Opinion ID: 2982251
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: defective design claim

Text: Risk-Utility Balancing Test To prove a design defect under Michigan law, a plaintiff must show that the product was “not reasonably safe for its foreseeable uses” and that a “risk-utility analysis” favored a safer design. Under this approach, a plaintiff must show that (1) the product was not reasonably safe when it left the control of the manufacturer; and (2) a “feasible alternative production practice was available that would have prevented the harm without significantly impairing the usefulness or desirability of the product to users.” MCL 600.2946(2); see also Gregory [v. Cincinnati Inc., 450 Mich. 1], 11, 538 N.W.2d at 329 [(1995)]. Plaintiffs may use both direct and circumstantial evidence to prove a design defect claim. Croskey v. BMW of N. Am., Inc., 532 F.3d 511, 515–16 (6th Cir. 2008) (applying Michigan law). Under Michigan law, whether an alleged design defect is actionable in negligence is decided under a risk-utility balancing test. See Prentis v. Yale Mfg. Co., 365 N.W.2d 176, 4 185–86 (Mich. 1984) (adopting “a pure negligence, risk-utility test in products liability actions against manufacturers of products, where liability is predicated upon defective design.”). A plaintiff establishes a prima facie case of design defect under this balancing test by demonstrating: 1) that the severity of the injury was foreseeable by the manufacturer; 2) that the likelihood of occurrence of [his] injury was foreseeable by the manufacturer at the time of distribution of the product; 3) that there was a reasonable alternative design available; 4) that the available alternative design was practicable; 5) that the available and practicable reasonable alternative design would have reduced the foreseeable risk of harm posed by the product; and 6) that omission of the available and practicable reasonable alternative design rendered defendant’s product not reasonably safe. Peck v. Bridgeport Machs., Inc., 237 F.3d 614, 617–18 (6th Cir. 2001) (applying Michigan law); see also Cacevic v. Simplimatic Eng’g Co., 645 N.W.2d 287, 293 (Mich. Ct. App. 2001). The prima facie case requires “proof sufficient for a reasonable jury to balance the magnitude of the risk versus the feasibility of other design alternatives, or otherwise to weigh the unreasonableness of risks arising from the design chosen.” Miller v. IngersollRand Co., 148 F. App’x 420, 423 (6th Cir. 2005) (applying Michigan law) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
Because the district court granted summary judgment on the basis that Plaintiff failed to establish the second element of the risk-utility balancing test, that is the only issue before us. The district court concluded that Plaintiff presented insufficient evidence to establish that the likelihood of occurrence of the injury was foreseeable to HLMT at the time it manufactured the custom overhead-gantry milling machine for Lincoln Park Boring, citing 5 Plaintiff’s experts’ testimony that they were unable to quantify the probability of a similar accident occurring and Plaintiff’s failure to produce either statistical evidence to demonstrate the likelihood of an injury, or evidence of similar prior accidents, or evidence that overheadgantry milling machines were widely known to cause serious injuries: Paul has demonstrated [the first element of the risk-utility balancing test:] that an operator injury was foreseeable to Henri-Liné Tools. Evidence was produced that an operator must regularly enter the work area while the machine is in use. An employee for Henri-Liné Tools testified that at the time the Lincoln Boring machine was designed, the Company considered implementing safety measures for operators who must venture onto the machine bed but it deemed the addition of barriers to be impractical. Paul’s experts testified that the need for operator’s [sic] to enter the work area created the possibility of injury. Thus, she has produced sufficient factual evidence to indicate that the possibility of injury was foreseeable. However, she has not produced any statistical evidence to demonstrate the [second element—] likelihood of an injury resulting from use of the machine. The fact that a machine is dangerous per se is an insufficient basis to demonstrate the likelihood of an injury. Gregory v. Cincinnati Inc., No. 198382, 1999 WL 33453911 (Mich. Ct. App. Feb. 23, 1999) (“[E]vidence showing merely that there was a risk of harm is insufficient to meet the plaintiff’s burden to show what the risk of harm was (e.g., how frequently such incidents occurred, the extent to which the risk can be mitigated by adequate training).”) The evidence indicates that this is the first serious injury involving an overhead gantry milling machine. Between 1985 and 2006, Henri-Liné Tool[s] sold more than forty overhead gantry milling machines. There has never been a reported incident of a person suffering an injury while using one of these machines. Moreover, there are no reported incidents involving any overhead gantry milling machine, regardless of the manufacturer. Neither party is aware of any serious injuries or death caused by an overhead gantry milling machine, and Paul’s experts testified that they were not able to quantify the probability of a similar accident occurring. On the other hand, Henri-Liné Tools’ expert witness, Jack Auflick, testified that the likelihood of this accident occurring was minuscule. Paul is also unable to produce evidence of similar prior accidents involving an overhead gantry milling machine. Such prior accidents must be “substantially similar” to the accident at issue. Croskey [v. BMW of N. Am., Inc., 532 F.3d 511,] 518 [(6th Cir. 2008)]. “Substantial similarity means that 6 the accidents must have occurred under similar circumstances or share the same cause.” Id.; see also Anderson v. Whittaker Corp., 894 F.2d 804, 813 (6th Cir. 1990) (substantial similarity existed where incidents involved same model boat, same hull design, same defect, and similar circumstances of water intake); Morales v. Am. Honda Motor Co., Inc., 151 F.3d 500 (6th Cir. 1998) (upholding decision to exclude data related to larger all-terrain vehicles in motorbike products liability case). “The plaintiff has the burden of showing the substantial similarity between prior accidents and his own.” Croskey, 532 F.3d at 518. Paul’s expert witness, John Lauhoff, conducted a review of workplace accidents, in which he categorized as “similar” any incident that involved a rotating shaft, a failure to lockout [sic], or a failure to guard. (Lauhoff Dep. 127). As a result, he reported incidents which involved a wide variety of machine tools, ranging from forklifts and saws to scaffolding. Id. Injuries caused by such disparate tools are not relevant to the likelihood of injury caused by an overhead gantry milling machine. While accidents involving horizontal milling machines come closer to the mark, Paul has not established that the interaction between the operator and a horizontal milling machine is sufficiently similar to that of an overhead gantry milling machine. Paul, 938 F. Supp. 2d at 699–700.
Plaintiff argues that, contrary to Michigan law, the district court “accepted as conclusive” the evidence that there were no reports of other serious injuries or death involving overhead gantry milling machines. Plaintiff is correct that Michigan courts have long held that negative evidence, i.e., evidence regarding the absence of accidents, is inadmissible to show an absence of negligence. See Grubaugh v. City of St. Johns, 266 N.W.2d 791, 794 (Mich. Ct. App. 1978) (“[I]t has long been established in Michigan that evidence of the absence of previous accidents should not be admitted to prove absence of negligence.”). Here, however, the absence of prior injury or death involving overheadgantry milling machines was offered not to show the absence of negligence but to address the question of the likelihood of occurrence of injury resulting from use of HLMT’s 7 machine; this is proper evidence when performing the risk-utility balancing analysis in a design-defect product-liability claim. See e.g., Przeradski v. Rexnord, Inc., 326 N.W.2d 541, 544 (Mich. Ct. App. 1982) (holding in a products-liability action that “[t]he admissibility of the claim-free history of plaintiff’s Model 65 cement mixer may have had a tendency to make the existence of a design defect less probable than it would be without such evidence,” and that thus the trial court did not err in allowing the testimony). Also without merit is Plaintiff’s contention that the district court accepted “Defendant’s argument that the only way to analyze ‘likelihood of injury’ from a product under Michigan’s risk-utility test is to count the number of accidents.” Appellant Br. at 37. Plaintiff is correct that in Reeves v. Cincinnati, Inc., 439 N.W.2d 326, 339 (Mich. Ct. App. 1989), the Michigan Court of Appeals held that a plaintiff’s failure to present statistical evidence of accidents does not doom a prima facie case where there is testimony that the product is in general unsafe and that an alternative design would have prevented the plaintiff’s accident. Appellant Br. at 37-38. But in Reeves, unlike the instant case, the plaintiffs’ expert presented evidence that power presses in general were prone to the type of malfunction that caused the plaintiff’s injury. 439 N.W.2d at 330. The district court in the instant case cited Reeves and observed that Paul produced no testimony to “indicate that these machines were widely known to cause serious injuries.” PageID 12750. Plaintiff’s argument thus fails; the district court did not conclude that the only way to analyze likelihood of injury was to count accidents. 8
Plaintiff also asserts that the district court overlooked expert Lauhoff’s matrix-based risk analysis which, according to Plaintiff, constituted substantial admissible evidence supporting the proposition that the likelihood of injury from HLMT’s machine is high. Plaintiff’s experts, John Lauhoff and Roberta Shea, testified on deposition that they knew of no serious injury or death involving an Henri-Liné machine or any overhead-gantry milling machine. PageID 220-23, 228-29, 233-34. Lauhoff’s methodology was to search Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and National Institute for Occupational safety and Health (NIOSH) databases. Plaintiff explains that: Mr. Lauhoff selected incidents involving industrial machinery in the NIOSH and OSHA databases that implicated the same hazards as are present on Defendant’s machine. These are hazard categories of unguarded rotating shafts and unguarded energy sources (failure to lock-out). These are the data categories in the government accident databases for industrial machine tool incidents that specify the hazards from coming into contact with a rotating cutter head. These are the categories of incident reports that Mr. Lauhoff searched for and included in his list of similar incidents. .... Mr. Lauhoff’s expert report identifies 17,455 OSHA inspections of machine tools for the period January 1, 1999 to January 1, 2001. During this period there were 99 fatalities, 220 injuries and 6,361 guarding deficiencies reported. These numbers equate to 36.4% of the inspections that identified guarding or lockout issues that if not corrected could result in an injury or death, 3.3% of the inspections that identified guarding or lockout issues that resulted in an injury, and .015% of the inspections that [] identified guarding or lockout issues that resulted in a fatality. Appellant Br. at 45, 49-50. Of the thousands of OSHA inspection reports Lauhoff identified as pertinent to this incident, none involved overhead-gantry milling machines, one involved a fatality of an operator of a CNC vertical milling machine, one involved a fatality of an operator of a 9 horizontal milling machine, and one involved a fatality of a maintenance machinist trainee entangled in a revolving shaft of a vertical boring mill. PageID 2283, 2284, 2286, 8484. Lauhoff’s report does not state whether these machines were multi-axis versus single-axis, or high-speed versus low-speed. When asked on deposition how many of the incident reports involved multi-axis versus single axis machines, Lauhoff responded that he did not know. When asked how many were high-speed versus low-speed machines, he answered that he did not know. PageID 8481-82. When asked whether he knew the probability of an accident such as Paul’s happening, Lauhoff responded, “no.” PageID 8490. When asked “[H]ave you determined the probability of such an accident on an overhead gantry milling machine similar to this with the same safety measures that exist on this machine?” Lauhoff responded, “No, I haven’t.” PageID 219. Plaintiff’s expert Roberta Shea similarly testified that she did not make any determination regarding the likelihood of occurrence of an injury. PageID 244-45.
After Lauhoff and Shea were deposed and various motions in limine were filed, Lauhoff prepared an addendum to his report “to demonstrate an objective method of determining risk assessment in an industrial environment,” referencing ANSI B-11.TR32000, a document titled: Risk Assessment and Risk Reduction-A Guide to Estimate, Evaluate and Reduce Risks Associated with Machine Tools. Lauhoff’s addendum presented several methods of evaluating the severity of harm and probability of occurrence of harm, and concluded: 10