Removable Guards and the Case for Liability. What Warnings?
Accident & Injury Products Liability Accident & Injury Personal Injury
Summary: A look at the American Airlines case involving a baggage handler rendered quadriplegic as a result of an alleged defect in the baggage cart.
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Even Though Plaintiff was Trained that High-Speed Winds on Runway
Might Cause Hood of Tractor to Fly Up, Jury Could Still Reasonably Conclude
That Plaintiff was Unaware That Engine From Airplanes on Runway Could Cause
Danger.
Baggage handler
brought products liability action against baggage tractor manufacturer, and
airline for failure to warn following handler’s injury after a jet engine blew
the hood of the tractor back on its hinges into the passenger compartment of
the tractor sometime after the tractor’s cab had been removed. Plaintiff was
struck in the head by the tractor’s hood, rendering him quadriplegic. Following
a jury award of over $48 million in US District Court for the Eastern District
of New York. Manufacturer and airline appealed.
The evidence
permitted the jury to find that the tractor has once been equipped with a can
that might have protected plaintiff from the fly-away hood; that the tractor
was sold by S&S without the cab, which was offered by S&S as an option
and ordered by American Airlines separately and installed after the tractor’s
delivery; that the cab had been removed by American Airlines after it was
damaged; that the tractor’s hood was equipped with a hinge that permitted the
hood to flip back 180 degrees and enter the passenger compartment; and that the
rubber latches that secure the hood had deteriorated over time or had been
removed, thus permitted the unsecured hood to fly away in the jet-wash.
Plaintiff’s theory at trial was that S&S was liable for its failure to warn
users that operating the vehicle without a cab and without adequate latches
could lead to injury due to the design of the hood. Defendants argue that this
theory was defective, either on its face or as presented to the jury by
plaintiff’s evidence.
S&S argues that
plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie case for liability on a failure to
warn theory because his evidence did not establish that it was foreseeable to
S&S that the tractor would be used in its modified state. The court finds
that a jury could reasonably have found, based on the evidence at trial that it
was foreseeable that the tractor would be used without a cab given that the cab
was only a option.
American Airlines
argues that plaintiff’s case was legally insufficient because plaintiff was
required to present expert proof regarding the feasibility, actual content,
form and placement of the warning. The court finds that it is not persuaded
that a jury would be so confused by lay testimony about the operation of the
tractor’s cab, hood hinge, or latches as to undermine the sufficiency of the
evidence in support of the verdict. That expert testimony - or an exemplar
warning - may have assisted the jury, or advanced plaintiff’s case, does not
mean that jurors could not understand, without such evidence, the basic
mechanisms at issue in this case.
S&S argues that
any failure to warn did not proximately cause plaintiff’s injuries because, as
a matter of law, the product’s danger was open and obvious, rendering a warning
superfluous. The trial record, however, contains evidence from which the jury
reasonably could have found that the hinge’s ability to open in a half circle,
and the resulting possibility that the hood could rotate into the passenger
compartment, was not obvious to any reasonably prudent person, since the
mechanism was not readily apparent.
S&S and American
Airlines both argue that the evidence at trial required the jury to find that
plaintiff was a knowledgeable user of the tractor because he knew or reasonable
should have known of the specific danger based on his training and experience
operating tractors for many years. The court finds that the jury could
reasonably have found that plaintiff was not aware of the danger that the hood
could open into the passenger compartment, or that the hood presented a danger
when the tractor was operated away from full-power runway jet engines. The jury
thus could reasonably have found that, although plaintiff had been trained and
was aware that operating a tractor in the high-speed winds present on a runway
was acutely dangerous, in part because of the risk that the hood might open,
plaintiff was unaware of the danger that in fact materialized.