Travis v. Dreis and Krump Mfg. Co., Docket No. 163715
| Decision Date | 19 September 1994 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 163715 |
| Citation | 523 N.W.2d 818,207 Mich.App. 1 |
| Parties | Aimee Sue TRAVIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DREIS AND KRUMP MANUFACTURING COMPANY, an Illinois corporation, Defendant, and Greenville Wire Products Company, a Michigan corporation, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US |
Law Offices of Jeffrey H. Feldman, P.C. by Paul L. Kaliszewski, Southfield, for plaintiff.
Cholette, Perkins & Buchanan by Robert E. Attmore, Grand Rapids, for Greenville Wire Products Co.
Before HOLBROOK, P.J., and MURPHY and J.C. KINGSLEY, * JJ.
Plaintiff appeals as of right from an order granting summary disposition pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(10) for defendant Greenville Wire Products Company. Plaintiff was an employee of Greenville Wire. She filed this suit alleging that, as a result of an intentional tort attributable to Greenville Wire, she suffered amputation of her right and left fifth fingers and multiple crushing injuries to both hands. The trial court granted summary disposition on the ground that her claim did not fall under the intentional tort exception of the Worker's Disability Compensation Act. We reverse the order of summary disposition and remand this case to the trial court for further proceedings.
M.C.L. § 418.131(1); M.S.A. § 17.237(131)(1) of the Worker's Disability Compensation Act provides:
The right to the recovery of benefits as provided in this act shall be the employee's exclusive remedy against the employer for a personal injury or occupational disease. The only exception to this exclusive remedy is an intentional tort. An intentional tort shall exist only when an employee is injured as a result of a deliberate act of the employer and the employer specifically intended an injury. An employer shall be deemed to have intended to injure if the employer had actual knowledge that an injury was certain to occur and wilfully disregarded that knowledge. The issue of whether an act was an intentional tort shall be a question of law for the court. This subsection shall not enlarge or reduce rights under law. [Emphasis added.]
The issue whether the facts alleged by a plaintiff are sufficient to constitute an intentional tort is a question of law for the court, while the issue whether the facts are as a plaintiff alleges is a question of fact for the jury. Adams v. Shepherd Products, U.S. Inc., 187 Mich.App. 695, 696-697, 468 N.W.2d 332 (1991); McNees v. Cedar Springs Stamping Co., 184 Mich.App. 101, 104, 457 N.W.2d 68 (1990). In this case, the relevant question is whether the facts alleged by plaintiff are sufficient to establish that Greenville Wire had actual knowledge that an injury was certain to occur and wilfully disregarded that knowledge. The state of mind of Jay Clarke, plaintiff's supervisor at the time of the accident, may be imputed to the state of mind of defendant Greenville Wire. See Smith v. General Motors Corp., 192 Mich.App. 652, 657, 481 N.W.2d 819 (1992).
Plaintiff had been working for Greenville Wire for about seven months before her injury. On the day of the injury, Clarke assigned plaintiff to operate a brake press that ran by pushing palm buttons. The brake press was designed not to run unless the operator's hands were on the palm buttons. Plaintiff was required to produce parts by placing ten straight wires into the die space of the brake press, pushing the palm buttons to make the top ram come down and shape the wires, and then reaching into the die space to remove the wires that had been shaped. Plaintiff had operated this brake press on one prior occasion but she had never been required to reach into the die space of this brake press or any other machine. Clarke knew that this particular brake press had an ongoing problem with double cycling, which means it occasionally continued its next cycle without the operator's hands on the palm buttons. Before plaintiff operated the brake press on this day, Clarke showed plaintiff how to perform the task by doing it himself for a few cycles. Clarke did not inform plaintiff about the problem with double cycling and plaintiff had no knowledge of it on her own.
After she operated the brake press for about an hour, the brake press malfunctioned by double cycling. Plaintiff was injured when the double cycling occurred while her hands were in the die space. This was the only time that the brake press had double cycled while she was operating it.
At the time of the accident, Rodney King worked for Greenville Wire as a tool room supervisor. King testified at a deposition that on the day of the accident, before plaintiff was assigned to the brake press on which she was injured, he had been informed that this brake press had a tendency to double cycle. King learned about the problem from another operator, who refused to operate the machine.
King checked the machine that day and determined that it was double cycling. He made a number of adjustments that did not seem to help. King determined that the problem could not be fixed by making adjustments from the outside of the machine and that it would be necessary to tear down the machine in order to fix the problem. He then informed Clarke that the brake press was in need of repair and strongly advised Clarke to shut down the machine. In addition, King told Clarke that the problem was something that could not be adjusted and that the machine needed to be shut down and fixed or rebuilt. Further, King told Clarke that somebody would get hurt if the brake press was run. King was told that the brake press would be used because parts needed to be shipped out and there was not enough time to shut down the machine.
Jay Clarke was production manager at Greenville Wire at the time of the accident. In an affidavit, Clarke stated that in the thirty...
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