Niles v. Board of Regents of University System of Georgia

• Decision Date: 07 June 1996
• Docket Number: No. A96A0201,A96A0201
• Citation: 473 S.E.2d 173,222 Ga.App. 59
• Parties: , 111 Ed. Law Rep. 984 NILES v. BOARD OF REGENTS OF the UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF GEORGIA.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 173

473 S.E.2d 173

222 Ga.App. 59, 111 Ed. Law Rep. 984

NILES v. BOARD OF REGENTS OF the UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF GEORGIA.

No. A96A0201.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

June 7, 1996.

Reconsideration Denied July 2, 1996.

Certiorari Denied Oct. 11, 1996.

Greene, Buckley, Jones & McQueen, Harold S. White, Jr., Atlanta, J. Russell Phillips, Cochran, Victoria L. McLaughlin, Atlanta, for appellant.

Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, Bentley, Karesh & Seacrest, Gary L. Seacrest, Karsten Bicknese, Charles H. Van Horn, Atlanta, for appellee.

ANDREWS, Judge.

Julian Niles, a doctoral student at Georgia Tech, suffered severe injuries in a laboratory accident. Chemicals he mixed inside a metal canister reacted violently, causing an explosion which sent fragments of the metal into his leg and lower abdomen. He sued Georgia Tech and the Board of Regents, claiming his professor and the University's administration should have provided him with laboratory safety training and should have warned him of the dangers of mixing acetone, ethanol, and nitric acid inside a metal container. Niles presented his case to a jury, but at the close of his liability evidence the trial court directed a verdict in the University's favor. After carefully reviewing the evidence, including the evidence Niles claims was improperly excluded, we affirm the trial court's judgment.

A trial court may direct a verdict in a party's favor only "[i]f there is no conflict in the evidence as to any material issue and the evidence introduced, with all reasonable deductions therefrom, shall demand a particular verdict...." OCGA § 9-11-50(b). We view that evidence in a light most favorable to Niles, Sorrells Constr. Co. v. Chandler, etc., P.C., 214 Ga.App. 193, n. 1, 447 S.E.2d 101 (1994), and consider only those grounds raised in the University's motion for directed verdict. Nelson v. Polk County Historical Society, 216 Ga.App. 756(1), 456 S.E.2d 93 (1995).

In pursuit of a doctorate in physics, Niles was enrolled in a class called "special problems" under Dr. Erbil and was experimenting with methods of producing superconducting crystals. Doctoral students such as Niles have supervision but also spend much time working independently on experiments. This explosion occurred when Niles was cleaning out a metal canister involved in the experiment, using a procedure outlined for him by a former Ph.D. student who had, the previous quarter, been his "mentor" in the lab. The experts who testified believed the explosion was caused by the combination of acetone and ethanol, which are "organic" chemicals, with inorganic nitric acid, inside a metal canister containing residue of titanium isopropoxide.

Before entering this laboratory course, Niles had graduated summa cum laude from the University of the Virgin Islands with a degree in chemistry. He had also obtained a masters' degree in physics from Clark Atlanta University, maintaining a 4.0 grade point average there. He passed his oral comprehensive examinations approximately ten months before the accident. During his scholastic career, Niles had spent "hundreds" of hours in laboratories. He had previously worked with acetone, ethanol, and nitric acid and knew many of the properties of these chemicals.

Niles' studies had also taught him to use reference materials. He was aware there are "a million" organic compounds, and he had learned to look up the nature of any compounds he did not understand. He had previously used a Merck's index to discover the properties of various chemicals, but he did not use that book--or any other reference--to investigate these chemicals before combining them. Neither did Niles ask any questions of Dr. Erbil, although he was familiar with the professor's "open door" policy. Instead, Niles relied on the process described to him by the former student.

1. Neither Georgia Tech nor Dr. Erbil was required to warn Niles of the dangers of mixing these chemicals. "Whether a duty to warn exists depends upon foreseeability of the [danger], the type of danger involved, and the foreseeability of the user's knowledge of the danger." (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Exxon Corp. v. Jones, 209 Ga.App. 373, 375, 433 S.E.2d 350 (1993) (discussing duty to warn in products liability context). Although a university student is an invitee to whom the university owes a duty of reasonable care, see Rawlings v. Angelo State Univ., 648 S.W.2d 430, 432 (Tex.App.1983), college administrators do not stand in loco parentis to adult college students. Bradshaw v. Rawlings, 612 F.2d 135 (3rd Cir.1979). See Walker v. Daniels, 200 Ga.App. 150, 154-55, 407 S.E.2d 70 (1991).

Dr. Erbil had the right to assume that a physics doctoral student, who had graduated with highest honors in chemistry, would either know the dangers of mixing these chemicals or would perform the research necessary to determine those dangers and take the necessary precautions. Niles' own expert, a chemist, testified acetone, ethanol, and nitric acid are "common" chemicals in labs and that "in all probability," mixing them would produce a reaction like the one resulting in Niles' injury. "Ordinarily, there is no duty to give warning to the members of a profession against generally known risks. There need be no warning to one in a particular trade or profession against a danger generally known to that trade or profession." (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Brown v. Apollo Indus., 199 Ga.App. 260, 263(2)(b), 404 S.E.2d 447 (1991); Eyster v. Borg-Warner Corp., 131 Ga.App. 702, 705(2), 206 S.E.2d 668 (1974). Under these circumstances, neither Dr. Erbil nor Georgia Tech had any duty to warn a student with a degree in chemistry of the dangers of mixing these common chemicals.

2. Even if...