Court Opinion

ID: 9715725
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:13:06.474487+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:37.606739
License: Public Domain

Holbrook, P. J.
The plaintiff was an employee of Manistee Drop Forge Company in Filer City, Michigan, on January 17, 1968. On this date he lost a major part of his left hand while operating an unguarded 100-ton power press during the course of his employment. He brought an action to recover damages from the defendant who owned the dieset being used on the press at the time of the accident. At the close of the opening statements, the parties stipulated that the trial court take into consideration all factual allegations from the plaintiffs most favorable view and hear defendant’s motion for summary judgment. The court granted the motion and plaintiff appealed.
The dies themselves were not manufactured by the defendant, but had been used in a power press at Lindell Drop Forge in Lansing, Michigan, to manufacture parts for the defendant. When a *583labor dispute closed Lindell, defendant acquired possession of the dies and negotiated a contract with Manistee Drop Forge to have parts manufactured by that company, under the arrangement that the latter would make such revisions in the dies as was necessary to adapt them to use on a press owned by Manistee Drop Forge.
The first issue raised on appeal is whether the trial court erred in finding as a matter of law that the defendant, as owner of the dies, had no "duty to warn or * * * duty to prescribe the method in which they are used, so that that duty flows through the subcontractor and to the user of those dies, in this case, the plaintiff’.
We believe that defendant’s motion for summary judgment was prematurely granted and therefore must reverse. We find that an allegation that a defendant supplied a chattel to a party knowing the chattel would be used in a negligent manner states a cause of action, at least preliminarily, against the defendant for injuries to others resulting from the party’s negligence. Plaintiff alleges in paragraph 5(c) of his complaint that:
"The above mentioned negligence of the defendant consisted of the following acts and omissions, inter alia:
* * *
"Designing, manufacturing and installing said dies with the knowledge that said dies were not provided with the proper and adequate guards and safety devices which would enable said press machine and dies to be safely used for the intended purposes.”
The party to whom the chattel is supplied is merely, according to such an allegation, an intervening foreseeable cause of the injuries to which the defendant may be responsible. Prosser, Torts (3d ed), § 51, Foreseeable Intervening Causes, pp *584311-315. Such an allegation is at least analogous to, if not a perfect example of, the doctrine of negligent entrustment. The Restatement of Torts, 2d, § 390, p 314, states the rule:
"One who supplies directly or through a third person a chattel for the use of another whom the supplier knows or has reason to know to be likely because of his youth, inexperience, or otherwise, to use it in a manner involving unreasonable risk of physical harm to himself and others whom the supplier should expect to share in or be endangered by its use, is subject to liability for physical harm resulting to them.”
See, also, 2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts, §28.2, p 1539. While the doctrine of negligent entrustment most often has been applied in the cases where the chattel supplied has been classified latently defective, or inherently dangerous, and where the party supplied is an infant or otherwise notoriously incompetent, the doctrine is not necessarily so restricted in application. The Restatement of Torts, 2d, supra, Comment (b), p 315, suggests:
"In the one case as in the other, liability is based upon the rule, * * * that the actor may not assume that human beings will conduct themselves properly if the facts which are known or should be known to him should make him realize that they are unlikely to do so. Thus, one who supplies a chattel for the use of another who knows its exact character and condition is not entitled to assume that the other will use it safely if the supplier knows or has reason to know that such other is likely to use it dangerously, as where the other belongs to a class which is notoriously incompetent to use the chattel safely, or lacks the training and experience necessary for such use, or the supplier knows that the other has on other occasions so acted that the supplier should realize that the chattel is likely to be dangerously used, or that the other, though otherwise capable *585of using the chattel safely, has a propensity or fixed purpose to misuse it. This is true even though the chattel is in perfect condition, or though defective, is capable of safe use for the purposes for which it is supplied by an ordinary person who knows of its defective condition.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Assuming that the dies themselves were not defective, the Restatement makes clear that the chattel need not be proved defective before recovery is permitted under the doctrine of negligent entrustment. It is also irrelevant to the duty of due care owed to others by one Who supplies a chattel to a party that the chattel transaction occurs as a gift, sale, loan, lease, bailment, or what not. Harper & James, supra, at p 1536.
While it may be true, in Michigan at least, that the negligent entrustment doctrine has been used primarily in motor vehicle cases (See, e.g., Perin v Peuler [On Rehearing], 373 Mich 531, 537; 130 NW2d 4, 7-8 [1964]; Kloosterman v Kalamazoo City Lines Inc, 21 Mich App 513; 175 NW2d 516 [1970], aff’d 386 Mich 430; 192 NW2d 258 [1971]), the theory of negligent entrustment does not hinge on the nature of the chattel, but on the supply of the chattel to a probable negligent user. See, e.g., application of the doctrine in cases where a child was supplied with firearms. 68 ALR2d 782. The deposition of Jack C. Gerwin, Saféty Director of Saginaw Steering Gear, Division of General Motors Corporation, is instructive on this point, since it is crucial to plaintiffs case that defendant had knowledge of the unsafe operation of plaintiffs employer’s machines in which the dies could be used:
"Q. [Mr. Brock, plaintiffs attorney]: And, a lot of the job shops have operations set up which require their *586operators to reach into the die areas and the zone of danger?
"A. I have seen this.
"Q. Seen this often enough that you are aware that this is a more or less standard way of proceeding in these small job shops?
"A. That’s right. Let’s face it, it cost money to guard presses.
”Q. And, most of the job shops do not have the money to hire engineers and safety directors?
’A. That’s right, although in most of the job shops they have their own little boss who takes care of these little incidentals. The purchaser is buying, the safety director and engineer.
"Q. On this particular operation, did you gain the impression from Mr. Fredericks’ deposition that the press was being activated with a single button?
'A. Yes, that’s the impression I got from the deposition.
”Q. It was being fed with his hand?
’A. It was being fed with a right hand — let’s see, no, the left hand; being retracted from the die with the right hand, and cycled with the right hand, so there was a great possibility of what happened to him, because he could load with his left hand and cycle with his right hand.
”Q. You, as a safety engineer observing this practice would immediately realize that the statistical probability of injury would be unacceptably high?
”A. It would be there, and eventually it would happen.
"Q. To you it would be unacceptable?
"A That’s right.
* * *
”Q. And, looking at it as a safety engineer it would be a relatively — it appears it would be a relatively simple method to design a revolving die or sliding or progressive die for this operation?
’A. Not for a small outfit like Manistee Drop Forge. It would cost maybe forty thousand dollars to put that in.
*587"Q. Manistee Drop Forge would not have the economic capacity to design and manufacture such a die?
"A. Well, this is, in a way, it’s the entire press, the whole sheet.
”Q. And, Manistee Drop Forge didn’t have the economic power to develop such a system of operating?
’A. I wouldn’t think so because they are basically a job shop, and they are doing this maybe three months, and then they have got a press sitting there they can’t use, and they can’t tie up their capital this way, so they are doing the job on a press they can do many many other things.”
Plaintiff should be allowed, if able, to go on to prove beyond the deposition of Gerwin that the defendant knew in advance of its entrustment of the dies to Manistee Drop Forge that it was a job shop that did not use care in its machine operations, and that the dies would be placed in an unsafe machine hazardous to the operators thereof.
The second issue raised is whether the trial court erred in holding that the defendant did not need respond to requests for admissions which sought not the admission or denial of facts, but instead sought the admission or denial of opinions or conclusions. Plaintiff submitted requests for admissions to the defendant pursuant to GCE 1963, 312.1,1 but the defendant objected to the requests because they related to opinions and conclusions as distinct from facts. The trial court agreed with the defendant, stating:
"Well, in this particular case, if the court looks at *588[requests] 9 through 19 and the method in which it is framed, it looks like it is an attempt on the part of the plaintiff to box in the defendant as to what his conclusions may be at the trial. I think that for the court to require an answer to those questions would be in the nature of the court determining what the facts would be to come out at the trial. I think 9 through 19 is a conclusion which the jury would have to draw, factually, from those things which are presented to it in this case, and I think I agree with Mr. Gruel that 9 through 19 would not have to be answered and what facts will come out upon which the jury may decide conclusions as to what factually took place is a matter for the jury, and it need not be revealed at this time, but the facts will be best brought out at trial, and 9 through 19 need not be answered specifically on a denial bases.”
The plaintiff argues that while GCR 1963, 312.1 reads that matters of fact are subject to requests for admission, the rule should be read broadly in order to effectuate the policies of the rule to limit areas of controversy and save time, energy, and expense which would otherwise be spent in proffering proof of matters properly subject to admission. The plaintiff cites FR Civ P, 36, the source of GCR 1963, 312.1, as analogous authority for the proposition that a party may be requested to admit opinions or the application of law to fact, as well as facts. However, FR Civ P, 36, was amended effective July 1, 1970, so as to allow requests to admit opinions.2 Until that time the federal rule read as GCR 1963, 312.1 still reads, i.e., to allow requests for admissions of matters of fact. While the policy behind the change in the federal rule may be *589admirable, our court rule has not been changed, and therefore we are constrained to rule that the trial judge’s interpretation of GCR 1963, 312.1, as. it applied to plaintiff’s request for admissions was correct.
Reversed in part, affirmed in part, and remanded for trial. No costs, neither party prevailing fully.
T. M. Burns, J., concurred.

 GCR 1963,.312.1 read in pertinent part as follows:
"Request for Admission. After commencement of an action a party may serve upon all other parties a written request for the admission by a designated party of the genuineness of any relevant documents described in and exhibited with the request or of the truth of any relevant matters of fact set forth in the request.” (Emphasis supplied.)

 FR Civ P, 36 now reads in pertinent part as follows:
"(a) Request for admission. A party may serve updn any other party a written request for the admission, for purposes of the pending action only, of the truth of any matters within the scope of Rule 26(b) set forth in the request that relate to statements or opinions of fact or of the application of law to fact, including the genuineness of any documents described in the request.”