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Blanton v. Internatl. Minerals & Chem. Corp.12/19/1997
PAINTER, Presiding Judge.
Timothy Blanton, plaintiff-appellant, worked for defendant-appellee Hamilton Foundry and Machine Co. operating a "CB-22" core-making machine. The machine produces cores by compressing a sand mixture with a gas. Simply stated, the CB-22 makes cores when two halves of a box-shaped mold come together. At the foundry, an employee usually operated the CB-22 in "lock-down" position, where the box's right side was locked in a stationary position through air pressure and the box's left side closed on it when the operator started a cycle. During lock-down, the box's right side was held in position by two steel stop rods. After a core was produced, the box's left side retracted. Then the machine operator had to put his hand between the sides of the box to remove the core. Apparently, removing the cores by hand was the only way to accomplish the task--the cores were too fragile to remove with a device such as tongs.
The foundry acquired the CB-22 in 1985 or 1986, and during the next seven or eight years stop rods occasionally broke. As many as seven rods may have broken during this period, but there were no injuries to any operators before Blanton was injured. On January 27, 1993, when Blanton placed his hand into the box area to remove a core, the stop rods broke and the two halves of the mold came together. He suffered severe and permanent damage to his right hand and forearm.
Blanton received workers' compensation for his injury , but he also filed suit against the foundry for an intentional tort and against defendant-appellee International Minerals and Chemical Corp. ("Redford Carver"), the manufacturer of the machine, under product-liability theories. Particularly, in the product-liability claim, Blanton attempted to prove that it was Redford Carver's stop rods that had broken and that the design for the stop rods was defective. Blanton also claimed that the machine was defective when locked down because this method allowed too much pressure to be stored in the machine while an operator had to place his hand in the box area to remove a core. After Blanton presented his evidence to the jury, the trial judge directed a verdict for the foundry. The jury later returned a verdict for Redford Carver. In seven assignments of error, Blanton appeals the trial court's directed verdict and also raises alleged errors relating to the claim against Redford Carver.
In his first assignment, Blanton asserts that the trial court erred in granting a directed verdict for the foundry. We overrule this assignment.
The workers' compensation system has all but eliminated the ability of employees to sue their employers for injuries sustained in the workplace. A narrow exception exists in situations where an employer's conduct is sufficiently egregious in causing the injury . In Fyffe v. Jeno's, Inc., the Ohio Supreme Court set out a test for determining whether an employee can bring an intentional-tort action against an employer for an injury received in the workplace. Fyffe's first two syllabus paragraphs provide the applicable test and a less-than-definitive explanation of when a substantial certainty of injury exists:
"1. Within the purview of Section 8(A) of the Restatement of the Law 2d, Torts, and Section 8 of Prosser & Keeton on Torts (5 Ed.1984), in order to establish "intent" for the purpose of proving the existence of an intentional tort committed by an employer against his employee, the following must be demonstrated: (1) knowledge by the employer of the existence of a dangerous process, procedure, instrumentality or condition within its business operation; (2) knowledge by the employer th
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