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Knopp v. Dayton Machine Tool12/8/2004
JUDGMENT: Affirmed.
{ } This timely appeal comes for consideration upon the record in the trial court, the parties' briefs, and their oral argument to this court. Plaintiff-Appellant, Justin Knopp, appeals the decisions of the Columbiana County Court of Common Pleas which granted summary judgment to Defendants-Appellees, Cincinnati Machines, Inc., and UNOVA Industrial Automation Systems, Inc. This appeal involves a variety of issues ranging from the existence of a duty or defect to whether Appellees' actions proximately caused Knopp's injuries. We conclude that Knopp assumed the risk of injury when he reached over the guards and that his negligence when doing so clearly outweighs any negligence by Appellees. Accordingly, we will not address the many other issues in this appeal.
{ } Appellees argue that they are not the proximate cause of Knopp's injuries since he assumed the risk of injury. Knopp claims he did not assume the risk since he subjectively believed he was required to encounter the risk in his normal job duties. But the evidence demonstrates that his subjective belief was unreasonable. Assumption of the risk is a complete bar to Knopp's strict liability claims again UNOVA, but not to his negligence claims against CMI and UNOVA. Nevertheless, no reasonable fact-finder could conclude that Knopp's negligence was not greater than the combined negligence of both CMI and UNOVA. Accordingly, his other claims against Appellees are also barred. The trial court's judgment is affirmed.
Facts
{ } Knopp was seriously injured in an industrial accident on his first day working at Vari-Wall Tube Specialists, Inc. Vari-Wall Tube uses industrial milling machines to manufacture tubes and tubular products, such as ball bats and bicycle parts. Knopp was hired as a laborer on the machines making these parts.
{ } On the day he was injured, Knopp arrived at Vari-Wall Tube at 7:00 a.m. Upon arriving, he met with Vari-Wall Tube's human resources manager, Paul Love, who had Knopp fill out some paperwork, showed him the time-clock, and informed Knopp of basic plant rules. Love had Knopp watch a safety video which stressed two basic rules: 1) do not touch any moving parts and 2) do not stick your hands in the machines. After this introduction, Steven Griffin, a team leader at Vari-Wall Tube, trained Knopp how to use the machines he would be operating.
{ } Griffin taught Knopp to use two machines, one of which was the machine that injured Knopp. This machine is a hypowermatic milling machine, a general purpose milling machine which could be used to mill a variety of different kinds of products depending on the types of fixtures attached to it. It was tooled to cut a notch into the top of a metal tube. Those tubes were inserted into slots on the right hand side of the machine. The operator then used levers at the operator's station to move the tubes from the right-hand to the left-hand side of the machine. As they made this pass, spinning cutters made a notch in the tubes. The tubes then slid back to the right-hand side of the machine and were removed by the operator. Knopp was taught to clear debris only from the right-hand side of the machine by using an air hose on the area after each pass.
{ } When Knopp used the machine, it had a variety of safety features. Some of these were obvious. For example, the guards around the left-hand side of the machine, where the cutters were located, and other signs on the machine said, "Caution: Keep Your Hands Clear". Other safety devices were not so obvious. For instance, in the operator's area there were a variety of buttons. Some of these buttons would shut off the entire machine; others would j
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