Fleck v. Titan Tire Corp.
| Decision Date | 04 October 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 98-10257-BC.,98-10257-BC. |
| Citation | 177 F.Supp.2d 605 |
| Parties | Thomas G. FLECK, Jr., Plaintiff, v. TITAN TIRE CORPORATION, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan |
Daniel W. White, Alpena, MI, for plaintiff.
Dennis S. Kayes, Matthew J. Lund, Detroit, MI, for defendant.
The plaintiff commenced an action in the Alpena County, Michigan Circuit Court contending that he was severely injured when a tire designed and manufactured by the defendant exploded while the plaintiff was trying to mount it on a wheel rim. The plaintiff alleges that the tire's design was defective and that it was not reasonably fit for its intended purpose. The defendant removed this action to this Court on the basis of the Court's diversity jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. § 1332, and has now moved for summary judgment. The Court entertained the arguments of the parties through their respective counsel in open court on April 12, 2001. Because the Court determines that the defendant before the Court did not design the tire, and that there is no genuine issue of material fact on the question of the defendant's freedom from negligence in manufacturing the tire, the Court will grant the defendant's motion for summary judgment as to counts one and two of the complaint. However, the motion will be denied as to count three because there is a material factual dispute that must be resolved at trial on the question of whether the defendant breached its implied warranty.
The plaintiff, Thomas Fleck, was injured while he was installing a new tire on a customer's wheel rim while he was employed at the Quality Farm and Feed store in Alpena, Michigan. Quality Stores Corporation of Muskegon, Michigan is the largest farming goods retailer in the United States and operates 350 stores nationwide. The Alpena store, known as Quality Farm and Fleet ("QF & F"), sells and installs automobile tires in its motor vehicle service department, which consists of a dual-bay garage containing two professional tire mounting machines, among other equipment.
The plaintiff, a high school graduate with no additional vocational training, was hired by QF & F as an "assembler" in April 1997. His responsibilities included assembling barbeque grills, garden tractors and a variety of other implements.
Several weeks after plaintiff's hire, an employee by the name of Robert Besky on one occasion was falling behind in his duties. Besky was primarily responsible for the installation of tires in the automotive service department. Management asked the plaintiff to work with Besky and, after being "shown the ropes," the plaintiff was deemed a "tire installation employee" for the duration of his tenure at QF & F through 1999. According to QF & F's policy, as a tire installer plaintiff was to receive educational manuals, view a training video, and be exposed to hands-on instruction. However, the plaintiff received only limited instruction provided by Besky sufficient to allow plaintiff to install tires.
Besky left within weeks of the plaintiff beginning tire installation duties. Although he was not put in a supervisory role, the plaintiff assumed most of Besky's duties, with the assistance of co-employee Brian Morgan as needed. The usual procedure, as asserted by plaintiff and Morgan but contested by management, was that "the manager and the salespersons did all the selling of the tires and then they told [Morgan and plaintiff] which tires to put on." Brian Morgan Dep. at 31.
On July 3, 1997, approximately three months after his hire and having installed approximately 100 tires for QF & F, Thomas Fleck Dep. at 39, the plaintiff was summoned to the service department to install tires on a four-wheel-drive light duty pick-up truck estimated to be a model produced in the 1970s. In what has been alleged to be "typical fashion," plaintiff reported to store manager Stan Windy. When the plaintiff arrived at the service bay in the garage, the tires had been "pre-selected" for him and were lying on the floor of the garage. Windy directed the plaintiff to install the tires on the pick-up truck.
It is undisputed that the plaintiff began the installation by utilizing what he recalled to be a "Coates" model tire changing machine with a vertical "pipe" and "cone-type screw cap." Fleck Dep. at 54-56. Plaintiff also recalled that although an air hose with a "clip-on chuck" and "in-line" air pressure gauge was available to enable an employee to attach the hose to the tire's valve stem and step away during inflation, plaintiff did not use that air hose. Rather, plaintiff recalls that he used another air hose without a clip-on chuck and in-line gauge, which required him to hold the air hose against the valve stem to inflate the tire and to check air pressure with a hand-held pressure gauge. Fleck Dep. at 71.
Unbeknownst to the plaintiff, the rims on the truck were 16.5 inch aftermarket production rims. The size of the rims was not apparent simply by looking at them. Windy believed them to be 16.0 inch rims, and plaintiff did not attempt to verify the rim size or check the size of the tire. The tires selected for installation were 16.0 tires intended for use exclusively on 16.0 inch rims. Due to the minimal size difference between 16 inch and 16.5 inch rims and the recognized danger of explosion caused by inflating a 16 inch tire on a 16.5 inch rim, 16 inch tires, including the subject tire, display a warning on the sidewall cautioning against installation on 16.5 inch rims. The subject 16 inch tire carried the following warning on the sidewall:
Plaintiff did not attempt to determine the size of the wheel rims on the pickup truck. If he had attempted to ascertain the rim diameter, however, he only would have observed incomplete markings on the rim. Nevertheless, plaintiff still could have checked the size of the old tires he was removing from those rims, which were in fact marked as 16.5 inch tires. The plaintiff assumed that Windy selected the appropriate tires to match the wheels.
According to the plaintiff, he removed the first of the four tire/rim assemblies from the truck. He then locked it down on the tire changing machine, and proceeded to "break down" and remove the old tire from the rim. With the rim still on the changing machine, the plaintiff took one of the pre-selected tires and installed it on the rim. He then attached the chuck end of the air hose on the valve stem and began trying to inflate the new tire, without success. Then, the plaintiff removed the tire/rim assembly from the mounting machine, reinserted the chuck in the valve stem with the tire standing on its tread, and resumed inflating while bouncing the tire and pushing down against it. The tire started taking air, so the plaintiff laid it on its side and continued to inflate it. The plaintiff testified that he heard one small "pop" which he believed to be one of the beads "seating" against the rim flange. He continued inflating, and an explosion occurred seconds later. Although the plaintiff does not recall looking at a gauge as he inflated the tire on its side, he estimates that the tire pressure had reached 25 to 30 pounds when the tire exploded. The explosion of the tire shattered bones in the plaintiff's right arm and hand allegedly causing permanent injury.
The tire in question was manufactured by defendant, Titan Tire Corporation ("Titan"). Titan, an Illinois corporation headquartered in Iowa, agreed to manufacture the tire for the Pirelli Armstrong Tire Corporation ("Armstrong"). Armstrong supplied the design specifications, determined the language and placement of the warnings, and sold the tires to its distributors, including QF & F. It is undisputed that Titan did not contribute to the actual design of the tire.
It appears that the plaintiff did not learn that the named defendant was not the designer of the tire until after the period of limitations expired as to Armstrong. In all events, there has been no effort to join Armstrong in this lawsuit. Titan has moved for summary judgment, contending that since it did not design the tire, and there is no evidence that it was negligent in manufacturing the tire, the plaintiff cannot establish liability. Titan also has cataloged a list of negligent acts committed by the plaintiff which, the defendant argues, preclude a finding of causation. Those acts include mismatching the tire and rim size; removing the tire and rim from its locked-down position on the mounting machine to inflate the tire; failing to lubricate the beads of the tire; hitting or bouncing the tire against the ground and using the entire weight of his body to force the beads of the mismatched tire to seat; inflating the tire without an extension hose equipped with a clip-on chuck and in-line gauge which would have allowed him to stand a safe distance from the tire trajectory zone during inflation; standing directly in the tire trajectory zone when inflating the tire; and inflating the tire without a restraining device. Finally, the defendant asserts that plaintiff's failure to warn claim should be dismissed in that additional warnings would not have been heeded by plaintiff, and...
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