Court explains, the evidence established that the lift, while able to reach heights exceeding forty feet, is relatively lightweight, portable, compact enough to fit through ordinary doorways, capable of being moved and operated by a single person working alone, and relatively inexpensive. Genie’s 9 corporate representative and director of product safety, Rick Curtin, emphasized that the lift’s portability was “very important,” and was “the key thing that makes the machine useful.” The Mataks essentially offered no evidence to contradict this. Instead, they sought to prove that, as useful as Genie’s lift may be, the fact that safer alternative designs exist reduces the weight of its utility, and that the risk of serious injury from misuse was also substantial. The Court acknowledges this evidence, but concludes that the “factors . . . conclusively establish that the [Genie lift] is not . . . unreasonably dangerous.” Ante at __. I agree that the evidence conclusively establishes that the lift’s utility is substantial. But the jury concluded that its risks outweighed its utility, however great its utility may be. Thus, we must decide whether there is more than a “mere scintilla” of evidence that the lift’s risks outweighed its undisputed utility.