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Esparza v. Skyreach Equipment12/26/2000
PUBLISHED OPINION
Matt Esparza was in a manlift painting a ship when the manlift tipped over, causing him to fall approximately 50 feet to a steel dry dock deck and injuring him severely. Esparza sued Skyreach Equipment, Inc., the company that rented the manlift to his employer, for damages under the theory that Skyreach negligently failed to inspect and test a safety component on the manlift that would have prevented the tip-over if it had been working properly. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Esparza. Skyreach appeals the trial court's (1) denial of its motion to quash a Notice of Trial Attendance to Skyreach's president; (2) admission of testimony from two expert witnesses; (3) denial of its motion for a judgment as a matter of law on the issue of proximate cause; (4) refusal to allow the jury to consider the allocation of fault to the manlift's manufacturer, JLG Industries, Inc.; (5) order striking the jury's allocation of fault to Todd Shipyards, Esparza's employer; and (6) denial of Skyreach's motion to convert the jury's award of future economic damages to a stream of periodic payments. We affirm all but one of the challenged rulings. The trial court erred by refusing to allow the jury to consider allocation of fault to JLG Industries, Inc., on one of the product liability theories argued below, i.e., that adequate warnings or instructions were not provided after the product was manufactured, where the manufacturer learned or should have learned about a danger connected with the product after it was manufactured, and a reasonably prudent manufacturer would have issued such warnings or instructions. Skyreach is entitled to a new trial, not as to its own liability, but as to whether any portion of the fault for Esparza's injury should be allocated to the manufacturer of the manlift.
FACTS
On October 2, 1996, Matt Esparza, a Todd Shipyards employee, was in a manlift painting a ship when the manlift tipped over, causing him and the operator of the manlift, William Espy, to fall approximately 50 feet to a steel dry dock deck. Later, it was discovered that the manlift's circuit cards had been damaged by an excessive dose of electrical current, causing the 'load management system' (LMS) to fail to automatically stop further extension of the boom before the manlift could tip over. As a result of the fall, Esparza suffered severe injuries to his head, legs, foot, and ankle and is unable to return to the type of work he did before the fall. Todd Shipyards compensated Esparza under the federal Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA) for his injuries.
Esparza sued Skyreach Equipment, Inc., the company that rented the manlift to Todd Shipyards, for damages. Esparza claimed, inter alia, that Skyreach failed to inspect, test, and maintain a safety component on the manlift. In Skyreach's answer to Esparza's complaint, it raised the affirmative defense that Esparza's injuries were proximately caused by JLG Industries, Inc., the manufacturer of the manlift, and Todd Shipyards, Esparza's employer.
Before trial, Skyreach moved to quash a Notice of Trial Attendance that Esparza sent to Barry Weaver, Skyreach's Canadian president and owner. The trial court denied this motion, thereby requiring Weaver to attend trial when he was scheduled to testify.
After the parties had presented all their evidence to the jury, Skyreach moved for judgment as a matter of law because it maintained that Esparza had failed to present evidence on the issue of proximate cause. But the trial court denied this motion. The court then prohibited Skyreach from arguing that JLG Industries, Inc., was a nonparty entity to which the jury could allocate
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