Hunley v. Dupont Automotive

• Decision Date: 25 August 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-2733.,01-2733.
• Citation: 341 F.3d 491
• Parties: Jerrilyn HUNLEY; Jerome Hunley, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DuPONT AUTOMOTIVE, Division of E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co., Inc., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

341 F.3d 491

Jerrilyn HUNLEY; Jerome Hunley, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DuPONT AUTOMOTIVE, Division of E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co., Inc., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 01-2733.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: June 17, 2003.

Decided and Filed: August 25, 2003. Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

ARGUED: Donnelly W. Hadden (argued and briefed), Ann Arbor, Michigan, Patrick D. Ball (briefed), Mount Clemens, MI, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Robert S. Krause (briefed), Dickinson, Wright, PLLC, Detroit, MI, Raymond Michael Ripple (argued and briefed), Donna L. Goodman (briefed), E.I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS AND COMPANY, Wilmington, Delaware, for Defendant-Appellee.

ON BRIEF: Donnelly W. Hadden, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Patrick D. Ball, Mount Clemens, Michigan, for Appellants.

Before: BOGGS and GILMAN, Circuit Judges; MARBLEY, District Judge.^*

OPINION

ALGENON L. MARBLEY, District Judge.

This is a negligence action that was removed to federal court based on diversity jurisdiction. Plaintiffs-Appellants, Jerrilyn Hunley, individually and as guardian of the estate of Jerome Hunley, and Jerome Hunley, brought suit against Defendant-Appellee, DuPont Automotive, Division of E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co., Inc., for harm incurred by Jerome Hunley after his exposure to a large paint spill in the DuPont Automotive plant in which he was working as a security guard. Plaintiffs-Appellants now appeal the district court's ruling granting summary judgment to Defendant-Appellee. The district court exercised jurisdiction over this matter pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332. This Court's appellate jurisdiction is proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

For the reasons discussed below, this Court finds that the district court properly granted summary judgment to Defendant-Appellee, and, therefore, AFFIRMS the judgment of the district court.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

A. Factual History

Defendant-Appellee, DuPont Automotive, Division of E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co., Inc. ("DuPont"), operates a paint factory in Mount Clemens, Michigan. At approximately 9:34 p.m., on January 27, 1997, DuPont suffered one of the largest paint spills in the history of the plant. At that time, a DuPont employee was in the process of filling a shipping container with paint to ship to an automobile manufacturer. As she was moving the container toward a holding tank, she struck the bottom of the tank with the top of the container, thereby dislodging the filling valve of the tank. Within the next few minutes, the tank emptied its 2400 gallons of paint onto the worker and the surrounding work area.

DuPont mandates that any chemical spill of more than one-quarter cup necessitates an emergency response. Therefore, at 9:35 p.m. on the evening of the spill, DuPont employees initiated emergency procedures. In particular, a DuPont fire brigade member working in the production area sounded the alarm, calling into action a plant-wide emergency response. Upon hearing the alarm, DuPont's internal fire brigade members donned their protective gear and entered the spill area. According to DuPont, within minutes, all non-fire brigade employees had evacuated the production area and reported to their assigned evacuation sites, closing the fire doors between the production area and the shipping warehouse as they left. One door, however, was left open, such that non-emergency response employees were able to gain entrance to the area of the spill.¹

DuPont contracts with Pinkerton, a private security company, to provide security at the plant. At the time of the spill, Plaintiff-Appellant Jerome Hunley ("Hunley") was employed as a Pinkerton security guard at the DuPont plant in Mount Clemens. Pinkerton security guards are obligated to follow Pinkerton's Site Post Orders. Those orders specify that, in the event of a spill, Pinkerton security guards are to provide a head count report to the fire brigade captain.² The Pinkerton Site Post Orders also expressly state: "Security does not respond to the scene of a spill."

According to Plaintiffs-Appellants, upon Hunley's arrival at work on the evening of the spill, he was told by his supervisor, Bill Maynard, to deliver the head-count report to the fire brigade captain. Hunley printed out the report, and then delivered it to the fire brigade captain, whom he found in the area of the spill. Hunley claims that he gained access to the area of the spill by entering through an open door. When he entered the area of the spill to deliver the report, he was not wearing protective clothing, nor was he breathing through a respirator; none of these protective items had been issued to him by DuPont. The fire brigade members in the vicinity of the spill, however, were all wearing protective clothing, including masks.³

Hunley states that, shortly after delivering the report to the fire captain, he began to have "rushing thoughts," which he describes as "too many thoughts running through [his] head at once," and that he also began feeling dizzy. After working the night of the spill, Hunley went home and tried to sleep. While trying to sleep, however, he began hallucinating. In particular, he claims that he heard "whale sounds" and saw "upside down people." Hunley then drove to his grandmother's home, thinking that would help calm him.⁴

On the drive back home from his grandmother's house, Hunley's hallucinations continued. In response to one of the hallucinations, Hunley began driving his truck at speeds estimated to be between sixty and ninety miles per hour against rush hour traffic in Troy, Michigan. Ultimately, his car became airborne, and then landed on top of the car of a nineteen-year-old woman, who was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. Immediately following the accident, Hunley was transported to a nearby hospital, where he was initially diagnosed with brief reactive psychosis, a temporary diagnosis used to explain his acute psychotic symptoms.

Prior to the car accident, Hunley had no recorded medical history of mental illness, nor did he have a criminal record. He was twenty-four years old at the time. After a series of mental evaluations following the accident, Hunley was ultimately diagnosed with schizophrenia, an organic mental disease that frequently manifests itself when sufferers are in their late teens or early twenties. He has also been diagnosed as suffering from an "acute psychotic break" accompanied by auditory and visual hallucinations at the time of the accident. Hunley's expert, Dr. Gerald Shiener, M.D., opines that Hunley's psychotic break was brought on by the stress of knowing that he had been exposed to toxins in the area of the spill by being in the area without protective gear while all others in the vicinity of the spill were protected by special clothing and masks.

Following one year of hospitalization, Hunley was tried on a charge of manslaughter for the death of the nineteen-year-old woman in the car accident. At the conclusion of the trial, he was found guilty but mentally ill. He is currently incarcerated, serving a term of four to fifteen years.

B. Procedural History

Plaintiffs-Appellants originally filed this case in the Circuit Court for the County of Macomb on January 28, 2000. Defendant-Appellee removed the case to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on May 8, 2000, on the basis of diversity of citizenship. On November 28, 2001, after discovery had been completed, the district court issued an opinion and order granting summary judgment to Defendant-Appellee. Plaintiffs-Appellants filed their notice of appeal from that order on December 18, 2001.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

The district court's grant of summary judgment is subject to de novo review by this Court. Peters v. Lincoln Elec. Co., 285 F.3d 456, 465 (6th Cir.2002) (citing Darrah v. City of Oak Park, 255 F.3d 301, 305 (6th Cir.2001), and Perez v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 150 F.3d 550, 554 (6th Cir.1998)). Thus, on appeal, this Court reviews a motion for summary judgment according to the same standard that the district court applies.

Summary judgment is appropriate "[i]f the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." FED. R.CIV.P. 56(c). The movant has the burden of establishing that there are no genuine issues of material fact, which may be accomplished by demonstrating that the non-moving party lacks evidence to support an essential element of its case. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986); Logan v. Denny's, Inc., 259 F.3d 558, 566 (6th Cir.2001). In response, the non-moving party must present "significant probative evidence" to show that "there is [more than] some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts." Moore v. Philip Morris Cos., 8 F.3d 335, 339-40 (6th Cir.1993). "[S]ummary judgment will not lie if the dispute is about a material fact that is `genuine,' that is, if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the non-moving party." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).

In evaluating a motion for summary judgment, the evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 157, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 26 L.Ed.2d 142 (1970). The non-moving party, however, "may not rest upon its mere allegations... but ... must set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e); see Celotex, 477 U.S. at 324, 106 S.Ct. 2548; Searcy v. City of Dayton, 38 F.3d 282, 286 (6th Cir.1994). The existence of a scintilla of evidence in support of the non-moving party's position will not be sufficient; there must be evidence on which the jury could reasonably find for the...