Miller Metal Fabrication Inc v. Wall

Decision Date23 July 2010
Docket Number2009.,No. 147,147
PartiesMILLER METAL FABRICATION, INC., et al.v.Dawn Ellen WALL, et vir.
CourtMaryland Court of Appeals

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Sean P. Edwards (Laura A. Simmons of The Law Offices of Frank F. Daily, P.A. of Hunt Valley, MD), on brief, for petitioners/cross-respondents.

Ernest I. Cornbrooks, III and E.I. Cornbrooks, IV (Webb, Burnett, Cornbrooks, Wilber, Vorhis, Douse & Mason, L.L.P. of Salisbury, MD), on brief, for respondents/cross-petitioners.

Argued before BELL, C.J., HARRELL, BATTAGLIA, GREENE, MURPHY, BARBERA and JOHN C. ELDRIDGE (Retired, Specially Assigned), JJ.

BARBERA, J.

This appeal arises out of a products liability action against Petitioner, Miller Metal Fabrication, Inc., and Country Fresh Mushroom Co. (“Country Fresh”) in which the Circuit Court for Caroline County granted summary judgment in Petitioner's favor.1 Because, however, the order granting summary judgment was not a final judgment as to all defendants and was not properly certified under Maryland Rule 2-602(b), we shall not reach the merits of the issues presented to this Court.

I.

Petitioner custom manufactures machinery, including food processing machinery. 2 The machine at issue here is a brine-filling machine (“the Machine”) commissioned by Country Fresh to be fabricated according to a design for a machine previously manufactured by a defunct company named A.K. Robins. Country Fresh commissioned the Machine for use in a mushroom processing plant assembly line at a Hanover Foods Corporation (“Hanover”) facility in Ridgely, Maryland.3 The Machine was installed in Hanover's mushroom processing assembly line to fill buckets of mushrooms with brine.

During the time period relevant to this case, three employees filled buckets of various sizes with mushrooms and placed them on a conveyor belt. The buckets then moved down the belt to the Machine, at which point the Machine's sensors detected the buckets and engaged a carriage system, five nozzles attached to a beam located above the conveyor belt. Once the buckets stopped beneath the carriage system, it would descend until the nozzles were inside the buckets and fill them with brine. After filling the buckets, the carriage system would ascend to the default position above the conveyor belt, and the mushroom buckets continued down the assembly line.

Ms. Wall, a quality control coordinator for Hanover, tested samples of mushroom brine by taking a full bucket off of the belt after the bucket moved out from under the Machine.4 On May 1, 2003, Ms. Wall was resting her hand on a table behind the Machine, while waiting for it to fill some mushroom buckets so she could take a sample, when the carriage system descended unexpectedly. Before Ms. Wall could remove her hand, the carriage system lowered onto her hand and pulled it inside the carriage system up to her mid forearm. Upon seeing the incident, other Hanover employees ran to Ms. Wall's aid, but they could not lift the carriage system off of her arm. Despite unplugging and plugging back in the Machine, Ms. Wall's armed was trapped for ten minutes before the carriage system ascended and released her arm. Ms. Wall suffered fractures to her hand and wrist, lacerations, and scarring.

The Lawsuit

On April 13, 2006, Respondents filed suit against Petitioner and Country Fresh in the Circuit Court for Caroline County. The complaint was comprised of multiple counts, sounding in negligence and strict liability, for design defect, manufacturing defect, failure to warn, breach of an express warranty, breach of implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, and loss of consortium. On April 16, 2007, Petitioner filed a motion for summary judgment.

In the memorandum supporting the motion, Petitioner argued that the defective design counts failed because the contractor's defense insulated Petitioner from liability.5 Petitioner argued that the failure to warn counts failed because any risks associated with the Machine were “open and obvious” and because Petitioner supplied the Machine to a “sophisticated user,” 6 which shifted the duty to warn from Petitioner to Hanover. Petitioner further argued that the breach of express warranty and manufacturing defect counts failed because Respondents had provided no evidence that the Machine deviated from the design plans provided and, likewise, provided no evidence of any express statements regarding the Machine's fitness for the “use in the manner in which it was being used and operated.” Additionally, Petitioner argued that the count alleging breach of an implied warranty of merchantability must fail because Petitioner fabricated the Machine according to the designs provided by Hanover and thus could not have impliedly warranted for the safety or efficacy of the Machine. At most, Petitioner argued that it could have impliedly warranted “that the [M]achine would be constructed in a workmanlike manner in accordance with the specifications it was provided [.] Petitioner argued that the count alleging breach of an implied warranty for a particular purpose failed because Respondents failed to establish any evidence that Hanover was relying on Petitioner's expertise and Petitioner merely constructed the Machine according to the design provided by Hanover, an experienced and knowledgeable buyer. After a hearing on September 27, 2007, the Circuit Court issued an order granting Petitioner's summary judgment motion.

On October 19, 2007, Respondents filed with the Circuit Court a motion for entry of a final judgment pursuant to Maryland Rule 2-602(b).7 The Rule permits a trial court to certify as final an order that resolves fewer than all of the pending claims or parties. See Md.-Nat'l Capital Park & Planning Comm'n v. Smith, 333 Md. 3, 6-7, 633 A.2d 855, 857 (1993). Respondents argued in the motion that certification was proper because, if they proceeded to trial against Country Fresh and obtained a verdict in their favor, “inconsistent outcomes as to the two Defendants would occur.” Specifically, Respondents argued that if they obtained a verdict against Country Fresh and then successfully appealed the Circuit Court's grant of summary judgment in Petitioner's favor, the subsequent trial against Petitioner would involve the same issues already tried against Country Fresh and therefore be an inefficient use of judicial resources. Additionally, Respondents argued that, because Country Fresh would likely assert in a motion for summary judgment some of the same arguments as Petitioner's motion for summary judgment, timely appellate resolution of those matters would serve the “interests of justice and judicial economy.”

On October 24, 2007, without the benefit of a hearing, the Circuit Court, “having determined that there is no just reason for delay,” granted Respondents' motion. Consequently, the court entered a final judgment based on the order granting summary judgment in Petitioner's favor. The Circuit Court order consisted of a single page and provided no explanation for the court's determination that “there was no just reason for delay.”

On November 19, 2007, Respondents timely noted an appeal to the Court of Special Appeals. On appeal, Respondents argued that the Circuit Court had erred in granting summary judgment in Petitioner's favor because a genuine dispute of material fact existed as to each count: defective design, manufacturing defect, failure to warn, breach of express warranty, breach of implied warranty of merchantability, and breach of implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose. On September 3, 2009, the Court of Special Appeals, in an unreported opinion, affirmed in part and vacated in part the judgment of the Circuit Court.

The Court of Special Appeals at the outset noted that, even though Respondents' claim was not settled as to all parties when the Circuit Court granted summary judgment, Respondents' appeal was proper because, pursuant to Rule 2-602(b), the Circuit Court had entered a final judgment with respect to Petitioner. The Court of Special Appeals did not address the propriety of the Circuit Court's Rule 2-602(b) certification. Turning to the merits of Respondents' appeal, the court held that, even assuming arguendo that the contractor's defense would insulate from liability a custom manufacturer that built a product to customer specifications, a factual dispute existed as to whether Petitioner contributed to the Machine's design and, therefore, the Circuit Court erred in granting summary judgment on the design defect counts. Because, however, Respondents “failed to meet their burden of producing evidence of [Petitioner's] specifications and the Machine's nonconformance,” the Court of Special Appeals upheld the Circuit Court's grant of summary judgment on the manufacturing defect counts. As to the counts alleging failure to warn, the court held that the sophisticated user defense shielded Petitioner from liability because Hanover was a ‘knowledgeable industrial user’ that had ‘reason to know of any dangerous condition which might be inherent in the product’ and, therefore, affirmed the Circuit Court's grant of summary judgment on these counts. (Citation omitted). The Court of Special Appeals then addressed each of the counts alleging breach of warranty.

The court affirmed the Circuit Court's grant of summary judgment on the breach of express warranty count, concluding that Respondents failed to present any evidence that Petitioner was aware that employees would obtain brine samples and therefore “could not have expressly warranted the Machine's safety for this use.” The Court of Special Appeals reversed, however, the Circuit Court's grant of summary judgment with respect to the count alleging breach of implied warranty of merchantability. Construing the facts in the light most favorable to Respondents, the court concluded that Respondents had produced sufficient evidence to create...

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  • Grier v. Heidenberg
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    ...ordinarily must await the entry of a final judgment that disposes of all claims against all parties.’ " Miller Metal Fabrication, Inc. v. Wall , 415 Md. 210, 220–21, 999 A.2d 1006 (2010) (quoting Silbersack v. AC & S, Inc ., 402 Md. 673, 678, 938 A.2d 855 (2008) ). However, Md. Rule 2-602(b......
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    ...“no just reason for delay,” and explains the rationale behind the conclusion. SeeMd. Rule 2–602(b); Miller Metal Fabrication, Inc. v. Wall, 415 Md. 210, 217, 999 A.2d 1006, 1010–11 (2010). In Miller Metal, we held that, appellate deference to a certification is nullified where the trial cou......
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