Charles J. Mitchell and Karen Y. Mitchell v. Hyster Co. and Bode-Finn Co., 90-LW-0102
| Decision Date | 24 January 1990 |
| Docket Number | C-880626,90-LW-0102 |
| Parties | Charles J. MITCHELL and Karen Y. Mitchell, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. HYSTER COMPANY and Bode-Finn Company, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
Civil Appeal from: Court of Common Pleas.
Condit & Dressing Co., L.P.A. and John W. Dressing, Cincinnati, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Taft Stettinius & Hollister, Gerald J. Rapien, and Christine M. Zimmer, Cincinnati, and Phelan, Pope & John, Ltd., and John M. Christian, Chicago, Illinois for defendant-appellee Hyster Company.
Halaby & Halaby and Peter S. Edgar, Cincinnati, for defendant-appellee Bode-Finn Company.
DECISION.
This cause came on to be heard upon the appeal, the transcript of the docket, journal entries and original papers from the Court of Common Pleas of Hamilton County, Ohio, the transcript of the proceedings, and the briefs and arguments of counsel.
Plaintiffs-appellants, Charles and Karen Mitchell, filed a products liability suit based upon theories of strict liability and negligence against defendants-appellees, Hyster Company and Bode-Finn Company. A jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendants. The trial court denied the plaintiffs' motion for a new trial, and they appealed.
On appeal, the plaintiffs raise five assignments of error directed to the instructions given to the jury and the admissibility of certain evidence. We find no merit in these assignments and, therefore, affirm the judgment of the trial court.
On July 24, 1980, Charles Mitchell sustained injuries while operating a forklift in the warehouse of his employer, Parkview Markets. Hyster Company manufactured the forklift and Bode-Finn Company distributed the forklift. Parkview Markets installed a two-way radio to the underside of the overhead guard in the forklift. The radio was mounted to the right and above the forklift operator's head.
The accident causing Charles Mitchell's injuries occurred when the forklift he was operating struck a short concrete-filled steel post in the warehouse at a speed of one to two miles per hour. The impact caused him to move forward and upward out of the seat and to hit his head. In answers to interrogatories, the jury found that the sole proximate cause of the plaintiffs' injuries was the radio installed by Parkview Markets.
In their first assignment of error, the plaintiffs contend that the trial court erred in instructing the jury that "[i]f a manufacturer, such as Hyster Company, sells a product such as the forklift in question in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user, it is subject to liability for physical harm to the user." The plaintiffs argue that they need not establish that the forklift was unreasonably dangerous.
In a products liability action wherein the plaintiff alleges a design defect in the product, the plaintiff need not prove that the product is both in a defective condition and unreasonably dangerous. Cremeans v. International Harvester Co. (1983), 6 Ohio St.3d 232, 452 N.E.2d 1281. The injured plaintiff need only establish that the product design is more dangerous than an ordinary consumer would expect when the product is used in an intended or reasonably foreseeable manner, or that the benefits of the challenged design do not outweigh the risk inherent in such design, to show that the product design is in a defective condition. Knitz v. Minster Machine Co. (1982), 69 Ohio St.2d 460, 432 N.E.2d 814, certiorari denied (1982), 459 U.S. 857, 103 S.Ct. 127. We, therefore, find that the instruction given by the court to the jury was incorrect.
However, we find that this improper phrase, when considered in connection with the entire instructions of the court to the jury, resulted in no prejudicial error to the plaintiffs. See Centrello v. Basky (1955), 164 Ohio St. 41, 128 N.E.2d 80. After using the phrase "unreasonably dangerous to the user," the trial court proceeded to explain in detail that in deciding whether the forklift was defective, the jury had to apply the consumer-expectation test or the risk-benefit test as provided in Knitz. The trial court specifically instructed the jury to determine "whether the forklift failed to perform as safely as an ordinary user would expect when used in the intended or a reasonably foreseeable manner" or "whether the risks of danger inherent in the design used outweighed the benefit of such design" to decide whether the design of the forklift was in a defective condition. Since the erroneous statement to the jury, when read in relation to the whole charge, was not prejudicial to the plaintiffs, we overrule the first assignment of error.
In their second assignment of error, the plaintiffs contend that the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury that the standards for forklifts set forth by the American National Standards Institute could not be considered in reviewing the strict-liability claim. However, we find that the reference to the industry standards in the charge to the jury was clearly limited to the plaintiffs' negligence claims. In its instructions to the jury, the trial court initially discussed the plaintiffs' strict-liability claim. The trial court clearly...
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