Court Opinion

ID: 9739899
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:23:16.663006+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:14.609666
License: Public Domain

O’Connor, J.
(dissenting in part). I agree that the jury’s finding that Colter unreasonably used the machine, knowing it to be defective, does not bar Colter from recovery against Barber-Greene or New England on a negligence theory. I also agree that, as a matter of law, Barber-Greene was entitled to judgment on Colter’s claim of negligent failure to warn. There*66fore, the court would be correct in remanding the case for retrial of the negligent design claim against Barber-Greene had the evidence been sufficient to warrant a finding that Barber-Greene’s negligent design caused Colter’s injury. However, in my view, although there was evidence of negligent design, there was no evidence of a causal relationship between that negligence and Colter’s injury. Therefore, I would order the entry of a judgment for Barber-Greene, and I would remand the case solely for retrial of the negligence claims against New England.1
When Worcester purchased the machine in 1952, it was equipped with a gear guard. By the time New England took the machine from Worcester, the guard was missing. The court concludes that, “[i]n the absence of any testimony as to what actually happened to the gear guard while the sand classifier was in Worcester’s possession, the jury were entitled to infer that the guard was removed for greasing and repair and was not replaced because it was too cumbersome, not efficient, and too costly in the labor required to remove and replace the gear guard.” Ante at 58-59. I disagree. It is true that the jury could have found that a reasonably prudent manufacturer would have designed the machine differently so as to reduce the need to remove the guard in order to make repairs. It is also true that the jury could have found that a reasonably prudent manufacturer would have designed the machine differently so as to eliminate the need to remove the guard in order to clean and grease the gears, and that the jury could have found that Barber-Greene reasonably could have foreseen that, due to efficiency and cost considerations, a user of the machine would choose not to replace the guard after removing it. It follows *67that, if there had been evidence in this case that the guard had been removed in order to facilitate repairs or the cleaning and greasing of gears, which would have been unnecessary had the alternative design been employed, and if there had been evidence that the guard had not been restored due to concerns about efficiency and cost, the jury would have been warranted in finding that Barber-Greene’s negligence caused Colter’s injury. However, there was no such evidence. As the court says, ante at 58, there was an “absence of any testimony as to what actually happened to the gear guard . . . .”
On the evidence, it is entirely speculative whether the guard was off the machine for any of the reasons set forth above. Therefore, although the jury could have found that Barber-Greene took a foreseeable risk in designing its machine, the jury could only have speculated that the injuries suffered by Colter were within that risk. The void in the evidence ought to be fatal to the plaintiff’s case against Barber-Greene. As the court has previously stated, “[i]t is . . . necessary for [a] plaintiff to prove [not only] that the defendant took a risk with respect to the plaintiff’s safety that a person of ordinary prudence would not have taken, [but also] that the plaintiff suffered a resulting injury that was within the foreseeable risk.” Cimino v. Milford Keg, Inc., 385 Mass. 323, 330 (1982).
The court asserts that this case is indistinguishable from Fahey v. Rockwell Graphics Syss., Inc., 20 Mass. App. Ct. 642 (1985). In my view, the cases are critically distinguishable. The distinction focuses on the very point expressed above. In Fahey, the evidence not only disclosed that removal of a machine guard to facilitate speedy production was a risk foreseeable by the manufacturer, but it also disclosed that the plaintiff’s injury resulted from the guard being removed for that very reason. Id. at 645. Unlike here, the injury was shown to have been within the foreseeable risk. As the court correctly notes, ante at 58-59 n.10, the Appeals Court concluded in Fahey that the jury were entitled to decide “whether the circumstances of the guard’s removal and the plaintiff’s subsequent injury were reasonably foreseeable.” Id. at 648. However, in this case, the jury were not in position to do that be*68cause, without knowing what the circumstances of the guard’s removal were, there being no evidence in that regard, the jury could not have inferred whether those circumstances were foreseeable.
Based on the plaintiff’s best evidence, a gambling man with an appreciation of mathematical probabilities might be willing to bet that the guard was removed in order to facilitate repairs or other maintenance that would not have been necessary in the absence of Barber-Greene’s negligence, and was left off the machine as a means of efficiency and economy. However, Colter had the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that his injury was within that foreseeable risk. He did not sustain that burden. Mere mathematical odds, no matter how favorable to a proposition, do not consitute proof thereof by a preponderance of the evidence.
“It has been held not enough that mathematically the chances somewhat favor a proposition to be proved; for example, the fact that colored automobiles made in the current year outnumber black ones would not warrant a finding that an unde-scribed automobile of the current year is colored and not black, nor would the fact that only a minority of men die of cancer warrant a finding that a particular man did not die of cancer. . . . The weight or preponderance of evidence is its power to convince the tribunal which has the determination of the fact, of the actual truth of the proposition to be proved. After the evidence has been weighed, that proposition is proved by a preponderance of the evidence if it is made to appear more likely or probable in the sense that actual belief in its truth, derived from the evidence, exists in the mind or minds of the tribunal notwithstanding any doubts that may still linger there” (citations omitted) (emphasis added). Sargent v. Massachusetts Accident Co., 307 Mass. 246, 250 (1940). Sargent was an action on a policy of life insurance. A majority of the court concluded that the evidence warranted a jury finding “not merely that there was a greater chance that the insured met his death by accident falling within the policy than that he met a different fate, but that death by accident within the policy was in fact indicated by a preponderance of the evidence” (emphasis added). Id. at 251.
*69The view we expressed in Sargent continues to be the law of the Commonwealth. Stepakoff v. Kantar, 393 Mass. 836, 843 (1985). See P.J. Liacos, Massachusetts Evidence 38 (5th ed. 1985). Proof of mathematical probabilities is not enough. Although the jury were warranted in finding that Barber-Greene took a foreseeable risk concerning Colter’s safety that an ordinarily prudent manufacturer would not have taken, the evidence was insufficient to warrant the further finding that Colter’s injury was within that risk. I would order the entry of judgment for Barber-Greene, and, as explained at the outset of this opinion, I would remand the case for retrial of Colter’s negligence claims against New England.

 New England’s only argument on appeal is that Colter is barred from recovery on a negligence theory by the jury’s finding that Colter unreasonably used the machine, knowing it to be defective, an argument that the court properly rejects. Since, unlike Barber-Greene, New England has advanced no other argument, New England is not entitled to judgment. However, the jury’s assessment of Colter’s forty-nine per cent and New England’s fifteen per cent negligent contribution to the accident cannot stand. A new trial should be ordered in which the jury should determine the comparative negligence, if any, of Colter and New England.