Court Opinion

ID: 9487414
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:15:58.515566+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:15.314388
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Jones, as we must, I cannot subscribe to the majority’s opinion that the offset duplicator was safe as originally manufactured.
The rule to which Missouri adheres, as correctly stated by the majority, is that a manufacturer is not liable where a modification is foreseeable, but the modification renders a safe product unsafe. Gomez v. Clark Equip. Co., 743 S.W.2d 429, 432 (Mo.Ct.App.1987). Representatives of ITEK Corp., the former distributor of the duplicator, testified that the guard was removed by customers or others a “vast majority” of the time, trial tr. at 57, 138, and that ITEK knew that the guard was “routinely removed.” Id. at 82. Thus, the modification of the duplicator was entirely foreseeable.
The question that arises is whether the modification rendered an otherwise safe product unsafe. There is no dispute that the duplicator, as modified, was unsafe. The critical question, thus, is whether the duplicator as manufactured was unreasonably dangerous.
The testimony of Dr. Creighton, Jones’s expert witness, is alone sufficient to support the inference that the offset duplicator was not safe as originally designed. Dr. Creighton testified that the electric interlock device was wired backwards and was not “fail-safe.” Id. at 249-50, 52. He testified that the duplicator’s guard, in addition to not being fail-safe, id. at 250, was made of material “that will break ... readily,” id., did not allow for proper ventilation of the internal components of the machine, id., and invited removal. Id. at 253. He further testified that the design of the eject wheels, which essentially requires operators to make manual adjustments while the offset duplicator is running, was “absolutely not safe,” id. at 242, indeed “the worst of situations from a human factors standpoint.” Id. at 256. The duplicator could have been equipped, he noted, with external adjustment handles to enable operators to make adjustments to the eject wheels without placing their hands in close proximity to the moving parts of the machine. Id. at 251.
Further, although not direct proof that the duplicator was defectively designed, the fact that an overwhelming majority of machines had their guards removed after their delivery is evidence that the duplicator was incapable of operating efficiently according to industry standards. According to ITEK representative Brad Gruenewald, nearly ninety-eight percent of all machines he came into contact with had their safety covers removed. Id. at *427138. Indeed, Gruenewald testified that he told duplicator operators in effect to remove the guard in order to alleviate problems with ink emulsification that occurred as a result of humidity which frequently became trapped inside the plastic shield. Id. at 62.
The majority does not address (nor need it, given the focus of its opinion) the open- and-obvious defense on which the district court relied in granting the defendants’ motion for judgment as a matter of law. I touch on it briefly because, even assuming Ryobi is not relieved of liability under the substantial modification theory, the question still remains whether it can prevail based on the alleged open and obvious danger of the unguarded duplicator.
We have held that the obviousness of a defect or danger is material to the issue of whether a product is unreasonably dangerous. Linegar v. Armour of Am., Inc., 909 F.2d 1160, 1154 (8th Cir.1990). It does not, however, alone constitute a defense to a sub-missible case of strict liability under section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts. McGowne v. Challenge-Cook Bros., Inc., 672 F.2d 652, 663 (8th Cir.1982). The issue under Missouri law, as we have construed it, “is not whether a jury can conclude that [the] danger is obvious or apparent, but ... whether the jury can conclude that the danger is obvious and apparent to the extent that the product was not ‘unreasonably dangerous.’ ” Id. Stated otherwise, the question is not simply whether the danger was open and obvious, but whether the product was unreasonably dangerous taking into account the obviousness of the danger.
There is no question in my mind that there was sufficient evidence from which a jury, taking into account the obviousness of the conceded danger, could conclude that the offset duplicator was unreasonably dangerous. The district court relied on our holdings in Pree v. Brunswick Corp., 983 F.2d 863, 867 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 114 S.Ct. 65, 126 L.Ed.2d 35 (1993), and Linegar, 909 F.2d at 1154 — cases which are analogous in precious few ways to the instant case — in holding that the open-and-obvious nature of the unguarded duplicator “was readily observable by everyone,” trial tr. at 440, and therefore barred recovery by Jones. In Pree we held that an unguarded outboard motor on a boat was not unreasonably dangerous because no device existed that would provide protection from a propeller without rendering the motor more dangerous. 983 F.2d at 866. In Linegar we held that a bullet-proof vest that did not cover all parts of the body was not inherently dangerous because “[a]n otherwise completely effective protective vest cannot be regarded as dangerous, much less unreasonably so, simply because it leaves some parts of the body obviously exposed.” 909 F.2d at 1154. In both cases we relied on the open-and-obvious nature of the alleged danger in holding that the products were not unreasonably dangerous and thus were not defectively designed.
In my judgment there was sufficient evidence to support the inference that the offset duplicator was unreasonably dangerous and thus was defectively designed. This case should have met its fate in the hands of the jury members, not the district court’s and not now ours.