Dewey v. American Stair Glide Corp.

• Decision Date: 11 October 1977
• Docket Number: No. KCD,KCD
• Citation: 557 S.W.2d 643
• Parties: Richard DEWEY, Appellant-Plaintiff, v. AMERICAN STAIR GLIDE CORPORATION, a corporation, Respondent-Defendant. 27570.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 643

557 S.W.2d 643

200 U.S.P.Q. 632

Richard DEWEY, Appellant-Plaintiff, v. AMERICAN STAIR GLIDE CORPORATION, a corporation, Respondent-Defendant.

No. KCD 27570.

Missouri Court of Appeals, Kansas City District.

Oct. 11, 1977.

M. Randall Vanet, Lowe, Kokjer, Kircher, Wharton & Bowman, Kansas City, for appellant-plaintiff.

Robert L. Driscoll, Stinson, Mag, Thomson, McEvers, & Fizzell, Kansas City, for respondent-defendant.

Before SOMERVILLE, P. J., and WASSERSTROM and TURNAGE, JJ.

TURNAGE, Judge.

Richard Dewey brought suit against American Stair Glide Corporation for damages for the alleged appropriation of a novel idea by Stair Glide resulting in its unjust enrichment.

By agreement the cause was tried by the court without a jury and the court entered a judgment for Stair Glide.

On this appeal Dewey claims essentially the court erred in finding his recovery was barred by the shop right doctrine and this court should enter judgment in his favor for both actual and punitive damages. Reversed.

The trial court made findings of fact and conclusions of law. The following facts were substantially those found by the court.

Stair Glide is engaged in the manufacture of elevator chairs. These chairs, which operate on rails, are designed to accommodate persons who cannot climb stairs. The rails are affixed at the side of the stairway and the chair moves up and down by means of a cable operated by an electric motor.

In August, 1970, Stair Glide first became aware of a problem in the operation of the chair when it was notified an owner in Virginia had been thrown from the chair when a gear had stripped allowing the chair to accelerate to the bottom. Thereafter, other such failures occurred and resultant personal injuries and claims were made against the company. Eventually 32 failures were reported.

Stair Glide employed a metallurgist who examined the motors and determined the gears were underdesigned for the chair. Stair Glide realized it had about 2,000 chairs in use and it would be very difficult to trace and notify all of those customers.

Stair Glide consulted with a number of firms in an effort to have a safety device developed which could be fitted on the chairs already in use and which could be installed on new chairs as they were manufactured. However, none of these firms developed a satisfactory solution.

Stair Glide contracted with Midwest Research Institute (MRI) to help solve the problem. MRI developed a testing method to test chairs in use to determine those most likely to fail. A program was developed to test all chairs in use about October, 1970. As a result, a large number of motors were replaced. However, the need remained to develop a built-in safety device which could be installed to prevent a chair from suddenly accelerating.

MRI developed an internal safety device, but this did not prove to be the answer. During this time Stair Glide had heard proposals for everything from a large spring located at the bottom of the stairway which would allow the chair to bounce, to a dragchute to be attached to the chair. Between these extremes were all types of mechanically and electrically activated devices placed at every conceivable place on the chair and the tracks.

Dewey was employed in Stair Glide's shop as a welder on the track and frame assembly. He had been employed by Stair Glide about a year and had been a welder for about 24 years. He was not employed by Stair Glide to do any engineering or design concept work.

Dewey first learned of the problem concerning the chairs in October, 1970, through "shop talk." Dewey did not know the cause of the failures until the first part of November, 1970.

On the morning of Thursday, January 7, 1971, Dewey showed a rough sketch of a proposed safety device to Don Robertson, the general manager of Stair Glide. After looking at the sketch, both concluded it was too complicated. At about 10 minutes until 12:00 on that same day, an idea occurred to Dewey for a safety device and he gathered some scrap material around his work bench and started to make a mock up of this idea. He was soon stopped by his foreman and when Dewey told him what he was doing, the foreman informed him he was not to do that on company time. Dewey then returned to his regular duties until lunch time, but then spent his lunch hour collecting parts from the scrap barrel and built a model of his idea for a safety device. Dewey used the company welder and cutting torch as well as some of his own tools. Dewey testified employees were allowed to take home scrap parts such as he used.

The rough model was put together in about 15 or 20 minutes on Dewey's lunch break and he then went to Robertson's office and told him he wanted to show him what he had done. At the end of Dewey's lunch hour, Robertson and another employee went to Dewey's work bench where Dewey demonstrated the device. This device worked on the principle of a knurled knob being thrown against the cable so as to lock it against the striker plate. Dewey had not yet developed a triggering mechanism, that is, a way in which the knob could be thrown against the cable automatically when the chair began to accelerate. However, his device did demonstrate it was possible to snub or stop the cable in movement by forcing the knob against it. After he had viewed the demonstration, Robertson stated he liked the idea.

After Dewey had demonstrated his model, he did no further work on his idea that day, but spent the remainder of the afternoon at his regular duties. Robertson stated he had no knowledge that Dewey worked on the device on that day other than during his lunch hour between 12:00 and 12:30 P.M.

When Dewey left work he asked permission from Robertson to do work at home, but Robertson neither encouraged nor discouraged him. Dewey took the model home and called his step-son, who had some drafting training to help make a drawing of his idea. That night at home Dewey made a drawing of his safety device which he stated included all of the mechanical applications of his idea, including a triggering device.

In order to prove the day on which he had the idea and on which he made the drawing, Dewey took his drawing to a neighbor and had him and his wife sign the drawing with the time and date. Dewey returned home and made a copy of the drawing. Dewey called Robertson about 10:15 that evening and told him he had some drawings he wanted to show him the next day.

The next morning Dewey took his drawings to Robertson, but he was told he would have to show them to Schroeder, who was the engineer who worked for MRI and was assigned to the Stair Glide problem.

Later that day Dewey showed his drawing to Robertson and Schroeder and other officials of Stair Glide. At this time Dewey fully explained his idea and its operation. Incorporated in Dewey's idea was a centrifugal clutch which MRI had used in its safety device. At this time Dewey gave one copy of his drawing to his immediate supervisor who in turn showed it to Robertson and Schroeder as Dewey explained it to them. This drawing was never returned to Dewey.

After the explanation of the drawing, Robertson requested Dewey to strengthen a bar on his model. Dewey thickened the backup bar of the snubbing device and attached a pulley. He did not build a complete working model of his idea.

After Dewey had done the additional work on his model, the safety device was attached to the top of a test track and a cable was run through the pulley and a chair was weighted with 400 pounds. The cable was then released to simulate the chair suddenly accelerating and each time the chair was stopped instantly by Dewey's safety device. Everyone was satisfied with Dewey's device, except some concern was voiced about damage to the cable when the device snubbed or stopped it.

A day or two after Friday, January 8, Dewey's immediate supervisor arranged a demonstration of the safety header device developed by Dewey. The device worked without damage to the cable. MRI was then authorized to build an initial prototype of the device.

Thomas Scofield, a patent attorney, testified the drawing made by Dewey at home was not a finished engineering drawing, but was certainly not a rough sketch. He gave as his opinion the drawing would have been entirely adequate for filing a patent application and for making complete production drawings. He stated it was his opinion Dewey's device was conceived when he formed the mental picture of the entire working device and it was perfected by the drawing which Dewey made on the evening of January 7.

On Monday, January 11, 1971, Dewey mentioned to his immediate supervisor that he wanted compensation for the use of his idea. He was informed the company had no money available for employee ideas. Dewey then consulted a patent attorney who wrote a letter to Stair Glide on January 14 notifying it of Dewey's claim to be compensated for his idea.

Upon receipt of the letter from Dewey's attorney, Stair Glide referred it to their own patent attorney. On February 17, 1971, Stair Glide was advised by its attorney that it could make full use of Dewey's idea without compensation to him because Dewey had not contributed any idea under the shop right doctrine. After receipt of this advice, Robertson decided to continue with the development of the safety header device. No production model of such device had been produced prior to that time. Thereafter the safety header device was manufactured and used by Stair Glide.

The court did not accept as true Stair Glide's evidence tending to show Dewey did not have a novel idea or contribute to the solution of the problem. Robertson testified Dewey's only contribution was to weld a few pieces together and use Robertson's idea to place the device at the top of the stairs. Stair Glide's other employees also sought to minimize Dewey's contribution. However, Schroeder testified the first idea he saw or heard about a safety device at the top of the stairs...