Rogers v. Unimac Co., Inc.

• Decision Date: 25 April 1977
• Docket Number: No. 12842,12842
• Citation: 565 P.2d 181,115 Ariz. 304
• Parties: Barrett ROGERS, Appellant, v. UNIMAC COMPANY, INC., Appellee.
• Court: Arizona Supreme Court

Page 181

565 P.2d 181

115 Ariz. 304

Barrett ROGERS, Appellant, v. UNIMAC COMPANY, INC., Appellee.

No. 12842.

Supreme Court of Arizona, In Banc.

April 25, 1977.

Barber, Haralson & Kinerk, P. C. by Dale Haralson, Tucson, for appellant.

Lesher, Kimble, Rucker & Lindamood, P. C. by William Kimble, Tucson, for appellee.

Brief Amicus Curiae of Arizona Trial Lawyers Assn. by Donald S. Klein and Frederick S. Klein, Tucson.

CAMERON, Chief Justice.

On 30 November 1972, Barrett Rogers, a nineteen year old employee of the Country Club Car Wash in Tucson, Arizona, fractured his arm, wrist and hand in several places when his arm was caught in the spinning extractor basket of a Unimac 202 commercial washer-extractor. He brought an action against Unimac Corporation, manufacturer of the appliance, on the theory of strict liability in tort. From the granting of the defendant's motion for a directed verdict, the plaintiff appeals seeking We must consider the following questions on appeal:

to have the judgment reversed and the case remanded for a new trial. This court has jurisdiction pursuant to Rule 47(e) (5), Rules of the Supreme Court, 17A A.R.S.

1. Did the plaintiff have to show that the alleged defect made the product unreasonably dangerous?

2. Did the plaintiff present sufficient evidence that the design of the Unimac 202 extractor was defective for lack of a lid lock?

3. Did the plaintiff present sufficient evidence that the Unimac was defective because the defendant manufacturer failed to provide adequate maintenance information for the brake?

4. Was the manufacturer under a duty to warn the operator of the Unimac of the hazard involved in reaching into the spinning extractor cylinder?

Viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the party opposing the motion and admitting the truth of all evidence introduced by that party, Adroit Supply Co. v. Electric Mutual Liability Ins. Co., 112 Ariz. 385, 542 P.2d 810 (1975); Byrns v. Riddell, Inc., 113 Ariz. 264, 550 P.2d 1065 (1976), we note the following facts necessary for a determination of this matter. The Unimac Company shipped its Unimac Model 202 washer-extractor to the Country Club Car Wash in June of 1967. The Unimac 202 is basically a three compartment toploading unit consisting of two washing machines separated by a centrifugal rinse-extractor. The rinse-extractor is a cylindrical stainless steel basket driven by an electric motor. The basket spins at 1725 r.p.m.s while in operation. When the lid covering the extractor compartment is raised, a micro switch disconnects the electric current to the motor and a mechanical brake is applied. The brake works as follows. As the lid is raised, a vertical brake rod attached to the rear of the lid is pulled up which in turn raises a rear cam arm. Two parallel cams, which are set into grooves cut into the top of the motor housing, then roll into a vertical position and force two brake shoes up against the revolving disc fixed to the bottom of the extractor basket. At the time the Unimac 202 was manufactured and shipped, this brake was capable of stopping the spinning extractor cylinder in less than ten seconds after the lid was raised.

The extractor was also equipped with a timer which automatically turned the extractor motor off after a pre-set time. The basket would then coast to a stop in approximately five minutes without aid of the brake. At peak hours during the operation of the car wash, the employees, who needed a continuous supply of clean towels to dry off cars, bypassed the timer and put the lid-activated brake to constant use.

The manager of the car wash, John Feagan, was responsible for the maintenance and repair of the Unimac. He testified that when he arrived at the car wash in October 1969 he could adjust the brake according to the instruction manual supplied by Unimac Company so that the cylinder stopped within ten seconds after the lid was raised. By November 1972, five and one-half years after delivery of the Unimac to the car wash, the brake mechanism of the appliance was in a state of great disrepair, and the brake itself was frequently inoperative. Feagan testified that in his opinion the main reason for the excessive wear on the brake was its constant use, combined with the fact that the employees loaded the extractor basket unevenly, causing the unit to wobble and vibrate. According to Feagan, he was not authorized to order replacement parts from the Unimac Company because he was kept on a "tight budget." Those parts which he had replaced prior to Roger's injury, the cams, the cam arm, and the brake linings, were fabricated by a local welder and installed by Feagan himself.

When the brakes were not working, the car wash employees stopped the spinning extractor after raising the lid by taking a towel and pressing down on the rim or the hub of the basket with the towel. The assistant manager of the car wash, Noel Dusek, testified that he instructed Barrett Rogers to stop the unit in this manner. An examination of the brake unit the next day revealed worn cams and a broken cam arm, a cracked brake shoe, and worn shock absorbers. The grooves on top of the motor housing were worn so that the cams dropped through.

The morning of the day Rogers was injured the brake shoes of the Unimac fell off repeatedly, and were replaced by the manager. Rogers was pressing down on the hub of the spinning basket when a loose towel caught his arm and wrenched it into the mechanism.

Plaintiff contended at trial that the accident would not have happened had the Unimac been equipped with a lid lock. The plaintiff introduced into evidence the American National Standards Institute guidelines for laundry machinery. The Institute recommended safety interlocks on centrifugal extractors, i. e. a lid lock which holds the cover closed and locked while the basket is spinning.

Vaughn Adams, an assistant professor of industrial design at Arizona State University, testified as plaintiff's expert witness. He stated that a hazard existed in the Unimac 202 as designed in that the operator is exposed to the centrifugal rotation of the basket for up to ten seconds after the extractor lid is raised. In his opinion, the Unimac should have been designed with a lid lock in conformance with the ANSI recommendations. He also testified that in addition to a lid lock, the machine should have had a warning affixed to it to alert the operator to the extreme hazard involved in reaching into the spinning basket should either the electric brake or the lid lock fail. On cross-examination, Adams admitted that he had not made any field comparisons of various braking systems of other commercial washer-extractors, nor had he investigated the impact of the ANSI recommendations on the design of washer-extractors since publication of the recommendations in 1961.

The assistant vice-president and chief engineer for Unimac Company, Charles Wyckoff, testified that the company had been incorporating the mechanical brake at issue into their extractors since 1952. He stated that the company was aware of the ANSI recommendations but declined to adopt the lid lock-electrical brake for its top loaders because the company's experience was that the mechanical brake was "superior to anything we could find" in terms of braking capacity, safety and reliability. Both he and the president of Unimac Company, Robert Cowen, testified that early in 1968 Unimac Company was forced to switch to the lid lock-electrical brake mechanism for some of their washer-extractors because the company could no longer purchase the single-phase motor required for the mechanical brake. On those units with the electrical brake, Unimac Company affixed a decal which cautioned against opening the lid until the basket stopped. The company felt this warning was necessary because the potential for brake failure was higher with an electric brake, and that if the lid lock became defective or was disconnected a potential hazard existed.

At the trial, the court denied the defendant manufacturer's motions for a directed verdict and submitted the case to the jury which was unable to reach a verdict. The trial court then declared a mistrial and granted defendant's

motion for directed verdict. MUST THE PLAINTIFF SHOW THAT THE WASHER-EXTRACTOR WAS "UNREASONABLY DANGEROUS"?

The brief of the plaintiff and the brief of the amicus curiae urge this court to hold that in a strict products liability action an injured plaintiff should not be required to show that the defect in the product which caused the injury also made the product unreasonably dangerous to users or consumers. Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc., 59 Cal.2d 57, 27 Cal.Rptr. 697, 377 P.2d 897 (1963) is cited in support of that position. In that case the California Supreme Court stated:

"A manufacturer is strictly liable in tort when an article he places on the market, knowing that it is to be used without inspection for defects, proves to have a Shortly after Greenman, supra, the Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 402A (1965) was adopted which required proof of a "defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user or consumer."

defect that causes injury to a human being * * * (T)he liability is not one governed by the law of contract warranties but by the law of strict liability in tort." 59 Cal.2d at 62-63, 27 Cal.Rptr. at 700-01, 377 P.2d at 900-01.

The Arizona courts, as did others, apparently assumed that the standards in Greenman and § 402A of the Restatement of Torts (Second) were the same. See Baily v. Montgomery Ward and Co., 6 Ariz.App. 213, 431 P.2d 108 (1967); Eck v. Helene Curtis Industries, Inc., 9 Ariz.App. 426, 453 P.2d 366 (1969). When this court adopted the theory of strict liability set forth in the Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 402A (1965) in O. S. Stapley Co. v. Miller, 103 Ariz. 556, 447 P.2d 248 (1968), there was no apparent need to distinguish the rule in Greenman, supra, and the Restatement. The ...