Court Opinion

ID: 9784272
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 20:41:18.684352+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:51.963808
License: Public Domain

THOMPSON, Judge,
Dissenting.
¶ 42 The trial judge repeatedly ruled the evidence about “drool” to be inadmissibly speculative and irrelevant.6 His evidentiary rulings are entitled to considerable deference. See Maxwell v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 143 Ariz. 205, 213, 693 P.2d 348, 356 (App. 1984). Having allowed Anderson latitude in his attempt to establish a foundation for his “drool” theory to explain the modification of this equipment, the court said, “... I don’t think that the fact that there is drool in the machine is relevant.” The judge indicated, “[b]ut there is no evidence, that’s speculation as to what happened, why the guard was removed. That’s a theory ... that’s all it is. It isn’t any evidence.” The court sustained several objections to the “drool” evidence, and even cut off some efforts by plaintiffs counsel to go into it further without waiting for an objection. I would find no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s ultimate exclusion of this evidence, on a matter that is clearly a judgment call. My review of the record reveals that no one knew why the machine had been modified such that Anderson could stick his arm into it.7 No one knew who did it. But the manufacturer did not make it that way, and without some plausible evidentiary basis for the “drool” theory, plaintiff could not prove his case.
¶ 43 In granting judgment for Nissei, the court stated:
I wrestled with this, as you both know, at the conclusion of the [pjlaintiffs case as well as at the conclusion of all of the evidence. I felt, as I do now, that as a matter of law this matter should not have gone to the [jjury. I made my decision to let it go to the [jjury.
... I should have granted the motion for directed verdict....
Without the “drool,” evidence, the exclusion of which was within the trial court’s discretion regarding evidentiary matters, the trial court’s ruling is, in my view, clearly correct.
¶44 Further, even if one accepted plaintiffs theory that someone at Star Container *180removed the guards because “without the guards then you could get [drool] out much easier,” this does not make the manufacturer hable for an injury caused by such a grossly mistaken alteration by plaintiffs employer— disabling the safety features of the equipment to meet a production schedule imposed by the employer which could not safely be met. In Piper, 180 Ariz. at 176, 883 P.2d at 413, we acknowledged that a “modification can be deemed unforeseeable as a matter of law.” (citing Brown v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 136 Ariz. 556, 562, 667 P.2d 750, 756 (App.1983)). Cases from around the nation hold that a modification that disables a safety feature on a machine prevents imposition of products liability on the manufacturer.
¶45 In Robinson v. Reed-Prentice Division of Package Machinery Co., 49 N.Y.2d 471, 426 N.Y.S.2d 717, 403 N.E.2d 440, 441 (1980), the operator of a plastic molding machine was severely injured when his hand was caught inside the machine while it was running. The machine had come from the manufacturer with a safety gate containing a Plexiglas window that allowed the operator to monitor operations but did not permit operator access until the machine was off. See id. The company that employed the operator, and which purchased the machine, cut a hole in the Plexiglas window after it was determined that the machine’s design did not comport with the company’s production requirements. See id. at 442. The modification “destroyed the practical utility of the safety features incorporated into the design of the machine,” and the operator was injured when his hand went through the opening cut in the window and was drawn into the molding area. Id. There was evidence that the equipment manufacturer knew of the modification. See id. The New York Court of Appeals, noting that “if a manufacturer knows or has reason to know that its product would be used in an unreasonably dangerous manner ... it may not evade responsibility by simply maintaining that the product was safe at the time of sale,” nonetheless found the manufacturer not liable. Id. at 442-44, 426 N.Y.S.2d 717. The court wrote that “[w]hile it may be foreseeable that an employer will abuse[8] a product to meet its own self-imposed production needs, responsibility for that willful choice may not fall on the manufacturer.” Id. at 443, 426 N.Y.S.2d 717. This holding squares with generally accepted notions on the subject. See 3 American Law of Products Liability 3d, § 43.17 (1987) (discussing concept that where safety device is rendered inoperable manufacturer is not hable). To the same effect are Jones v. Ryobi, Ltd., 37 F.3d 423 (8th Cir.1994) (safety guard and interlocking switch on printing press disabled); Davis v. Berwind Corp., 433 Pa.Super. 342, 640 A.2d 1289 (1994) (removal of interlocking safety device on meat blender that prevented discharge doors from opening if operator’s hands not on machine); and Smith v. Hobart Mfg. Co., 302 F.2d 570 (3rd Cir.1962) (safety guard on meat grinder removed). Some decisions discuss the issue in terms of proximate cause, holding that disabling equipment safety features breaks the chain of causation. See McNeely v. Harrison, 138 Ga.App. 310, 226 S.E.2d 112 (1976); Ford Motor Co. v. Eads, 224 Tenn. 473, 457 S.W.2d 28 (1970). None of these cases contradicts any reported Arizona authority.
¶46 The majority attempts to distinguish Robinson, and tries to avoid the whole line of authority it exemplifies, by asserting that the machine furnished by Nissei was defective when it left the factory and could not function as intended unless modified. The assertion that the machine was defective misses the whole point of this line of authority: that equipment “deficiencies” that make a machine less than completely tamper-proof9 are not chargeable to the manufacturer when tampering by a production-minded owner renders the equipment unsafe. For example, even though the safety guard in Hobart was removable with hand tools and was not welded in place, its removal obviated the manufacturer’s liability as a matter of law. 302 *181F.2d at 575.10 The assertion that with the guards in place the machine would not function as intended is not only entirely unsupported on this record11 (Anderson has not even argued it), it is unsupportable. To say this machine did not function as intended because it had to be stopped to be “de-drooled” makes no more sense than to say that a car does not function because operation has to be stopped periodically to give it gas, oil, and needed maintenance. The machine made plastic bottles at a certain rate. There was no evidence that it was supposed to function at a higher rate.
¶47 Assuming plaintiff had proven his “drool” theory, it still would have established an unreasonable alteration of the machine by Star Container disabling numerous safety design features in pursuit of a production schedule Star Container itself set, causing serious injury to its employee. I would affirm the trial court’s entry of judgment for the manufacturer.

. The majority asserts that the trial court admitted this evidence and then reversed its evidentia-ry rulings after trial. The record reveals otherwise. Before trial, Nissei moved to exclude the drool evidence, indicating that plaintiff's experts were prepared to blame the removal of the guards on a drool "problem.” When, during trial, plaintiff attempted to present this "expert” testimony, the court disallowed it. The judge recited numerous times, during trial, his determination that the drool evidence as it related to the missing guards was speculative and inadmissible. In fact, he said it was not even "evidence.” The jury was told that drool was a byproduct of the manufacturing process, and that Nissei’s manual did not explain how to deal with it. Plaintiff said that, if the machine shut down when you tried to remove drool, it caused down time which his employer disfavored. But an inability to meet Star Container’s production schedule does not make the machine defective, and Star Container’s dislike of down time did not justify disabling its safety features. And if Star Container removed the guards to avoid down time and maintain a robust production schedule, this modification cannot be charged to the manufacturer. Star Container's engineer said that drool required attention, as its own manual stated, but never said this was a "problem.”

. The majority’s assertion that the guards were removed because of a drool removal problem is, as the trial court deemed the same assertion by Anderson’s lawyer, mere speculation. No witness could testify to this, and the jury could not guess.

. While the majority contends that this machine was "defective when it left the manufacturer's control,” it is clear that it was only the abuse of the equipment that allowed Anderson’s injury to occur.

. No ANSI standard requires that a safety guard be permanently affixed. The majority’s notation that the guard was secured by "three small screws” does not demonstrate a defect.

. The majority’s claim that Nissei had "actual or constructive notice of the absence of the guard in question” is completely misguided. Nissei clearly had no information until after the accident that the guards had been removed from the machine that injured Anderson. At the time of the accident, the machine was in the control of Star Container. Unless the removal of the guards was "foreseeable” at the time of manufacture, Nissei could not be liable for any abuse by Star Container of the machine. Hobart stands for the proposition that a manufacturer does not have to "foresee” that a subsequent owner of equipment will disable safety features.
The majority apparently misapprehends the citation in Hobart to Snyder v. Longmead Iron Co., 244 Pa. 325, 90 A. 630 (1914). In Snyder, the defendant’s actual or constructive notice of the removal of safety guards from the machine in question would have made the defendant liable for the plaintiffs injury because defendant was plaintiff’s employer and owned and controlled the equipment. Neither Hobart nor Snyder suggests that later knowledge of modifications to a machine sifter the machine has left the factory could make the machine’s manufacturer liable for injuries which could not have occurred but for the modifications.

. Again, the majority's factual assertions misstate the evidence: no one testified that having to shut off the machine every fifteen minutes made the machine non-functional. Further, the machine did not have to be shut off every fifteen minutes to remove drool. Employees removed drool with a pole. Only occasionally, the machine might shut off when its safety switch engaged.