Knitz v. Minster Mach. Co.

• Decision Date: 26 February 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-256,81-256
• Citation: 432 N.E.2d 814,23 O.O.3d 403,69 Ohio St.2d 460
• Parties: , 23 O.O.3d 403 KNITZ, Appellant, v. MINSTER MACHINE COMPANY, Appellee.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 460

69 Ohio St.2d 460

432 N.E.2d 814, 23 O.O.3d 403

KNITZ, Appellant, v. MINSTER MACHINE COMPANY, Appellee.

No. 81-256.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Feb. 26, 1982.

Syllabus by the Court

A product design is in a defective condition if it is more dangerous than an ordinary consumer would expect when used in an intended or reasonably foreseeable manner or if the benefits of the challenged design do not outweigh the risk inherent in such design. (Leichtamer v. American Motors Corp., 67 Ohio St.2d 456, 424 N.E.2d 568, approved and followed.)

Virginia Mae Knitz, appellant, began work at the Toledo Die and Manufacturing Company on August 16, 1976. For approximately the first week of her employment she operated punch presses. On August 23, 1976, she was assigned to operate a 60-ton Open Back Inclinable Press designed and manufactured by the Minster Machine Company, appellee.

That press functions to supply power in bringing two halves of a die together. The top half of the press is attached to a ram, which when the press is activated, descends five inches with sixty tons of force onto a bolster plate. The two die halves are, therefore, brought into contact and thereby shape the metal stock between them. The ram then ascends to its original position until again activated. The amount of time required for the ram to descend from its top position to its lower position is three quarters of one second.

On August 23, 1976, appellant was operating the press on a production run that required her to pick up and place a blank piece of metal stock in the space between the two halves of the die with her hand. The press ram was then activated to descend by pushing down on the pedal of a foot switch attached to the press at floor level. After two hours of operation of the press, appellant stopped and left it in search of a more comfortable stool. When she returned, she found that a scrap bin beneath the press had been emptied and the foot switch had been moved. Appellant leaned on the bolster plate with her right hand and attempted to move the pedal back into place with her foot. While so doing, appellant activated the foot pedal, and the ram descended amputating two fingers of her right hand.

The press was delivered to the Toledo Die and Manufacturing Company on October 15, 1971. It was manufactured and shipped with a two-hand, button-tripping device, which is comprised of two buttons that are placed at shoulder level above the die ram area. Both buttons must be depressed in order for the press to be activated, so that the device prevents an operator from placing either hand in the die area while the ram is descending. Appellant's employer had also ordered an optional foot pedal tripping device, also designed by appellee, which was shipped with the press at that time. On the date of the accident, the foot pedal was attached to the press and was the sole method of activating the ram. The two-hand, button-tripping device, however, was disconnected and rendered inoperable.

Subsequent to shipment of the press but prior to the August 23, 1976, accident, appellant's employer had installed on this press a pull-back guard (a Posson type). A Posson pull-back guard is attached to the wrists of the operator and physically pulls his hands and arms out of the die area when the ram descends. At the time of the accident, appellant did not have the pull-back guard attached to her wrists.

Appellant filed a complaint on August 2, 1978, against appellee in the Court of Common Pleas of Lucas County alleging, inter alia, that "the press was sold in a defective condition which was dangerous to the user of said product." ¹ Both parties filed motions for summary judgment. Appellee's motion was granted and appellant's motion was denied. Upon appeal to the Court of Appeals, the judgment of the trial court in favor of appellee was affirmed.

The cause is now before this court pursuant to the allowance of a motion to certify the record.

Green, Lackey, Nusbaum, Phillips & Harris Co., L.P.A., and John A. Harris, III, Toledo, for appellant.

Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, Robert M. Anspach and Timothy C. McCarthy, Toledo, for appellee.

WILLIAM B. BROWN, Justice.

The case presents us with the question of whether a motion for summary judgment pursuant to Civ.R. 56 should have been granted to appellee. Before considering that issue, however, it is necessary to review first the proper legal standard to be applied to cases alleging a design defect in a manufactured product which causes injury.

I.

Both parties assert that Temple v. Wean United, Inc. (1977), 50 Ohio St.2d 317, 364 N.E.2d 267, is dispositive of this case. In Temple, the plaintiff was injured while operating a punch press when a number of aluminum extrusions fell from the bolster plate onto the dual operating buttons. This caused the press ram to close on her arms. The ram tripping device had been altered, however, by the plaintiff's employer. Specifically, the employer relaced the original shoulder level tripping buttons with buttons waist high. The plaintiff brought an action under inter alia, a theory of strict liability in tort. We affirmed the granting of summary judgment for all defendants.

In Temple, we adopted Section 402A of the Restatement of Torts 2d and its comments "(b)ecause there are virtually no distinctions between Ohio's 'implied warranty in tort' theory and the Restatement version of strict liability in tort. * * * " Temple, supra, at page 322, 364 N.E.2d 267. Moreover, the Restatement formulation of strict liability in tort "greatly facilitates analysis in this area." Id. Thus, Section 402A of the Restatement of Torts was adopted as a conceptual overlay upon the broader definition of strict liability in tort announced in Lonzrick v. Republic Steel Corp. (1966), 6 Ohio St.2d 227, 237, 218 N.E.2d 185: "For the plaintiff to recover, he must prove, by the required degree of proof, that the joists were defective, that they were defective at the time the manufacturer sold them, that the defect caused them to collapse while they were being used for their ordinary intended purpose, and that the defect was the direct and proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury, and that the plaintiff's presence was in a place which the defendant could reasonably anticipate." See, also, State Auto Mutual Ins. Co. v. Chrysler Corp. (1973), 36 Ohio St.2d 151, 304 N.E.2d 891.

Applying Section 402A(1)(b) to the facts, we held that the alteration of the press by the plaintiff's employer precluded a finding of strict liability against the manufacturer of a defective product because the press did not reach "the user or consumer without substantial change in the condition in which it is sold." It is clear that our holding in Temple on the manufacturing defect issue was based upon the evidence of substantial changes in the condition of the press made subsequent to the purchase.

We also held that the plaintiff did not present a genuine issue of material fact on the question of negligent design of the press. Appellee argues strenuously that Temple applied equally to a claim of strict liability design defect as well as negligent design defect and that compliance with the Ohio Industrial Safety Code is a defense to a strict liability claim. This was not the obvious intent of Temple. Part III of the opinion, in which the design defect claim is considered, is concerned solely with the issues of defendants' liability for negligence in failing to warn of a dangerous propensity of a product and whether "Wean negligently designed the power press." (Emphasis added.) Temple, 50 Ohio St.2d at pages 325-326, 364 N.E.2d 267. The standard applied, then, was one appropriate to the law of negligence: " ' * * * (i)t is the duty of a manufacturer to use reasonable care under the circumstances to so design his product as to make it not accident or foolproof, but safe for the use for which it is intended. * * * (Citation omitted.) ' " Id., at page 326, 364 N.E.2d 267. As a guide in "passing judgment upon the reasonableness of a manufacturer's conscious design choice," (emphasis added), id., we look to statutory regulation, in particular, the Industrial Commission Safety Code.

Temple, supra, did not, therefore, provide a legal standard for the application of strict liability in tort to design defects. We turned to that task in Leichtamer v. American Motors Corp. (1981), 67 Ohio St.2d 456, 424 N.E.2d 568.

In Leichtamer we reviewed the policy underlying the development of strict liability in tort and concluded that application of a varying tort standard based upon "(a) distinction between defects resulting from manufacturing process and those resulting from design, and a resultant difference in the burden of proof on the injured party, would only provoke needless questions of defect classification, which would add little to the resolution of the underlying claims. A consumer injured by an unreasonably dangerous design should have the same benefit of freedom from proving fault provided by Section 402A as the consumer injured by a defectively manufactured product which proves unreasonably dangerous." Id., at page 464, 424 N.E.2d 568.

The focus of the inquiry in Leichtamer was what constituted a "defective condition unreasonably dangerous" ² as formulated by Section 402A of the Restatement of Torts. We adopted a variation of the familiar "consumer expectation test" of Comment i to Section 402: "A product is in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user or consumer if it is more dangerous than an ordinary consumer would expect when used in an intended or reasonably foreseeable manner." Leichtamer, paragraph two of the syllabus. This standard followed as a logical development from commercial warranty origins of strict liability in tort. See Lonzrick v. Republic Steel Corp., supra, 6 Ohio St.2d at page 235, 218 N.E.2d 185; Temple v. Wean United, supra, 50 Ohio St.2d at pages 320-321, 364 N.E.2d 267. It...