Keeter v. Alpine Towers Int'l, Inc.

• Decision Date: 31 July 2012
• Docket Number: No. 4995.,4995.
• Court: South Carolina Court of Appeals
• Parties: Lawrence KEETER, Ronald Travis Keeter, and Rebecca Keeter, Appellants/Respondents, v. ALPINE TOWERS INTERNATIONAL, INC., and Ashley Sexton, Defendants, Of Whom Alpine Towers International, Inc., is Respondent/Appellant. Appellate Case No. 2009–137246.

399 S.C. 179

730 S.E.2d 890

Lawrence KEETER, Ronald Travis Keeter, and Rebecca Keeter, Appellants/Respondents,

v. ALPINE TOWERS INTERNATIONAL, INC., and Ashley Sexton, Defendants,Of Whom Alpine Towers International, Inc., is Respondent/Appellant. Appellate Case No. 2009–137246.

No. 4995.

Court of Appeals of South Carolina.

Heard Dec. 6, 2011.

Decided June 27, 2012.

Rehearing Denied July 31, 2012.

Richard A. Harpootlian and Graham L. Newman, both of Richard A. Harpootlian, P.A., of Columbia, for Appellants/Respondents.

Charles E. Carpenter, Jr., and Carmon V. Ganjehsani, of Carpenter Appeals & Trial Support, LLC, of Columbia, and Thomas C. Salane, of Turner, Padget, Graham & Laney, P.A., of Columbia, for Respondent/Appellant.

FEW, C.J.

Lawrence “Larry” Keeter and his parents brought this action against Alpine Towers International, Inc., for strict liability, negligent design, and negligent training after Larry broke his back and became a paraplegic as a result of a fall to the ground from a climbing tower designed, manufactured, and installed by Alpine Towers. The jury awarded actual and punitive damages in favor of Larry and actual damages in favor of his parents for Larry's medical bills. After both sides filed post-trial motions, the trial court entered separate judgments in favor of Larry and his parents. Alpine Towers appeals the trial court's decision to deny its motions for directed verdict and judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) as to actual and punitive damages, and its motion for a new trial due to an alleged error as to apportionment. Larry appeals the trial court's ruling requiring him to elect between his three causes of action. We affirm the denial of Alpine Towers' motions. However, we hold the trial court incorrectly interpreted the jury's verdict and erred in requiringLarry to elect. We remand to the trial court with instructions to enter judgment in Larry's favor against Alpine Towers in the amount of $3,400,500.00 actual damages and $1,110,000.00 punitive damages.¹

I. Facts

On May 5, 2006, the senior students at Fort Mill High School (Fort Mill) participated in a spring fling recreational field day. During field day, Larry fell more than twenty feet from the climbing tower to the ground. When he hit the ground, Larry broke a vertebra and was rendered a permanent paraplegic. He was seventeen.

Alpine Towers originally sold the climbing tower to Carowinds amusement park near Charlotte, North Carolina. Fort Mill bought the tower from Carowinds in July 2004 and hired Alpine Towers to move it, install it, and train Fort Mill's faculty to safely use it. Fort Mill's contract with Alpine Towers identifies Alpine Towers as “seller” and provides: “Installation includes all hardware, materials, ... labor, ... design work, ... and staff training.” The wooden climbing tower is fifty feet tall, has three sides, and is shaped liked an hourglass. The central safety feature of any climbing tower is the belay system.² Alpine Towers designed the belay system on this climbing tower to include four participants—the climber, a primary belayer, a back-up belayer, and a faculty supervisor. The system requires the climber to wear a harness, which is secured to a climbing rope. The rope passes through a pulley at the top of the tower and down to a belay device secured to the ground at the base of the tower. The rope is threaded through the belay device, which uses bends in the rope to create friction to control the speed at which the rope passes through the device. As the climber ascends, the belayer guides the rope through the belay device to keep the rope taut. If the climber falls from the tower while climbing, the belayer uses the friction the belay device creates on the rope to keep the rope from passing back through the device, and thus protects the climber from falling all the way to the ground.

After a successful climb, or in the event the climber falls before completing the climb, the belayer lowers the climber to the ground in a controlled fashion by guiding the rope back through the belay device. The friction created on the rope allows the belayer to control the speed of the climber's descent.³ Because of the hourglass shape of the tower, a climber being lowered to the ground by the belayer is suspended in air, away from the side of the tower.

Ashley Sexton, a senior at Fort Mill, served as Larry's primary belayer. Fort Mill trained Ashley to belay as a part of the Junior ROTC program. Larry had never been trained in belaying or climbing, but successfully climbed to the top of the tower. Ashley testified that while she was lowering Larry to the ground “the rope ... got[ ] tight in the [belay device] almost as if it were stuck” and would not move. Neither Ashley nor anyone at Fort Mill had been taught what to do if the rope became stuck in the belay device. When Ashley tried to free the rope, she lost the assistance of the device, was unable to control the rope, and Larry fell more than twenty feet to the ground.

Alpine Towers designed the belay system on the climbing tower and trained Fort Mill's faculty how to use it. Alpine Towers provided no notice or warning to Fort Mill's faculty that the climbing rope could get stuck in the belay device it designed into the system. Alpine Towers also provided no training or instruction on how the belayer or faculty supervisor should handle the situation if it did. Alpine Towers chose not to incorporate into the design a readily available, automatically locking belay device Larry's experts testified would have stopped Larry's fall. Alpine Towers did not train Fort Mill's faculty to require the faculty supervisor to stand directly beside the belayer, which Alpine Towers admitted at trial should always be done to ensure that proper procedures were followed in the climb and to assist the belayers in the event of a situation like the one that resulted in Larry's fall. When Larry fell, no back-up belayer was present, and no faculty supervisor was close enough to assist Ashley.

II. Procedural History

All of Larry's damages were caused by the broken back he suffered as a result of his fall. Larry asserted three causes of action presenting three alternative theories of Alpine Towers' liability for those damages: (1) Alpine Towers was strictly liable for the manufacture and sale of a defective and unreasonably dangerous product; (2) Alpine Towers negligently designed the climbing tower without adequate safety equipment, instructions, and warnings; ⁴ and (3) Alpine Towers was negligent in failing to properly train Fort Mill's faculty on how to safely use the climbing tower, particularly in failing to train the faculty to teach student belayers to safely use the belay system.

Larry also filed suit against Ashley for negligence. Larry's parents filed suit against Alpine Towers and Ashley for Larry's medical bills. Larry and his parents settled with Fort Mill before filing suit and dismissed Ashley as a defendant before trial. The jury returned a verdict for Larry on each cause of action. It awarded $500.00 for strict liability,⁵ $900,000.00 in actual damages and $160,000.00 in punitive damages for negligent design of the tower, and $2,500,000.00 in actual damages and $950,000.00 in punitive damages for Alpine Tower's negligence in training Fort Mill's faculty. The jury also returned a verdict for Larry's parents for $240,000.00 in actual damages.

Alpine Towers filed a post-trial motion seeking (1) judgment notwithstanding the verdict as to all causes of action and punitive damages, (2) a new trial, (3) an order requiring Larry to elect between the three causes of action, (4) set-off of the settlement paid by Fort Mill, and (5) apportionment under the Contribution Among Joint Tortfeasors Act. The trial court denied the JNOV, new trial, and apportionment motions. The court required Larry to elect between his causes of action and ordered that the settlement from Fort Mill be set-off against Larry's recovery from Alpine Towers. Larry also filed a post-trial motion asking the trial court to enter judgment in the cumulative amount of the damage awards rather than require him to elect. The court denied Larry's motion and ordered that judgment be entered in the amount of $2,500,000.00 in actual damages and $950,000.00 in punitive damages on the negligent training cause of action.

III. Alpine Towers' AppealA. Directed Verdict and JNOV—Actual Damages

“In ruling on motions for directed verdict and JNOV, the trial court is required to view the evidence and the inferences that reasonably can be drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motions.” McMillan v. Oconee Mem'l Hosp., Inc., 367 S.C. 559, 564, 626 S.E.2d 884, 886 (2006). “When we review a trial judge's ... denial of a motion for directed verdict or JNOV, we reverse only when there is no evidence to support the ruling or when the ruling is governed by an error of law.” Austin v. Stokes–Craven Holding Corp., 387 S.C. 22, 42, 691 S.E.2d 135, 145 (2010).

In its motions for directed verdict and JNOV, Alpine Towers contested all liability issues, including the sufficiency of the evidence supporting each of Larry's causes of action. In its Statement of Issues on Appeal, Alpine Towers contends only that the trial court should have granted its motions because the chain of causation was broken as a matter of law. Specifically, Alpine Towers contends the chain of causation was broken by (1) “the intervening and superseding negligent acts of Fort Mill High School and Ashley Sexton in failing to follow the warnings, directions, and instructions for proper use of the Tower” and (2) “the intervening and superseding negligent acts of Fort Mill High School in failing to undertake its independent duty to properly supervise its students.” However, because both Larry and Alpine Towers address in their briefs the sufficiency of the evidence supporting each of Larry's causes of action, we do as well. We...