DeLeon v. Commercial Manufacturing & Supply Co.

• Court: California Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: WOOLPERT; ANDREEN, Acting P.J., and HAMLIN
• Citation: DeLeon v. Commercial Manufacturing & Supply Co., 195 Cal.Rptr. 867, 148 Cal.App.3d 336 (Cal. App. 1983)
• Decision Date: 26 October 1983
• Parties: Lucia DeLEON, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. COMMERCIAL MANUFACTURING AND SUPPLY CO., Defendant and Respondent. Civ. 7333/F560.

Page 867

195 Cal.Rptr. 867

148 Cal.App.3d 336

Lucia DeLEON, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. COMMERCIAL MANUFACTURING AND SUPPLY CO., Defendant and Respondent.

Civ. 7333/F560.

Court of Appeal, Fifth District, California.

Oct. 26, 1983.

Hearing Denied Dec. 22, 1983.

[148 Cal.App.3d 340] Richard Devirian, Wilmington, for plaintiff and appellant.

Stephen Knudsen, Parichan, Renberg, Crossman & Harvey Law Corporation, Fresno, for defendant and respondent.

OPINION

WOOLPERT, Associate Justice.

Is custom made factory equipment which is safe to use in some locations "defective" because in a particular location its use may bring the operator in contact with an adjacent rotating line shaft built and maintained by the plant owners? In this case the trial court granted a summary judgment in favor of the defendant equipment manufacturer on the theory that the manufacturer was not responsible for choosing the location of the equipment in the fruit processing line; therefore, the equipment having no inherent defect, could not be the cause of the plaintiff-employee's injury. We reverse the judgment on both the strict liability and negligence theories urged by plaintiff, there being issues of fact.

In her complaint plaintiff Lucia DeLeon alleged that while acting within the scope of her employment with California Canners and Growers (Cal Can), she was injured when her right arm was traumatically severed by defective equipment negligently designed, constructed, sold, distributed and maintained by respondent Commercial Manufacturing and Supply Co. (Commercial). Our factual statement is taken from the excerpts of depositions attached in support of the motion for summary judgment and from uncontradicted portions of the pleadings.

On August 13, 1980, plaintiff was cleaning a shaker bin or holding bin at the Cal Can plant when her arm got caught in an exposed rotating line shaft and was traumatically severed from her body.

The holding bin which plaintiff was cleaning functions as a reservoir to hold peaches when there is a work stoppage in the line on which the peaches are sorted, cleaned and canned. When in operation, the bin shakes at a very slow speed on eccentric bearings; this vibration moves the peaches forward onto a conveyor belt, to be sorted by cannery workers. A latch on one side of the bin allows the front plate to be moved to facilitate washing. The cleanup worker could safely stand on a platform, which appears to be the platform the cannery workers stand on to reach the conveyor belt, and use water from high pressure nozzles on a hose to reach the back of the bin.

An overhead line shaft is located approximately three feet above the bin. The shaft is attached to and supplies power for a small elevator adjacent to the bin. It has nothing to do with operation of the bin and was both manufactured and installed by Cal Can in 1961.

Plaintiff testified she had climbed onto the belt, which was stationary at the time, and was standing in front of the bin hosing it down when her arm got caught in the line shaft. No one had instructed her about safe work habits. She could not recall exactly where her feet were positioned at the time. After the accident, the line shaft was enclosed with covers made and installed by Cal Can.

The bin is one of several specially manufactured by Commercial to replace older, obsolete bins. At the time of the accident, Commercial had an ongoing relationship to sell parts or make materials for Cal Can. Although there was nothing complex about designing or manufacturing the bins which would prevent Cal Can from making them, Cal Can did not have the time to make the number of bins required, so it contracted the work out to Commercial.

Nate Hagopian went to Cal Can on behalf of Commercial to see the prototype bin which Cal Can had made and had set up for operation. He made pencil sketches of the bin, measured the bin and its associated parts, then drew up a diagram of a proposed product which was similar to the prototype bin but was constructed differently. This drawing was submitted to and approved by Cal Can plant manager Olympia Marrozzo. The length and height of the bins were specially made to fit the particular requirements of Cal Can's system. When the bins were completed, Cal Can picked them up and installed them in the plant.

Nate said he had seen the bins twice since their installation while on visits to the plant, but had never seen them in operation. He had never noticed the shaft overhead, did not know what it was, and had not been interested in it because it had nothing to do with the product which Commercial built. He had no formal engineering background, such as design or engineering courses, but had learned his trade through practical experience.

Declarations of other Commercial employees who might have had reason to visit the Cal Can site--Lawrence Hagopian, vice president; Harry Hagopian, a consultant; and Tom Gooding, an independent sales representative[148 Cal.App.3d 342] --indicated they too had never "noticed" the line shaft before the accident occurred.

In opposition to the motion for summary judgment, plaintiff attached the declaration of Martin Siegel, a mechanical engineer and professor at the University of Southern California. Siegel stated that a design engineer should design and manufacture equipment so that it can be safely operated and cleaned in the area in which it is to be installed. It is below the standard of practice to design equipment without considering hazards from adjacent equipment or components. Furthermore, a trained engineer and prudent manufacturer would have investigated the area surrounding the bin, noticed the dangers from the unguarded line shaft, and taken protective measures such as relocating the line shaft or bins, or recommending that a warning be placed on or near the bin.

The purpose of summary judgment procedures is to protect the parties from spurious or meritless complaints or answers and to expedite the administration of justice by eliminating unnecessary trials. (Wiler v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. (1979) 95 Cal.App.3d 621, 625, 157 Cal.Rptr. 248; McCreery v. Eli Lilly & Co. (1978) 87 Cal.App.3d 77, 81, 150 Cal.Rptr. 730.) The rules relating to summary judgment are well settled and need not be repeated here. (Stationers Corp. v. Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. (1965) 62 Cal.2d 412, 417, 42 Cal.Rptr. 449, 398 P.2d 785.)

STRICT LIABILITY

In determining whether a summary judgment should be granted a defendant it is important to distinguish between legal and factual issues. An attempt to state the respective positions of the parties may be quite revealing. Here, Commercial believes that its mere manufacture of the bin according to the purchaser's specifications, and its subsequent assembly into the fruit processing line by the purchaser, placed the full responsibility for safe operating conditions in the hands of the plant operator, assuming of course that the bin itself had no defect.

Plaintiff contends the bin was designed for use in a certain location and therefore the "product" is not to be considered separate and apart from its surroundings.

The law may support both positions. However, assuming we correctly state the parties' contentions, each party presents an important variation in the facts. Commercial assumes it had little or nothing to do with the safe operating conditions of the fruit processing line; it merely filled an order for a specific piece of equipment with no responsibility for its use. Plaintiff urges facts showing the plant operator relied on the expertise of Commercial when it invited Commercial employees to come to the plant to view the proposed bin configuration and to construct it properly as a part of the ongoing plant operation. Therefore, we do not have a clear-cut legal question of component part liability, but instead find a factual issue of involvement in design which will permit variations in the applicable rules of law depending upon how the trier of fact determines the extent of Commercial's design responsibility.

Plaintiff has the burden of showing that the product was in a defective condition and that the allegedly defective product proximately caused the injury. (Miller v. Los Angeles County Flood Control Dist. (1973) 8 Cal.3d 689, 704, 106 Cal.Rptr. 1, 505 P.2d 193.) Further, plaintiff's injuries must be caused by a defect in the product. (Daly v. General Motors Corp. (1978) 20 Cal.3d 725, 733, 144 Cal.Rptr. 380, 575 P.2d 1162.) However, strict liability encompasses both design and manufacturing of a product. (Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc. (1963) 59 Cal.2d 57, 64, 27 Cal.Rptr. 697, 377 P.2d 897; Thomas v. General Motors Corp. (1970) 13 Cal.App.3d 81, 88, 91 Cal.Rptr. 301.)

The problem with the defective design approach is that the bin itself was not defective and its design did not create the danger in the sense that the bin became dangerous. Instead, the design of the bin may have made it dangerous only in the context of adjacent machinery, i.e., the line shaft, which was unrelated to the bin's operation or use. Although plaintiff contends that a product can be defective when integrated in a system, the context of the case from which she extracts this proposition is not the same. In Daly v. General Motors Corp., supra, 20 Cal.3d 725, 144 Cal.Rptr. 380, 575 P.2d 1162, a plaintiff sued the manufacturer of a car with an allegedly defective component. The court upheld an instruction which required jurors to consider the automobile as a whole rather than isolating the defective component, and to consider whether other safety features in the automobile made it nondefective. The present case would be analogous only if a defective component of the bin possibly made the bin as a whole defective.

A duty to warn or disclose danger arises when an article is or should be known to be dangerous for its intended use, either inherently or because of defects. (4 Witkin, Summary of Cal.Law (8th ed....