Court Opinion

ID: 9401062
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-09 21:00:43.151878+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:50.535588
License: Public Domain

USCA4 Appeal: 22-1331      Doc: 21         Filed: 06/08/2023     Pg: 1 of 4

                                             UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                               No. 22-1331

        ROBERT JACKSON,

                             Plaintiff - Appellant,

                      v.

        RAND MANUFACTURING INC.,

                             Defendant - Appellee.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at
        Raleigh. Terrence W. Boyle, District Judge. (5:19-cv-00447-BO)

        Submitted: May 26, 2023                                               Decided: June 8, 2023

        Before HARRIS and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges, and TRAXLER, Senior Circuit
        Judge.

        Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        ON BRIEF: Robert M. Caplan, WHITE & WILLIAMS LLP, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
        Sean Partrick, YATES, MCLAMB, & WEYHER, LLP, Raleigh, North Carolina, for
        Appellant. Daniel T. Strong, J. Matthew Little, TEAGUE CAMPBELL DENNIS &
        GORHAM, LLP, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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        PER CURIAM:

               Robert Jackson appeals the district court's order granting summary judgment in

        favor of Rand Manufacturing, Inc. (“Rand”) in Jackson’s personal injury action. On

        appeal, Jackson argues that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to Rand

        because a genuine issue of material fact exists regarding whether Jackson was engaged in

        a reasonably anticipated use of a final roller under the Louisiana Products Liability Act

        (“LPLA”). For the following reasons, we affirm.

               We “review de novo a district court’s award of summary judgment, viewing the

        facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party.” Chapman v. Oakland Living

        Ctr., Inc., 48 F.4th 222, 228 (4th Cir. 2022). “Summary judgment is appropriate only when

        ‘the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant

        is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.’” Id. (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)).

               Under the LPLA, “[t]he manufacturer of a product shall be liable to a claimant for

        damage proximately caused by a characteristic of the product that renders the product

        unreasonably dangerous when such damage arose from a reasonably anticipated use of the

        product by the claimant or another person or entity.”         La. Stat. Ann. § 9:2800.54.

        “Reasonably anticipated use means a use or handling of a product that the product’s

        manufacturer should reasonably expect of an ordinary person in the same or similar

        circumstances.”    La. Stat. Ann. § 9:2800.53(7) (internal quotation marks omitted).

        “[R]easonably anticipated use is the threshold LPLA element.” Matthews v. Remington

        Arms Co., 641 F.3d 635, 641 (5th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted); see Butz

        v. Lynch, 762 So.2d 1214, 1217-18 (La. Ct. App. 2000).

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               When determining whether a use was reasonably anticipated, courts have
               previously considered factors such as: (1) whether the injured party used the
               product in a manner that was obviously dangerous; (2) what the user was
               instructed to do and warned not to do with respect to the use of the product;
               (3) whether the use of the product was expressly warned against in the
               product's labeling (or operations manual) and the language of that warning;
               and (4) the sophistication/experience of the user-purchaser.

        Broussard v. Procter & Gamble Co., 463 F. Supp. 2d 596, 606 (W.D. La. 2006).

               We agree with the district court that Jackson’s use of the final roller—manually

        feeding wooden trusses into the roller—was obviously dangerous. Jackson entered an area

        where he easily could become trapped between the wooden truss and the final roller. And

        although Jackson was never personally warned not to enter that area, the operator’s manual

        for the final roller clearly proscribed entry because of the risk of injury or death, and labels

        on the final roller warned of the need to keep hands and feet clear. The manual further

        instructed that to enter the area safely, electricity and air should be disconnected from the

        final roller. ∗ Finally, although Jackson had only been operating the final roller for a month,

        he was working 60 hours a week and knew—based on his testimony—that he was placing

        himself in a dangerous situation when he manually fed the trusses into the roller.

        Therefore, we agree with the district court’s conclusion that, on balance, Rand could not

        have reasonably anticipated that a user would operate the final roller in the manner that

        Jackson did.

               ∗
                Jackson’s argument that he never read the manual is not relevant to this analysis.
        Rather, the pertinent question is whether Rand reasonably could have anticipated that a
        user would operate the final roller without consulting the manual and in direct
        contravention of the manual’s warnings.

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              Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. We dispense with oral

        argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials

        before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

                                                                                     AFFIRMED

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