Opinion ID: 1290968
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Industry Safety Standards

Text: Union Supply argues that the trial court erred in permitting Pust to introduce parts of two sets of nongovernmental conveyor safety codes. Safety Code B20.1 of the American Standards Association has been approved by the Conveyor Equipment Manufacturer's Association (CEMA) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The National Safety Council Data Sheets 569 and 570 were drafted by an engineering committee of the National Safety Council, and have been approved by many groups, including CEMA and ASME. Thus, they are consensus standards of safety for conveyor systems, approved by the conveyor manufacturers. They were in effect at the time of Pust's injury. The trial court ruled that these standards were admissible on the issue of whether the conveyor was in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous. The court specified that they were to be introduced by an expert witness and must be shown to be recognized standards of safety in the conveyor manufacturing field. The principal objections raised by Union Supply to the use of the safety standards in this case are that they are irrelevant and that they are inadmissible hearsay. We note initially that the parts introduced from Safety Code B20.1 and Data Sheets 569 and 570 do not presume to assess who has the duty to provide safety features. Thus, they do not raise extraneous issues of negligence. Cf. Murphy v. L & J Press Corp., 558 F.2d 407 (8th Cir.). In our view, these safety standards are relevant, especially in design defect cases. In cases of defects in manufacture, the jury is frequently able to judge the defective item by comparing it to others similarly produced by the manufacturer. However, as the California Supreme Court has noted:    A design defect, by contrast, cannot be identified simply by comparing the injury-producing product with the manufacturer's plans or with other units of the same product line, since by definition the plans and all such units will reflect the same design. Barker v. Lull Engineering Co., Inc., 20 Cal.3d 413, 143 Cal.Rptr. 225, 573 P.2d 443. By reason of the nature of the case, the trier of fact is greatly dependent on expert evidence and industry standards in deciding whether a defect is present. In the case of Wallner v. Kitchens of Sara Lee, Inc., 419 F.2d 1028 (7th Cir.), an employee's hand was injured when it was caught in the unguarded moving parts of a conveyor. The trial court admitted a conveyor industry safety code into evidence on the strict liability cause of action because it was: sufficiently relevant to the questions of the dangerousness of the conveyor when it left Thiele's manufacturing plant to make its admission proper. Union Supply appropriately points out that these safety codes fit within the classical definition of hearsay as out-of-court statements being offered into evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted therein. However, since these industry safety standards contain sufficient indicia of reliability, we hold that they may be introduced as substantive evidence. These codes were formulated by groups of experts in the conveyor designing and manufacturing field, and were approved by many organizations. They are likely to be more probative than a single learned treatise or an expert opinion, as they represent the consensus of an entire industry. There is no motive for the formulators to falsify, and there is no danger that the standards will be subsequently altered or incorrectly remembered by a witness. Finally, since we require that the safety standards be introduced through an expert witness, the adverse party will have a fair opportunity to cross-examine the expert on any inconsistencies, misrepresentations or other limitations of the standards. Given these guarantees of trustworthiness, we approve the admission of industry safety codes as substantive evidence on the strict liability issue of whether a product is in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous. Accord, Murphy v. L & J Press Corp., 558 F.2d 407 (8th Cir.); Dorsey v. Yoder Co., 331 F.Supp. 753 (E.D.Pa.); Price v. Buckingham Manufacturing Co., Inc., 110 N.J.Super. 462, 266 A.2d 140. The trial court correctly ruled that these standards must be introduced through an expert and must be authenticated as reliable and bona fide industry-wide safety codes. This was carefully done here by the expert testimony of Dr. Youngdahl, who participated in the formulation of each of the standards. Finally, we require that sufficient advance notice of the intended use of such standards be given to the adverse party so that he will have sufficient time to prepare to meet the evidence.