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Lay v. Schindler Elevator Corp.12/12/2000
Appeal From: Circuit Court of Jackson County, Hon. Donald L. Mason
Opinion Vote: JNOV REVERSED; REMANDED WITH DIRECTIONS TO REINSTATE THE VERDICT.
Lowenstein and Stith, JJ., concur.
Opinion:
I. Factual and Procedural Background
A. The Accident
Mr. Johnnie Lay had been employed as an elevator repairman since 1981, and he primarily installed, serviced, and repaired elevators and dumbwaiters . On September 30, 1992, Mr. Lay was repairing a dumbwaiter car lodged between two floors at the Hyde Park Nursing Home in Kansas City, Missouri. The nursing home was a three-story structure, and the dumbwaiter was lodged about midway in the shaft. In an attempt to repair the dumbwaiter, Mr. Lay opened the small access panel where he discovered that all of the cable had unwound from the drum.
The cable needed to be rewound around the drum because it was tangled around all of the equipment in the pit. But Mr. Lay could not reach all of the loose cable in the pit because the cable was wrapped around, under, and behind the various mechanical components on the backside of the pit. The pit had very limited access, and Mr. Lay did not have sufficient clearance to reach into the pit to untangle the cable. Instead, Mr. Lay opened the basement service or hoistway door to the shaft.
After untangling the cable, Mr. Lay and his assistant began rewinding the cable on the drum when the loaded dumbwaiter fell eight to ten feet to the bottom of the shaft. The car struck Mr. Lay, and his head was impaled on the equipment in the dumbwaiter pit. His injuries were extensive. The lower half of Mr. Lay's face, including his nose, left eye and jaw, was sheared off and left hanging by skin. Mr. Lay was conscious from the time the accident occurred until he was given anesthetic, which was over an hour after arriving at the hospital. In order to breathe and to control the bleeding, Mr. Lay held his face up against his skull while the doctors worked on him.
Following the accident, Mr. Lay was forced to undergo extensive reconstructive surgery on his face, and subsequently, underwent eight additional surgeries. His face remains disfigured and scarred. He has lost his left eyeball and suffers from palsy on the left side of his face. He has lost his depth perception and most of his ability to hear, smell, and taste. He also sustained damages to his inner ear and suffers from bouts of vertigo. In addition, he suffers from chronic headaches and the left side of his face and lips are completely numb, causing him to drool constantly. Finally, Mr. Lay suffers from recurrent, chronic infections in his face that require him to take antibiotics daily for the rest of his life. When the infections flare up, Mr. Lay must be hospitalized and receive heavy doses of IV antibiotics for days and sometimes weeks. As a result, Mr. Lay is unable to maintain employment.
B. The Dumbwaiter
The Goetz-Niemer Company (Goetz) owned the nursing home where the accident occurred. In 1964 it contacted Allied Elevator Company (Allied) to replace a hand-operated dumbwaiter it had previously used with a mechanical one. Allied purchased the mechanical dumbwaiter from Atlas Elevator Company (Atlas), the manufacturer of the dumbwaiter, and then Allied resold it to Goetz. Allied installed the dumbwaiter in 1964. In 1981, Schindler Elevator Corporation (Schindler) purchased Allied and all of its stock. Allied merged into Schindler, and Schindler agreed to assume all of Allied's liabilities and obligations. Schindler does not dispute that it is responsible as a successor corporation for Allied's liability.
C. Procedural Background
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