Snyder v. LTG Lufttechnische GmbH
| Decision Date | 02 September 1997 |
| Citation | 955 S.W.2d 252 |
| Parties | Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 15,061 William J. SNYDER, Plaintiff/Respondent, v. LTG LUFTTECHNISCHE GmbH; LTG Technologies, Inc.; and HSM Pressen-GmbH, Defendants/Petitioners, The Travelers Insurance Company, Intervenor. at Nashville |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Earl R. Booze, Herrin, Booze & Rambo, Johnson City, Bill Hampton, Hampton & Street, Elizabethton, for Plaintiff-Respondent.
John A. McReynolds, Jr., Baker, McReynolds, Byrne, O'Kane, Shea, & Townsend, Knoxville, Thomas F. Mink, II, Mink & Blair, Nashville, for Defendants/Petitioners.
J. Paul Coleman, Herndon, Coleman, Brading & McKee, Johnson City, for Intervenor.
Pursuant to Rule 23 of the Rules of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, 1 this Court has accepted two questions certified to us by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. The questions are as follows:
1. Whether products liability defendants in a suit for personal injuries based on allegations of negligence and strict liability in tort may introduce evidence at trial that the plaintiff's employer's alteration, change, improper maintenance, or abnormal use of the defendants' product proximately caused or contributed to the plaintiff's injuries.
2. If "no," of what effect is Tenn.Code Ann. § 29-28-108?
As explained below, the answer to the first certified question is that products liability defendants in a suit for personal injuries based on allegations of negligence and strict liability in tort may introduce relevant evidence at trial that the plaintiff's employer's alteration, change, improper maintenance, or abnormal use of the defendants' product was a cause in fact of the plaintiff's injuries. The jury may consider all evidence relevant to the actions of the employer with respect to the defendants' product in assessing whether the plaintiff has met his burden of establishing the elements necessary to recover against the defendants. However, in making that determination, the jury may not assess fault against the employer. Our answer to the first question makes it unnecessary to reach the second one.
In this products liability action, the plaintiff, William Snyder, was employed by Sara Lee Knit Products as a technician at its plant in Mountain City. Sara Lee used presses in its plant to compress cotton into bales. These presses, called "cotton balers," collected cotton in the top portion of the machine, which then vertically compressed the cotton into the lower half of the machine. A ram would then move horizontally forward to press the cotton into a bale.
On February 1, 1992, the plaintiff was working on a cotton baler in his employer's plant that had stopped in mid-cycle. Without first disconnecting power to the baler, the plaintiff stuck his arm into the machine to remove loose cotton covering a protective switch. The plaintiff's arm was inserted into the machine through an opening where a metal panel or barrier would have normally been bolted. While the plaintiff's arm was inside the machine, the machine engaged, causing injury to the plaintiff's arm. According to the plaintiff, he had not removed the metal panel and did not know who had. However, he admits to removing and replacing it on previous occasions.
On December 3, 1992, the plaintiff filed a products liability suit against LTG Lufttechnische GmbH, a German corporation, and LTG Technologies, Inc., a South Carolina corporation. Plaintiff alleged that these defendants were the manufacturers and sellers of the baler that injured him. In turn, these defendants named HSM Pressen GmbH, a German corporation, as a party, claiming that it was the manufacturer of the baler at issue. The Travelers Insurance Company intervened to assert its subrogation claim for the amount paid to the plaintiff as the workers' compensation carrier for the plaintiff's employer, Sara Lee. 2
The plaintiff's suit seeks recovery for personal injury based upon strict liability in tort, negligence and breach of warranty. Plaintiff claims that the defendants negligently designed and manufactured the baler, negligently failed to warn of the machine's dangers, and are liable for breach of warranties.
In response, the defendants insist that the cotton baler in question was state of the art and that it was neither defective nor unreasonably dangerous when it left their control. 3 They also claim that the machine was not defectively designed. Rather, the defendants assert that the plaintiff's employer altered or failed to maintain the machine by removing the bolted metal panel through which the plaintiff stuck his arm, thereby constituting a subsequent intervening act of negligence that caused the plaintiff's injuries. Thus, according to the defendants, it was the plaintiff's employer's conduct that rendered the baler defective or unreasonably dangerous. See Tenn.Code Ann. § 29-28-108 (). The defendants further maintain that removing the protective panel from the machine and attempting maintenance and repairs without first disconnecting the power violated safety provisions of the machine's operating and maintenance instructions.
An order certifying to this Court the two questions set forth above was issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Greenville. The district judge opined that this Court's decision in Ridings v. Ralph M. Parsons Co., 914 S.W.2d 79 (Tenn.1996) could be construed to preclude the defendants from presenting proof that the cause of the plaintiff's injuries was the acts or omissions of his employer. We entered an order accepting certification of the questions posed and set this cause for oral argument.
In McIntyre v. Balentine, 833 S.W.2d 52 (Tenn.1992), we adopted a system of modified comparative fault. In describing this system, we stated that "so long as a plaintiff's negligence remains less than the defendant's negligence, the plaintiff may recover; in such a case, the plaintiff's damages are to be reduced in proportion to the percentage of the total negligence attributable to the plaintiff." McIntyre, 833 S.W.2d at 57. At the time we decided McIntyre, we recognized that the decision would have far reaching implications and that working through the many affected principles would take time. McIntyre, 833 S.W.2d at 57 ( ).
Four years after McIntyre was decided, the case of Ridings v. Ralph M. Parsons Co., 914 S.W.2d 79 (Tenn.1996), a case similar to the present one, provided us with our first opportunity to decide whether under Tennessee's modified comparative fault system a defendant in a products liability case could assert that the plaintiff's immune employer caused or contributed to the plaintiff's injuries. 4 In Ridings, the plaintiff was injured when he fell from a ladder during the course and scope of his employment. Id. at 80. He filed a third-party tort action against the manufacturer and distributor of the ladder, alleging negligence and strict liability. Id. As in the present case, the defendants in Ridings sought to present proof that the plaintiff's employer caused or contributed to his injuries. 5 Thus, the issue in Ridings was "whether the defendants ... [could] assert as an affirmative defense that the plaintiff's employer caused or contributed to the plaintiff's injuries and damages, notwithstanding that the injuries alleged were sustained in the course and scope of the plaintiff's employment which was covered by the workers' compensation law of Tennessee." Id. In other words, could the employer, who was immune from tort liability by virtue of the workers' compensation law, be included in the apportionment of fault in the employee's third-party tort action.
The defendants in Ridings argued that fault could be apportioned to the plaintiff's employer and that their liability could be decreased accordingly, without the imposition of legal liability upon the employer. Id. at 81. The defendants also claimed that excluding the plaintiff's employer from those persons to whom fault could be attributed violated the principle stated in McIntyre that a party be held liable only for the percentage of the plaintiff's damages caused by that party. See McIntyre, 833 S.W.2d at 57. In response, the plaintiff in Ridings argued that "allowing the jury to attribute fault to the plaintiff's employer, against whom the plaintiff cannot maintain an action for damages, violates the McIntyre principle that the 'plaintiff's damages are to be reduced in proportion to the percentage of the total negligence attributable to the plaintiff.' " Ridings, 914 S.W.2d at 80 (quoting McIntyre, 833 S.W.2d at 57). Thus, both parties in Ridings presented arguments based upon notions of fairness consistent with their interpretation of Tennessee's system of comparative fault.
This Court rejected the defendants' position in Ridings, stating that it was "not consistent with the Tennessee doctrine of comparative fault." Ridings, 914 S.W.2d at 81. We did so after carefully considering the policy underlying the workers' compensation system (i.e., liability imposed upon the employer without regard to the employer's negligence in exchange for a limit on damages and tort immunity) and after examining how other jurisdictions have dealt with the same issue. See Ridings, 914 S.W.2d at 81-82. We determined that the fairness concerns underlying McIntyre compelled the result that fault be apportioned only to those persons against...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Rains v. Bend of the River
...or of what is administratively possible and convenient. White v. Lawrence, 975 S.W.2d 525, 529 (Tenn.1998); Snyder v. LTG Lufttechnische GmbH, 955 S.W.2d 252, 256 n. 6 (Tenn.1997). An actor's negligent conduct is the legal cause of harm to another if the conduct is a substantial factor in b......
-
Borne v. Celadon Trucking Servs., Inc.
...administratively possible and convenient.' " White v. Lawrence , 975 S.W.2d 525, 529 (Tenn. 1998) (quoting Snyder v. LTG Lufttechnische GmbH , 955 S.W.2d 252, 256 n.6 (Tenn. 1997) ).4 Superseding cause is included within the proximate causation analysis.5 Under superseding cause, a defendan......
-
Wortham v. Kroger Ltd.
...inadequately expressed ideas of what justice demands or of what is administratively possible and convenient."Snyder v. LTG Lufttechnische GmbH, 955 S.W.2d 252, 256 n.6 (Tenn.1997) (citations omitted). Here, because the jury was permitted to infer that it was Kroger's negligence that led to ......
-
Tatham v. Bridgestone Americas Holding, Inc.
...inadequately expressed ideas of what justice demands or of what is administratively possible and convenient."Snyder v. LTG Lufttechnische GmbH, 955 S.W.2d 252, 256 n.6 (Tenn.1997) (citations omitted).Proof and Application In denying summary judgment in this case, the trial court found that ......
-
Tennessee. Practice Text
...Eastman Chemical Co. , 467 the Tennessee Supreme Court addressed whether an indirect purchaser has a cause of action under the TTPA. 457. 955 S.W.2d 252 (Tenn. 1997). 458. Id. at 256 n.6; see also Kilpatrick v. Bryant, 868 S.W.2d 594, 598 (Tenn. 1993) (stating that the doctrine of proximate......