Summers v. Giant Food Stores, Inc.

• Decision Date: 17 December 1999
• Citation: 743 A.2d 498
• Parties: Kay SUMMERS, Appellee, v. GIANT FOOD STORES, INC., Hershocks, Inc., and Stanley Magic Door, Inc., a Division of the Stanley Works, Inc., Appellees, v. Microwave Sensors, Inc., Appellee. Appeal of Giant Food Stores, Inc. Kay Summers, Appellant, v. Giant Food Stores, Inc., Hershocks, Inc., and Stanley Magic Door, Inc., a Division of the Stanley Works, Inc., Appellees, v. Microwave Sensors, Inc., Appellee.
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

743 A.2d 498

Kay SUMMERS, Appellee, v. GIANT FOOD STORES, INC., Hershocks, Inc., and Stanley Magic Door, Inc., a Division of the Stanley Works, Inc., Appellees, v. Microwave Sensors, Inc., Appellee.

Appeal of Giant Food Stores, Inc.

Kay Summers, Appellant, v. Giant Food Stores, Inc., Hershocks, Inc., and Stanley Magic Door, Inc., a Division of the Stanley Works, Inc., Appellees, v. Microwave Sensors, Inc., Appellee.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued April 30, 1999.

Filed December 17, 1999.

George B. Faller, Jr., Carlisle, for Giant Food Stores, Inc.

Mark Schwartz, Mechanicsburg, for Summers.

Jonathan F. Ball, Philadelphia, for Stanley.

Before McEWEN, President Judge, and CAVANAUGH, DEL SOLE, JOHNSON, HUDOCK, EAKIN, JOYCE, MUSMANNO, and ORIE MELVIN, JJ. McEWEN, President Judge:

I. PROCEDURAL POSTURE

¶ 1 These consolidated appeals¹ have been taken from the order which, following a jury verdict in favor of all defendants, Giant Food Stores, Inc. (hereafter "Giant"), Hershocks, Inc. (hereafter "Hershocks"), and Stanley Magic Door, Inc. (hereafter "Stanley"), granted, in part², the post-trial motion of the plaintiff, Kay Summers (hereafter "Summers"), and ordered a new trial as to the defendant Giant Food Stores, Inc., only.³ Giant, as appellant in Appeal No. 637 Harrisburg 1997, challenges the award of a new trial against it, while Summers, as appellant in Appeal No. 708 Harrisburg 1997, challenges the denial of her request for a new trial as to defendant Stanley.⁴ For the reasons set forth hereinafter, we reverse the order which awarded a new trial as to defendant Giant only, and remand for entry of judgment on the verdict of the jury.

II. FACTS

¶ 2 The trial court provided the following summary of the evidence introduced at trial:

On Saturday evening, March 31, 1990, plaintiff Kay Summers purchased groceries at defendant Giant Food Stores' supermarket on 29th Street in Harrisburg. Her friend, Debra Shaw, proceeded ahead with the grocery cart. Plaintiff suffers from cerebral palsy and had recently undergone knee surgery and walked with the assistance of a cane. Plaintiff testified that while exiting an interior set of automatic sliding doors, they closed on her shoulders and immediately reopened, throwing her backwards onto the floor where she struck her head and back. She stated that she had approached the doors in the middle and that when she was an arm's length away, they opened full width. She placed her cane in the doors' threshold and stepped forward with her right leg. The doors closed just as she was beginning to move her left leg forward. She stated she was continuing to move through the doors and did not hesitate or stop. She described the speed of her gait as both normal "like any other person's" as well as normal for that of a person with cerebral palsy. Upon falling, she felt immediate pain.

Plaintiff's friend testified that upon exiting the exterior exit doors, she looked back and saw plaintiff being helped from the floor. She stated plaintiff appeared to be in pain. She asked plaintiff what had happened and she replied "they closed on me." However, her friend did admit she had given a recorded statement to an insurance adjuster one and one-half years after the accident wherein she stated that plaintiff told her, immediately after the accident, the doors had caught her single-point cane and thrown her to her back when they released. An inspection of the doors four days after the accident found them to be working as they were designed.1

1 The testimony did not indicate if the inspector walked through the door with a normal gait or as a person, disabled or elderly, walking slowly leading with a cane.

Plaintiff wanted to leave the store to get medical treatment, however, her friend persuaded her to remain to file an accident report. Plaintiff, with Ms. Shaw's assistance, went to the manager's office. Both testified that plaintiff was in too much pain to sit on a chair in the office, so she stood. Upon completion of the meeting, Ms. Shaw stated she walked in front of plaintiff down six steps, plaintiff using her as a brace.

Plaintiff was taken to Harrisburg Hospital where she was x-rayed and given pain medication. She was released with instructions to seek further medical attention on Monday. She saw her orthopedic doctor, David Joyner, that Monday. He admitted her to Harrisburg Hospital where she was placed in traction for two to three weeks. She continued to suffer from back and leg problems necessitating a month-long stay at a rehabilitation hospital in October of 1990. At trial, she alleged her pain was still considerable and had altered her lifestyle tremendously.

The doors in question were manufactured by defendant Stanley Magic Door. They had been installed in Giant's 29th Street store in 1983 by defendant Hershocks, an exclusive distributor of Stanley products. The motion sensors originally purchased with the Stanley door package were StanRay motion sensors. In 1987, the StanRay sensors were replaced by an equivalent product manufactured by additional defendant Microwave Sensors.2

2 In 1987, the entrance/exit area to the store was remodeled and the doors were reinstalled. The StanRay sensors were misplaced, however, since they were no longer on the market, Hershocks ordered Microwave's product. Microwave is not a party to this suit, having settled with plaintiff prior to trial.

Giant relied upon Hershocks to provide advice on proper maintenance of the doors as well as product improvements. Two mechanisms guide the doors' opening and closing: 1) two motion sensors and 2) a hold beam. The motion sensors were located on top of the door frame, one on the inside and another on the outside. They caused the doors to open upon detection of motion. They would remain open for one second after the motion detection ceased. The hold beam was mounted in the door, twenty-one inches off the ground, and sent a beam of light across the length of the doors' threshold which, when broken by an object such as a human body, would prevent the doors from closing. Once the beam was reconnected the doors would close one-half second later.

It was acknowledged by two Hershocks' employees as well as by Giant's corporate records from July 1986, that doors with motion sensors and a hold beam had a coverage gap. The doors could close on a person if that person had stopped in the threshold, thereby losing detection by the inside motion sensor, and if the beam would be unbroken by passing between a person's legs. Alternatively, as testified to by a Hershocks' employee, the doors could also close if a person stopped in front of the open doors, with an undetected cane placed across the hold beam area in the threshold, causing the doors to close on the person's cane. Both Hershocks' employees testified that doors with motion sensors and a hold beam would not close on a person who was in continual motion through the doors.

In 1987, Stanley placed on the market a StanGuard, an infrared presence sensor which was designed to replace both the motion sensors and hold beam. The two Hershocks' employees testified that it was a superior product since, even if a person were stopped motionless in the threshold area, the doors would "sense" the person and not close on them. In 1987, Stanley sent Giant two safety alert bulletins notifying Giant of the availability of the StanGuard which would "deliver improved safety coverage" and "reduce the possibility of accidents". A StanGuard promotional video, shown to the jury, vividly depicted the sliding doors, with motion sensors and a hold beam, closing on the walker of a slowly moving elderly person as they moved through the doors. The price of installation was $245.

Giant did not recall receiving the bulletins although Stanley's records indicated that they had been mailed. A Hershocks' employee testified that he also informed Giant of the StanGuard presence sensor when the product first became available in 1987. In December 1987, Giant made renovations to its 29th Street store, installing two new entrance doors with StanGuard. However, Giant did not modify the exit doors with Stan-Guard technology.

Plaintiff's expert testified that the Stanley door package in the Giant store at the time of plaintiff's accident (a door with two motion sensors and a hold beam) did not provide adequate protection for a slow-moving segment of the population such as the elderly and the handicapped. He claimed no entrapment can occur in doors equipped with a presence sensor, and that such a device would have avoided this accident. He testified that presence sensors such as the StanGuard were available on the market between 1983 and 1987. In lieu of a presence sensor, such a door package should have been equipped with a sensor mat. He stated that motion sensors do not pick up the movement of a person walking at a rate of less than six feet per second.⁵ He assumed that plaintiff here was moving below that rate or had stopped, causing the motion sensor to "lose" her and signaling the doors to close. When informed that plaintiff had testified that she walked through the doors at a normal pace, he asserted that she was not a good judge of her walking speed.3

3 This testimony was creible. Plaintiff attempted to minimize her handicap: not uncommon for disabled people with self-pride and determination.

Plaintiff elicited testimony regarding the occurrence of seven substantially similar automatic door closings on Giant customers in its various stores involving the elderly or handicapped, and in one case, the very young.4

4 During an evidentiary hearing, following numerous motions, volumes of accident reports involving automatic door closings on Giant customers in the surrounding geographical area were received. Seven were determined to be substantially similar.

Defendants noted that in none of the incidents was the type of door system indicated and none of the incidents caused serious injury (cuts,

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