Court Opinion

ID: 9750431
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 14:58:27.192857+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:53.036505
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent.
The majority continues to take a strait jacket approach to the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 77 P.S. §§ 101-1603, (Act) and this approach guarantees that workers will be increasingly disadvantaged by a system that was originally enacted for their benefit.
As I noted in my dissent in Lewis v. School District of Philadelphia, 517 Pa. 461, 477, 538 A.2d 862, 870 (1988) (Larsen, J., dissenting):
The majority has lost sight of the fact that employees may have other ties with their employers such as landlord/tenant, trustee/beneficiary, seller/buyer, etc. The laws that govern the particular relationship will determine the rights and liabilities of the parties.
In the instant action, appellant, Inez Heath, seeks to hold her employer liable as the manufacturer of a defective product. Had appellant been injured while using the saw in the course of her employment for a different employer, the Act would not have precluded an action against appellee, Church’s Fried Chicken, Inc., as manufacturer of a dangerous instrumentality. It is not fair to deny an injured employee the right to sue his or her employer as a third party manufacturer when others who are not employed by the manufacturer of a defective product clearly would have a cause of action against that manufacturer.
Mr. Justice McDermott states that this Court was concerned in Poyser v. Newman & Co., 514 Pa. 32, 522 A.2d 548 (1987), that machinery manufactured by an employer “should conform to safety standards imposed by legislation.” Maj. op. at 277 n. 3. I fail to find any reference in the Poyser majority opinion to such concern. As long as the majority limits the liability of the manufacturer of a defective product to a workmen’s compensation award in *279these cases, then the deterrent aspect of strict liability law will be seriously undermined and “ ‘Rube Goldberg’ devices that put production above life and limb,” id., will continue to maim and kill innocent employees.
A majority of this Court determined in Tatrai v. Presbyterian University Hospital, 497 Pa. 247, 439 A.2d 1162 (1982) (Roberts, J., concurring, joined by O’Brien, CJ.; Larsen, J., and Flaherty, JJ.), that where a service is provided to the public, the provider of the service owes a duty to all those utilizing that-service, including employees. Appellant alleged in her complaint the appellee, Church’s Fried Chicken, Inc., “was engaged in the business of, inter alia, designing, processing, producing, fabricating, manufacturing, assembling, advertising and distributing a machinery product known as ‘chicken saw tables’ in the regular course of its business.” Appellant’s Complaint, paragraph 4. Appellee denied distributing these saws to the public for public use or advertising such saws. This raises a question of fact, thus the trial court improperly granted the motion for summary judgment filed by appellee, Church’s Fried Chicken, Inc.
Accordingly, I would reverse the order of Superior Court affirming the trial court’s grant of appellee’s motion for summary judgment and would remand for further proceedings.
STOUT, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.