Gillespie v. Sears, Roebuck & Co.

• Decision Date: 06 October 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-2087.,03-2087.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit
• Parties: James GILLESPIE and Deborah Gillespie, Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. SEARS, ROEBUCK & COMPANY and Emerson Electric Company, Defendants, Appellants.

386 F.3d 21

James GILLESPIE and Deborah Gillespie, Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. SEARS, ROEBUCK & COMPANY and Emerson Electric Company, Defendants, Appellants.

No. 03-2087.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard August 3, 2004.

Decided October 6, 2004.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Joseph L. Tauro, J.

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William L. Boesch with whom David A. Barry and Sugarman, Rogers, Barshak & Cohen, P.C. were on brief, for appellants.

Michael B. Flynn with whom Lori A. Wirkus and Flynn & Associates, P.C. were on brief, for appellees.

Before BOUDIN, Chief Judge, TORRUELLA and DYK,^* Circuit Judges.

BOUDIN, Chief Judge.

In 1998, Frank Gillespie was working as a locksmith after many years in various building trades. In September of that year, he asked his employer to let him keep its 10-inch table saw at his house for work and personal use, and his employer agreed. The saw, which he received from coworker Michael Kane, had been designed and manufactured by Emerson Electric Co. and sold by Sears, Roebuck & Co. under the Craftsman brand. Kane did not give Gillespie the saw's owner's manual or its blade guard.

A standard table saw of the type used by Gillespie has a flat rectangular metal surface through which a rotary saw blade protrudes; the blade's height and angle can be adjusted for different kinds of cuts. The wood to be cut is fed into the blade by sliding the wood over the saw's table surface away from the user. For some cuts, the wood is kept in alignment by a metal guide called a rip fence on the saw's surface to one side of the blade. Behind the blade, there may also be affixed to the saw a spreader and blade guard as will be more fully described below.

On November 23, 1998, Gillespie used the table saw to trim an inch off each side of a 28-inch-wide door. After finishing the cut, he shut off the saw and set the door down. Six seconds after shutting off the saw,¹ Gillespie turned and his hand came into contact with the blade before it had stopped. The still-spinning blade lacerated several of his fingers; his badly damaged right ring finger had to be amputated after several unsuccessful surgeries.

Gillespie and his wife, Deborah, brought suit in state court against Emerson and Sears (collectively, "Emerson"), who removed the case to district court. Gillespie's complaint, alleging that the accident was caused by defects in the saw's design, asserted claims of negligence and breach of implied warranty of merchantability under Massachusetts law; his theories of defect concerned (1) the design of the blade guard, (2) lack of a brake for the wheel, and (3) inadequate warning. Gillespie's wife claimed for loss of consortium.

Trial was held in June 2003, and — after denying Emerson's motion for judgment as a matter of law — the judge sent the case to the jury with a special interrogatory form asking seven questions: whether Emerson had breached the warranty of merchantability and this breach caused the accident; whether Emerson had been negligent and this negligence caused the accident; whether Gillespie was also negligent and if so the degree of fault attributable to each side; the amount of damages due to Gillespie; and two questions pertaining to Deborah's loss of consortium and damages due to her.

During deliberations, the jury sent two notes asking the purpose of the comparative negligence allocation. The judge responded (so far as is pertinent here) that the allocation of a percentage of negligence to Gillespie would reduce his recovery on the negligence claim by that percentage (unless his share of negligence exceeded 50 percent, in which case his recovery would be barred entirely). The response also noted that "no deduction ... will be made on the breach of warranty claim."

Shortly thereafter, the jury found that Emerson breached its warranty of merchantability; that Emerson was negligent but that Gillespie was 49 percent contributorily negligent; that Gillespie had suffered $750,000 in damages and his wife $100,000. Following the verdict, Emerson renewed its motion for judgment as a matter of law, and (in the alternative) sought a new trial. The district court denied both requests, and entered judgment for the full $850,000.

Emerson now appeals, asserting that there was insufficient evidence on the three defect theories to support the jury's verdict. Emerson also claims that the district court erred by refusing to instruct the jury on an "unreasonable use" defense to the breach of warranty claim. Finally, Emerson says that the district court erred in imposing discovery-related sanctions on Emerson and that these sanctions tainted the trial.

Sufficiency of the evidence. In assessing the sufficiency of the evidence, the question for the court is whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, a rational jury could find in favor of the party who prevailed. DaSilva v. Am. Brands, Inc., 845 F.2d 356, 359 (1st Cir.1988); see also Santos v. Sunrise Medical, Inc., 351 F.3d 587, 590 (1st Cir.2003) ("In so doing, we do not consider the credibility of witnesses, resolve conflicts in testimony, or evaluate the weight of the evidence" (internal quotation marks omitted)). Our review of the district court's denial of Emerson's motion for judgment as a matter of law is de novo. Santos, 351 F.3d at 590.

Whether there was enough evidence depends upon what Gillespie was required to prove. Gillespie's first claim was for negligence. Massachusetts law, which controls this case, requires manufacturers to design and produce products with reasonable care to eliminate avoidable dangers arising from reasonably foreseeable uses of the product. Cigna Ins. Co. v. Oy Saunatec, Ltd., 241 F.3d 1, 15 (1st Cir.2001). Manufacturers must guard against such dangers, Colter v. Barber-Greene Co., 403 Mass. 50, 525 N.E.2d 1305, 1311 n. 9 (1988), taking account of foreseeable carelessness on the part of the user, DeMedeiros v. Koehring Co., 709 F.2d 734, 739 (1st Cir.1983).

In judging the adequacy of a product's design, pertinent factors include

the gravity of the danger posed by the challenged design, the likelihood that such danger would occur, the mechanical feasibility of a safer alternative design, the financial cost of an improved design, and the adverse consequences to the product and to the consumer that would result from an alternative design.

Colter, 525 N.E.2d at 1310 (quoting Back v. Wickes Corp., 375 Mass. 633, 378 N.E.2d 964, 970 (1978)) (internal quotation marks omitted). An essential element of such a design flaw claim is that there be a safer alternative design. See Kotler v. Am. Tobacco Co., 926 F.2d 1217, 1225 (1st Cir.1990), vacated on other grounds, 505 U.S. 1215, 112 S.Ct. 3019, 120 L.Ed.2d 891, and judgment reissued, 981 F.2d 7 (1st Cir.1992); see also Uloth v. City Tank Corp., 376 Mass. 874, 384 N.E.2d 1188, 1193 (1978).

Massachusetts law also treats manufacturers and sellers as warranting that their products are "fit for the ordinary purposes for which such goods are used." Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 106 § 2-314(2)(c) (2000). In most substantive respects (e.g., unreasonably dangerous design, reasonably foreseeable dangers, alternative design feasibility), the negligence and warranty inquiries are congruent. Oy Saunatec, 241 F.3d at 15-16; Back, 378 N.E.2d at 970; see also Allen v. Chance Mfg. Co., 398 Mass. 32, 494 N.E.2d 1324, 1326 (1986).²

Gillespie's first theory of design defect focused on the design of the blade guard. On Gillespie's Craftsman saw, as with most of the comparable table saws on the market, the guard — a kind of elongated plastic cap fitting over the top of the blade — is mounted on the spreader, a vertical metal plate directly behind the blade. The spreader is to be used for "through cuts" — in which the blade cuts all the way through the wood's thickness to cut it into two pieces — and keeps the cut open after the wood passes behind the blade so that the two separated sides do not clamp back together onto the blade.

For certain cuts, the blade is partly lowered to cut only a groove in the wood, rather than cutting all the way through the wood's thickness to produce two separate pieces. For such cuts — called "non-through" cuts — the spreader must be removed because it would otherwise block the wood as it passed over the blade. Gillespie's main expert (John Orlowski) testified that to conjoin the guard with the spreader — which was removable and sometimes had to be removed — invited users to take both off and then leave them off. Orlowksi said that the safer alternative design was to attach the blade guard to a cantilevered arm mounted by a bracket attached to the edge of the table, thus allowing the guard to be used with or without the spreader.

At trial Emerson introduced into evidence a cantilevered guard called the UniGuard which Emerson's expert (Jack Hyde, Jr.) described as "the standard example of that type of design." Gillespie's expert admitted that the cantilevered guard could not be used for all cuts. More important, Hyde — a former Emerson engineer — testified that the UniGuard could not have been used for the particular cut that Gillespie was doing when he was injured, because the 28-inch-wide door could not have fit between the UniGuard's arm and the saw's rip fence that keeps the wood aligned as it is being sawed.

Hyde's testimony on this point was not contradicted and it is fatal to Gillespie's theory of design defect. Even if it were negligent or a breach of warranty to supply the spreader-mounted guard rather than the less common cantilevered guard, Gillespie cannot prevail, as to this theory, without showing that the "better" design would have prevented his injury. See, e.g., Solimene v. B. Grauel & Co., K.G., 399 Mass. 790, 507 N.E.2d 662, 667 (1987); Fidalgo v. Columbus McKinnon Corp., 56 Mass.App.Ct. 176, 775 N.E.2d 803, 808 (2002)....