Lefiell Mfg. Co. v. Superior Court of L. A. Cnty.

• Decision Date: 06 August 2014
• Docket Number: B254261
• Citation: 228 Cal.App.4th 883,175 Cal.Rptr.3d 894
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: LEFIELL MANUFACTURING COMPANY, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of Los Angeles County, Respondent; O'Neil Watrous, Real Party in Interest.

228 Cal.App.4th 883

175 Cal.Rptr.3d 894

LEFIELL MANUFACTURING COMPANY, Petitioner,

v. The SUPERIOR COURT of Los Angeles County, Respondent;O'Neil Watrous, Real Party in Interest.

B254261

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 3, California.

Filed August 6, 2014

See 2 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (10th ed. 2005) Workers' Compensation, § 51.

ORIGINAL PROCEEDINGS in mandate. Rafael A. Ongkeko, Judge. Petition granted. (No. VC055585)

Malek & Malek, Sandra L. Malek and Jeffrey L. Malek, Torrance, for Petitioner.

No appearance for Respondent.

Purcell Law and Chris Purcell, Santa Ana, for Real Party in Interest.

ALDRICH, J.

Labor Code section 4558¹ provides an exception to the exclusivity of the workers' compensation system for employees injured as a result of the employer's knowing removal of, or knowing failure to install, a point of operation guard on a power press. The issue presented here is the correct definition and application of the term, “point of operation guard.” The meaning of this term is not defined in the statute, and this term has never specifically been defined in case law. A point of operation guard, however, always has been assumed to be an apparatus or device that protects a worker's hands and body parts from the area on the power press where the die imparts shape to material by impact or pressure.

LeFiell Manufacturing Company (LeFiell) filed a petition for writ of mandate challenging an order denying its summary judgment motion on the section 4558 claim asserted in this action. The trial court concluded there was a triable issue of fact as to whether a door that was removed from the Fenn 5F swaging machine operated by plaintiff O'Neil Watrous was a point of operation guard. The door was several inches from the dies in the bed of the swaging machine where the material was formed. Watrous was standing six feet away from the dies while operating the swaging machine and claims to have suffered injuries as a result of the employer's removal of the door. We issued an order to show cause why the relief requested in the petition should or should not be granted.

We conclude the door that was removed from the Fenn 5F swaging machine is not a point of operation guard as a matter of law. The power press exception applies only to those machines using a die to form material by impact or pressure against the material that impart to the material some version of the die's own shape. (Rosales v. Depuy Ace Medical Co. (2000) 22 Cal.4th 279, 284–285, 92 Cal.Rptr.2d 465, 991 P.2d 1256 (Rosales ).) The point of operation on a power press is where the die shapes the material. Thus, a point of operation guard is any device or apparatus that keeps a worker's hands or other body parts outside of the area where the die shapes material by impact or pressure while the worker is operating the power press. In this case, the dies and hammers used in the swaging process were in the bed of the Fenn 5F swaging machine, several inches away from the door that had been removed and several feet away from where Watrous was operating the machine. While the door acted as a barrier from the power press mechanisms, it was not a point of operation guard within the meaning of section 4558. Accordingly, we grant the petition.

FACTS

Watrous suffered serious injuries while operating a Fenn 5F swaging machine in the course and scope of his employment with LeFiell. Watrous filed a complaint alleging a violation of section 4558.²

1. Fenn 5F Swaging Machine is a Power Press

A swaging machine is used to reduce a larger diameter tube to a smaller diameter. The swaging operation uses a process whereby hammers are actuated within the machine and used against dies that change the shape at the end of the tube. The swaging process compresses the metal so that the end of the tube is smaller in diameter, thicker, and stronger than the rest of the tube.

The Fenn 5F swaging machine has a rotary swaging head that uses an electric motor-driven flywheel connected to a spindle that holds two opposing dies and two associated hammers. The spindle rotates at approximately 194 revolutions per minute (rpm) which generates a centrifugal force that throws the dies and hammers outward (open) against 12 rollers contained within a heavy steel cage surrounding the spindle. When the dies are in the open position, the tube is manually fed into the space where the material is formed.

The Fenn 5F swaging machine has a manually operated rack and pinion system that the operator uses to force the tube into the dies each time the dies open. The infeed system contains a feed carriage that uses a circular clamp to hold one end of the tube while leaving the opposite end free to be manually placed in the space where the dies shape the tube. The tube is inserted into this space through a round opening in the door. The operator feeds the tube into the rotary swaging dies by manually turning the feed carriage handwheel, which causes the feed carriage to move toward the dies. After the tube is fully formed, the operator manually withdraws the tube from the machine. At no point during the swaging process would the operator be near the dies and hammers in the bed of the Fenn 5F swaging machine.

2. Removal of the Door on the Fenn 5F Swaging Machine

The door had been removed from the Fenn 5F swaging machine that Watrous was operating at the time of the accident. The purpose of the door is for access, and when necessary, to change the dies. The door also functions to hold the dies in place while the power press is in operation. As noted, there is an opening in the center of the door to feed the material to be swaged into the bed of the Fenn 5F swaging machine.

Instead of the door, a metal pressure plate was held in place by clamps. This pressure plate assembly rotated at 194 rpm when the power press was in operation. Like the door, the pressure plate had an opening in the middle to insert the tube and move it toward the dies where the swaging operation took place. The bolts that fastened the pressure plate in place, and additional bolts on the Fenn 5F swaging machine, were exposed when the door was removed.

3. The Accident

Watrous was standing approximately six feet from the Fenn 5F swaging machine at the time of the accident and was removing a tube from the machine following the swaging process. He was injured when a piece of metal hit him in the eye. Although Watrous does not remember the accident, his theory is that the tube he was removing from the swaging machine struck the pressure plate assembly, causing the part to be “violently dislodged and launched into [his] eye and occipital lobe.”

4. LeFiell's Motion for Summary Judgment

LeFiell brought its summary judgment motion on the ground that Watrous could not establish any of the necessary elements of a section 4558 claim. (See Saldana v. Globe–Weis Systems Co. (1991) 233 Cal.App.3d 1505, 1516, 285 Cal.Rptr. 385.) The underlying premise of LeFiell's motion was, accepting Watrous's theory of the accident, the door was not a point of operation guard as a matter of law. Thus, his injury did not fall within the section 4558 exception.

Our focus is solely on whether, as a matter of law, the door on the Fenn 5F swaging machine is a point of operation guard within the meaning of section 4558. If it is, the determination of whether the manufacturer communicated to LeFiell that the door could not be removed is a question of fact, and the respective parties' interpretation of the product and service manuals on this issue is disputed. If the door is not a point of operation guard on a power press, section 4558 does not apply as a matter of law.

LeFiell's expert opined that the door on the Fenn 5F swaging machine is not a point of operation guard. According to LeFiell's expert, the door was never intended to be a point of operation guard. The opening in the center of the door provides access to the space where the material is formed, and does not “prevent entry of hands or fingers directly” into the space where the dies impart shape to the material. Rather, the point of operation on the Fenn 5F swaging machine is in the bed of the machine where the dies form the shape at the end of the tube through the action of counterpoising hammers. No point of operation guard is required because the dies separate less than one thirty-second of an inch during each stroke of the dies, and the separation is not large enough to allow an operator access to the space where the material is being formed.

In opposition, Watrous's expert agreed that the point of operation on the Fenn 5F swaging machine includes “the area or location at which the two dies strike the workpiece.” The expert further agreed that a point of operation guard on a power press must keep a worker's hands out of the area where the material is being formed. According to the expert, the door on the Fenn 5F swaging machine satisfied these requirements.

“The heavy cast iron door originally supplied by the machine manufacturer with the machine is ‘an apparatus that accomplishes the purpose of keeping the hands of the workers outside the point of operation.’ In the instant case, the door also serves to prevent the workpieces—especially when the operator must physically hold the workpiece in his hands while removing it from the machine—from engaging the bolt heads and clamps of the assembly that is rotating at 194 rpm. When the door is in the closed position, the dangers posed by the protruding bolt heads and clamps on the rotating assembly are completely eliminated, and the danger posed by the rotating dies is minimal as the dies are several inches inboard from the door's front face.”

Watrous's expert referred to the door as a “barrier point of operation guard” to protect workers from the power press mechanisms. Despite the opening in the door, the expert stated the door is a point of operation guard because federal and state occupational safety and health standards, as well as the...