Estate of Pfafman v. Lancaster

• Decision Date: 18 January 2017
• Docket Number: Court of Appeals Case No. 57A03-1603-CC-516
• Citation: 67 N.E.3d 1150
• Parties: The ESTATE OF Gary PFAFMAN, Appellant–Defendant, v. Lori LANCASTER, Individually, and as Guardian of the Estate of Kole Craig, Appellee–Plaintiff.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

67 N.E.3d 1150

The ESTATE OF Gary PFAFMAN, Appellant–Defendant,
v.
Lori LANCASTER, Individually, and as Guardian of the Estate of Kole Craig, Appellee–Plaintiff.

Court of Appeals Case No. 57A03-1603-CC-516

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

January 18, 2017

Attorney for Appellant : Jeffrey C. Gerish, Plunkett Cooney, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

Attorneys for Appellee : Douglas D. Small, Edmond W. Foley, Foley & Small, South Bend, Indiana

Najam, Judge.

Statement of the Case

1] The Estate of Gary Pfafman ("Pfafman's Estate") appeals the trial court's grant of a new trial following a jury verdict in favor of the Estate on a complaint filed by Lori Lancaster, Individually and as Guardian of the Estate of Kole Craig ("Craig's Estate"). Pfafman's Estate presents two issues for our review, one of which is dispositive, namely, whether the trial court complied with the requirements of Indiana Trial Rule 59(J) when it ordered a new trial on the grounds that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence and that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury's verdict. We reverse.¹

Facts and Procedural History

[2] In 2004, Roger Diehm had a feed barn² ("the barn") built on his farm in Noble County. Diehm asked his brother-in-law Pfafman, an electrician and sole proprietor of a small business doing electrical work, for help with the electrical work in the barn. Through a bartering arrangement, Pfafman agreed to help Diehm. Diehm, who had previously worked as a general contractor and developer, assisted Pfafman with some aspects of the electrical work in the barn. Diehm began the work by himself when he "ran the trenching and got all the electrical to the barn." Tr. at 702. Diehm did "80 to 90 percent" of the electrical work in the new barn by himself. Id. at 954. Pfafman then "set the panel" and installed the lights. Id. at 702.

[3] In particular, Pfafman: purchased and installed a service panel box and circuit breakers for the barn; connected the panel box to the power line running to the barn from an old barn; installed junction boxes in the barn; installed a ground wire and ground rod³ ; installed electrical switches, including ground fault circuit interrupter ("GFCI" or "GFI") plugs; and installed all of the electrical connections. At that time, in 2004, Diehm did not need electricity to run to two water troughs located in the barn, but "he wanted wires run back" to the troughs in the event that he would install de-icing units ("de-icers") for the troughs at some time in the future.

[67 N.E.3d 1152

Id. at 485. Accordingly, Pfafman installed "a ten-foot piece of pigtail that [he] rolled up and taped and fastened" in a junction box.⁴ Id. at 488. Pfafman told Diehm that the pigtail "wasn't GFI[-]protected and it should [be] GFCI protected before [doing] anything down in there." Id. at 485.

4] In 2007, Diehm, without consulting Pfafman or requesting help, purchased and installed de-icers for the water troughs in the barn. The instruction booklets for the de-icers stated in relevant part that, when installing the de-icers, "a qualified electrician [shall] install a properly grounded receptacle outlet" to the heater. Id. at 249. Despite that instruction, and despite Pfafman's instructions in 2004 that Diehm would have to install GFCI protection if he ever installed de-icers, Diehm did not install GFCI protection for the de-icers. Diehm also reversed the positive and negative wiring to one of the connectors to the de-icers. And Diehm left the de-icers in the troughs and plugged in year-round, contrary to the instruction on the de-icers' labels, which stated that they should be "store[d] indoors after [the] winter season," and the written instructions for the de-icers, which stated that the units should be unplugged "when not in use or before removal from the tank." Id. at 248, 250.

[5] During the evening of July 28, 2010, then sixteen-year-old Kole Craig was socializing with Diehm's children at the Diehm home on the farm. A severe thunderstorm had passed through the area earlier that day, including "a really big strike" of lightning nearby. Id. at 137. In fact, at approximately 4:00 that afternoon, lightning struck a tree on the farm, and Diehm had noticed that the lightning strike "had burnt up an outlet or two in the kitchen." Id. at 942. And at some point during the evening, Diehm's daughter Lynn was in the house when her little brother Samuel told her that there was a dead heifer near the barn. Lynn decided to go check on the heifer, and Craig volunteered to go with her.

[6] Lynn and Craig made their way to the barn and went inside. They could see the heifer lying on the ground outside the "head gates" to the barn. Id. at 121. Lynn started to move towards the heifer, but Craig stopped her and told her that he would check on it. So Lynn backed up, and Craig "grabbed onto the head gate and was like leaning and he stopped." Id. After a short time, Lynn noticed that Craig was not moving, and she asked him if he was okay.

Craig did not respond, so Lynn touched him and felt a "vibration." Id. at 122. Lynn soon realized that Craig was "getting shocked" and she "pulled him off" and "laid him down" on the ground. Id. Lynn saw blood coming out of Craig's mouth, and Craig did not have a pulse. Lynn had "accidentally called" her mom on her cell phone during that time, so Lynn's mom heard everything and called 9–1–1. Id.

[7] Emergency medical technicians arrived and transported Craig to a hospital in Fort Wayne, and Craig was ultimately transported to Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis. Craig had sustained an electric shock, which caused him to go into "full cardiac arrest" and ventricular fibrillation.⁵ Id. at 149. As a result, Craig suffered a severe, permanent anoxic brain injury, and he was comatose for several days. Craig underwent months of therapy for cognitive, memory, executive functioning, and processing deficits.

[8] An investigation into what caused the electric shock revealed several factors that

[67 N.E.3d 1153

contributed to the short-circuiting of the de-icer and electrification of the head gates. A summary of the results of that investigation is as follows:

During the midafternoon of July 28, 2010, thunderstorms passed through Noble County, including over the Diehm farm. The Diehm farm experienced several lightning strikes, including one by a tree near the Diehm's home. It was near that tree that the underground electrical service from the main service disconnect ran back to the old barn and from there branching out to other locations, including the feed barn. With the lightning strike, an electrical surge from the lightning passed through that electrical service and onto the feed barn. That power surge led to the deicer in the north waterer short [-]circuiting. The electrical surge caused the fine nichrome wire coil in the interior ring of the deicer to break apart with the electrical surge fusing the insulating magnesium oxide around the coil and that fused material provided a connection from the energized nichrome coil wire to the steel shroud of the heater. The shroud was connected to the ground wire within the de-icer's power cord and, as Mr. Diehm had cross-wired the plug, the electrical current flowed back to the service panel box . Because Mr. Pfafman had not installed a bonding jumper at the service panel box, the electrical current did not flow to the breaker . Consequently, the breaker did not trip to de-energize the circuit. Instead, electrical current flowed to the panel box and ground wire and energized the metal feed barn, including the metal stanchion, which Kole Craig would eventually come to touch. In addition, because GFCI protection had not been installed on the deicer circuit, there was no GFCI plug or breaker in place that would have tripped with the short circuit and thereby de-energized the line . As a result, when Kole Craig accompanied Lynn Diehm to check on the dead steer, the feed barn and the metal stanchion were hot with electricity.

Appellees' Br. at 20–21 (emphases added).

9] Craig's Estate filed a complaint against Pfafman, Farm Innovators,⁶ and Cooper Industries⁷ alleging negligence and product liability, respectively.⁸ Craig's Estate dismissed Cooper Industries prior to trial "due to a lack of evidence establishing liability." Appellees' Br. at 7. Craig's Estate's "claims against Farm Innovators were settled before trial." Id. And, "[p]rior to suit being filed, a settlement was reached" with Diehm. Id.

[10] On November 2, 2015, a five-day jury trial began on Craig's Estate's claims against Pfafman. Craig's Estate argued that Pfafman was negligent in the following ways: he failed to install a "bonding jumper"⁹ when he installed the service panel box in the barn, in violation of the National Electrical Code ("NEC"); he used "type NM wire"¹⁰ without placing it inside conduit, in violation of the NEC; and he

[67 N.E.3d 1154

failed to install GFCI protection to the lines placed for future use in the de-icers, in violation of the NEC. Pfafman's Estate¹¹ argued that Pfafman did not breach his duty of care to Craig and, in the alternative, that his alleged breach of duty was not a proximate cause of Craig's injuries. In particular, Pfafman's Estate named Diehm and Farm Innovators as non-parties and argued that the jury could find that any one of the breaches of duty by Diehm and Farm Innovators proximately caused...