Coons v. A.F. Chapman Corp.

• Decision Date: 18 October 2006
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 03-11900-MBB.
• Citation: 460 F.Supp.2d 209
• Parties: William COONS and Melissa Coons, Individually and as P.P.A. of Peter Coons and Nevaeh Coons, Minor Children, Plaintiffs, v. A.F. CHAPMAN CORP., and John Doe, Defendants and Third Party Plaintiff, v. Industrial Knife Company, Inc., Third Party Defendant and Fourth Party Plaintiff, v. Heritage Knife Company, Fourth Party Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

460 F.Supp.2d 209

William COONS and Melissa Coons, Individually and as P.P.A. of Peter Coons and Nevaeh Coons, Minor Children, Plaintiffs, v. A.F. CHAPMAN CORP., and John Doe, Defendants and Third Party Plaintiff, v. Industrial Knife Company, Inc., Third Party Defendant and Fourth Party Plaintiff, v. Heritage Knife Company, Fourth Party Defendant.

Civil Action No. 03-11900-MBB.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

October 18, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Gregory A. Carrara, Darrell Dayian, Carrara Dayian PC, Providence, RI, Thomas J. Hunt, Thomas J. Hunt & Associates, New Bedford, MA, for Fourth Party Defendant.

Brian M. Cullen, J. Terrance Gillan, Law Offices of Thomas M. Niarchos, Boston, MA, for Defendants and Third Party Plaintiff.

Amato Anthony DeLuca, Michael T. Eskey, DeLuca & Weizenbaum, Ltd., Providence, RI, for Plaintiffs.

Todd Gordon, Peter J. Haley, Gordon Haley LLP, Boston, MA, for Third Party Defendant and Fourth Party Plaintiff.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER RE: DEFENDANT A.F. CHAPMAN CORPORATION'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT (DOCKET ENTRY # 60); DEFENDANT HERITAGE KNIFE COMPANY'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT (DOCKET ENTRY # 63); INDUSTRIAL KNIFE COMPANY, INC.'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT (DOCKET ENTRY # 66)

BOWLER, United States Magistrate Judge.

Pending before this court are the above styled summary judgment motions in this personal injury action involving an injury to plaintiff William Coons' left hand at his place of employment, Retail Printing Corporation ("Retail"), in Taunton, Massachusetts. Plaintiff William Coons ("Coons") seeks recovery for negligence, breach of warranty and product liability from defendant and third party plaintiff A.F. Chapman Corporation ("Chapman"), defendant John Doe Company, third party defendant and fourth party plaintiff Industrial Knife Company, Inc. ("Industrial") and fourth party defendant Heritage Knife Company ("Heritage").

In separate third party complaints, Chapman seeks contribution and indemnity from Industrial and Industrial seeks contribution and indemnity from Heritage. Heritage, in turn, filed a cross claim against Chapman for contribution and indemnity.

Chapman, Industrial and Heritage move for summary judgment on the negligence, breach of warranty and product liability claims asserted by Coons. Industrial additionally moves for summary judgment against Chapman on the indemnification claims in Chapman's third party complaint. Finally, Chapman and Heritage request dismissal of the loss of consortium claims brought by plaintiffs Peter and Nevaeh Coons, Coons' two minor children, and Melissa Coons, Coons' wife. Having conducted a hearing and taken the motions under advisement, the motions (Docket Entry # # 60, 63 & 66) are ripe for review.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

"Summary judgment is appropriate when the `pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.'" Federal Refinance Co., Inc. v. Klock, 352 F.3d 16, 30 (1st Cir.2003) (quoting Rule 56). A "genuine" issue means "`that the evidence about the fact is such that a reasonable jury could resolve the point in favor of the nonmoving party.'" Velez-Rivera v. Agosto-Alicea, 437 F.3d 145, 150 (1st Cir.2006). A "fact is `material' if it is `one that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law.'" Id. Each summary judgment motion is reviewed separately and factual disputes are resolved in favor of the nonmoving party. See Saenger Organization, Inc. v. Nationwide Insurance Licensing Associates, Inc., 119 F.3d 55, 56 (1st Cir.1997); Wightman v. Springfield Terminal Railway Co., 100 F.3d 228, 230 (1st Cir.1996) ("cross motions for summary judgment neither alter the basic Rule 56 standard, nor warrant the grant of summary judgment per se").

The moving party bears the initial burden of informing the "court of the basis for the motion, and identifying those portions of the record which it believes demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of material fact." DeNovellis v. Shalala, 124 F.3d 298, 306 (1st Cir.1997). "As to issues on which the summary judgment target bears the ultimate burden of proof, she [or he] cannot rely on an absence of competent evidence, but must affirmatively point to specific facts that demonstrate the existence of an authentic dispute." McCarthy v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 56 F.3d 313, 315 (1st Cir.1995); accord DeNovellis v. Shalala, 124 F.3d at 306.

"Material facts of record set forth in the statement required to be served by the moving party will be deemed for purposes of the motion to be admitted by opposing parties unless controverted by the statement required to be served by opposing parties." LR. 56.1; see also Cochran v. Quest Software, Inc., 328 F.3d 1, 12 (1st Cir.2003) (the plaintiff's failure to contest date in LR. 56.1 statement of material facts caused date to be admitted on summary judgment); Stonkus v. City of Brockton School Dept., 322 F.3d 97, 102 (1st Cir.2003) (citing LR. 56.1 and deeming admitted undisputed material facts that the plaintiff failed to controvert).

Viewed in Coons' favor as the nonmoving party, the summary judgment record is as follows. Citations to the record are provided only for direct quotes.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Born in 1963, Coons, a resident of Lakeville, Massachusetts, began working in the printing industry in 1986 at South Shore Publishing Company ("South Shore"). He began as a stacker stacking finished product and then as a roll tender keeping the presses fed with rolls of paper. Thereafter, he worked as an assistant pressman responsible for setting the ink and color and then as a pressman with responsibilities including changing knives.

Coons first changed knives on presses manufactured by the Harris Corporation ("Harris") and thereafter on presses manufactured by Goss International Corporation ("Goss"). He has a press manual for a Harris press but lacks a manual for Goss machinery.

Cutting and folding machines attach to each press in order to cut and fold the paper. The cutter and folder contains one or more knife boxes. A knife box, in turn, consists of "two pieces of metal bolted together with a knife blade sandwiched in between" the metal pieces. (Docket Entry # 63, Ex. 2, p. 24).

With respect to a Harris press and a Harris cutter and folder, the pressman takes the knife box out of the folder and places the box on a table. He then loosens certain bolts and lifts up half of the box to expose the knife. When Coons first learned the process, the knife consisted of four segmented blades five inches long and two to three inches wide. The pressman removed the four separate blades from the "one uni-blade" by picking each up from the non-blade side. After removing the old knife blade, the pressman placed the new knife inside and then put back the removed half box and bolted the two halves back together.

Coons first worked on the Goss C700 press at Treasure Chest, a company that had acquired South Shore, for "maybe a year" before leaving his job as a pressman at Treasure Chest in 1992 and starting work as a supervisor at Retail. (Docket Entry # 63, Ex. 2, pp. 19 & 36). Like Retail, Treasure Chest was in the commercial printing business. During the time at Treasure Chest, Coons' duties included changing knives on the Goss C700 cutter and folder which at the time had segmented knife blades.¹ When Coons began working on the Goss C700 press and the cutter and folder at Treasure Chest, he received informal training consisting of "a brief discussion about the folder and how it operated." (Docket Entry # 63, Ex. 2, pp. 20-21).

Changing the knife blades in a knife box on the Goss C700 press with a Goss C700 cutter and folder at Treasure Chest differed from the process used on a Harris press. The box itself was not taken apart and separated into halves but instead the end was removed after loosening the bolts holding the box together. The pressman then "would slide out the wooden cheekwoods" leaving the knife exposed. (Docket Entry # 63, Ex. 2, p. 43). After opening or loosening the box, the pressman removed the segmented knife blades with his hands or a pair of pliers. Coons more often than not used a pair of pliers as opposed to his hands and, up until the accident, had never cut himself during the process. After removing the used blade, Coons oftentimes picked up the sheathed blade with his hands and dropped it into place. Before locking up and reassembling the box, Coons would remove the sheath.

An alternative and quicker method is to replace the knife box with "a knife box that [is] not in use." (Docket Entry # 63, Ex. 2, p. 25). This method does not shut down the press for as long a time thereby saving valuable production time. It consists of stopping the press, removing the knife box, replacing it with a newly rebuilt knife box and "chang[ing] the cutter rubbers." (Docket Entry # 63, Ex. 2, p. 61).

The knife changing procedures were the same "for the most part" at both Treasure Chest and Retail. (Docket Entry # 63, Ex. 2, p. 47). At Retail, Coons was responsible for supervising four press crews during each twelve hour shift. In 1992, the company had two Harris presses and two Goss C500 presses. Changing the knife box on a Goss C500 press was similar to the process of removing the two halves of a knife box on a Harris press, replacing the worn blade and bolting the two halves back together. (Docket Entry # 63, Ex. 2, p. 48). As to the segmented blades, they were the same for the Goss C500 press and the Goss C700 press. The 20 inch blade consisted of "four or five inch segments." Id.

During Coons' employ prior to the accident, Retail acquired four Goss C700 presses² Although the first Goss C700 press acquired in 1994 used segmented blades in the knife box, Retail later changed to using one...