Bridgewater v. Economy Engineering Co.

• Decision Date: 13 December 1985
• Docket Number: No. 1285S513,1285S513
• Citation: 486 N.E.2d 484
• Parties: Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 10,803 Carolyn L. BRIDGEWATER, Appellant (Plaintiff below), v. ECONOMY ENGINEERING COMPANY, Appellee (Defendant below).
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 484

486 N.E.2d 484

Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 10,803

Carolyn L. BRIDGEWATER, Appellant (Plaintiff below), v. ECONOMY ENGINEERING COMPANY, Appellee (Defendant below).

No. 1285S513.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Dec. 13, 1985.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 30, 1986.

E. Davis Coots, Coots, Henke & Wheeler, Carmel, for appellant.

Hugh Watson, Randall R. Riggs, Locke Reynolds Boyd & Weisell, Indianapolis, for appellee.

ON PETITION TO TRANSFER

PIVARNIK, Justice.

This cause comes to us on a Petition to Transfer from the Fourth District Court of Appeals brought by Economy Engineering Company [hereinafter "Economy"], Appellee and Defendant below. See Bridgewater v. Economy Engineering Co., (1984) Ind.App., 464 N.E.2d 14, reh. denied [Conover, J., concurring in result]. Plaintiff-Appellant Carolyn Bridgewater's negligence action against Economy resulted in a summary judgment in favor of Economy. Bridgewater instituted her suit against Economy because it manufactured the high lift platform from which her husband fell to his death. Bridgewater specifically alleged that Economy employed defective safety devices on the particular model of platform used by her husband necessitating their replacement with equally defective devices by Detroit Diesel Allison [hereinafter "Allison"], her husband's employer. The trial court's granting of summary judgment in favor of Economy was based upon the following alternative grounds as stated by the Court of Appeals in its opinion:

"(1) Economy's manufacturing defect was not, as a matter of law, the proximate cause of Bridgewater's husband's death for lack of foreseeability; [or]

(2) the defect, if such there was, was open and obvious, thereby requiring a finding the platform was not defective or unreasonably dangerous (again, as a matter of law)."

The Court of Appeals found both grounds improper for purposes of summary judgment. We disagree and accordingly grant transfer and vacate the opinion of the Court of Appeals. Our reasons for granting transfer are twofold. First, the record before the trial court clearly supported the entry of summary judgment. Second, the open and obvious rule adopted in Bemis Co., Inc. v. Rubush, (1981) Ind., 427 N.E.2d 1058 [Hunter and DeBruler, JJ., dissenting], cert. denied (1982) 459 U.S. 825, 103 S.Ct. 57, 74 L.Ed.2d 61, has been interpreted and applied in diverse ways by the several divisions of the Court of Appeals and requires clarification by this Court.

The facts before the trial court were well set out by the Court of Appeals in its opinion as follows:

"FACTS

Bridgewater's husband was employed as a maintenance man at Allison on September 23, 1977, the date of the accident. He and his working partner, Harold Stoughton, were removing duct work from the ceiling of the plant, approximately twenty feet from the floor, and were therefore using a high lift platform purchased by Allison twenty-one years earlier, called a Portable Utility Ladder by its manufacturer, Economy. The deceased was performing the overhead work while Stoughton remained on the floor to move the ladder from location to location. The evidence and testimony presented herein are less than lucid, but apparently the deceased had partially descended the ladder for another move. Stoughton rolled the ladder to a new spot, turned away and took a few steps. He heard the deceased shout, 'It came loose,' and turned to see him fall upon a mobile sheet metal truck and then to the floor. He was not wearing his hard hat and died of head and back injuries. The only apparent cause for the accident was the collapse of the guardrails surrounding the elevated working platform, but that issue is muddied because it is unclear whether the deceased was actually on the working platform or whether he was ascending the ladder when he fell. The principal point of convergence on appeal, however, is upon whom to rest the responsibility for the collapse of the guardrails.

The Portable Utility Ladder, sold to Allison in 1956, combined features of a ladder and a scaffold and provided an approximately six-foot square working platform at its apex for overhead work. The unit could be telescoped to desired heights through the use of a hoist mechanism. The guardrails surrounding the work platform formed a frame around the worker when they were properly erected. One pair of rails, on opposite sides of the platform, were of self-supporting construction, i.e., two uprights with a crossbar. Attached to one of these was the other pair of rails, these being detachable crossbars hinged upon the one stable side rail and designed to be attached to the opposite stable rail by inserting safety devices in the side rails to prevent the crossbars from slipping off. Once the safety devices were in place, the guardrails formed a cage surrounding the platform. An additional feature on this model was the collapsible nature of the rails where the latter's mobility under low heights was increased. The stable side rails were hinged to fall down and away from the platform once the safety devices were removed from the side rails and the crossbars were detached. The guardrails were discovered in this position after the accident. Bridgewater's supposition is that the devices holding the crossbars to the one side rail were defective and gave way, thereby causing her husband's death, either as he stood on the platform or as he grasped them to hoist himself up. However, the issue becomes clouded here because Allison had replaced Economy's safety feature, which held each crossbar in place, with a device of its own.

Economy's safety device for holding the detachable cross-bars in place was a pair of metal pins attached to their respective bars by chains. Sometime between 1967 and 1972, all the pins on the Portable Utility Ladders at the Allison plants in Indianapolis were replaced. The reason for so doing was because the original pins allegedly had a tendency to break or become lost and one employee had supposedly been injured when a faulty pin had given way. (There is evidence that some Allison employees thought the change unnecessary.) In place of the pins, Allison devised a safety latch to put at the ends of the side rail where the pins had originally been. Bridgewater alleges these latches on the subject platform were defective and gave way, thereby causing the guardrails to collapse without warning. However, after the accident, the still operable safety latches were tested with the guardrails in place and held properly. Thus, there was no observable explanation for the latches failing if indeed they did."

The Court of Appeals subsequently concluded that the trial court erred by granting Economy summary judgment when the trial court found no proximate cause, a requisite element of negligence. Specifically, the Court of Appeals held:

"However, proximate causation, as a basic premise, is still the crux of the problem, and proximate causation is generally a question of fact and, thus, not amenable to summary judgment. Department of Commerce v. Glick, (1978) 175 Ind.App. 449, 372 N.E.2d 479; New York Central Railroad Co. v. Cavinder, (1965) 141 Ind.App. 42, 211 N.E.2d 502 [trans. denied ]. 'Only in cases where the facts are undisputed and lend themselves to a single inference or conclusion will questions of ... proximate cause become questions of law for the trial court.' Petroski v. NIPSCO [Northern Indiana Public Service Co. ], [(1976)] 171 Ind.App. [14,] at 24, 354 N.E.2d [736,] at 744 [trans. denied ]. Bridgewater's case, as presented to us, clearly does not motivate us to find Economy's design was not the proximate cause of death as a matter of law."

It is not disputed that the portable utility ladder used by Bridgewater's husband was sold by Economy to Allison twenty-one years before this accident. Moreover, it is agreed that no problem ever was reported to Economy concerning the collapsible platform either on this portable utility ladder or on any of the over two hundred other portable utility ladders Economy had sold during that twenty-one year period except for the accident before us. We also note that the change made by Allison was done totally without the consultation or knowledge of Economy approximately seven years before this accident.

Bridgewater's cause of action rests on the basic proposition that Economy was negligent to design its platform with metal pins by which the safety rails were held on the high lift platform in an upright position. Her claim is that in so designing the platform, Economy reasonably should have foreseen that Allison would replace those pins with an equally defective safety device of its own. In other words, Bridgewater contends that Economy should have foreseen that the original design was so defective that it would create a danger to people using the equipment, that the equipment would be redesigned and replaced during its use and that the redesigned parts also would be defective and would cause an accident. This Court has held:

"Under Ind.R.Tr.P. 56(C), a summary judgment shall be granted if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits and testimony, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. If there is any doubt as to the existence of a factual issue, the motion should be resolved in favor of the non-mover. [citation omitted]. In ascertaining the existence of any doubt, the contents of all pleadings, papers and affidavits are liberally construed in favor of the non-movant. [citation omitted]. Summary judgment should not be granted if the facts give rise to conflicting inferences which would alter the outcome. [citation omitted]. Even though conflicting facts on some elements of a claim exist, summary judgment may be proper when there is no dispute or conflict regarding a fact which is dispositive of the action. [citation omitted]."

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