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Corcoran v. Roebuck6/3/1998
Argued March 24, 1998
On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Bergen County.
Plaintiff, Thomas Corcoran, sustained a severe injury to his left eye while using a pair of needle nose pliers sold by defendant Sears Roebuck Corporation and manufactured by Western Forge. Plaintiff sued defendant alleging a manufacturing defect. A jury found in favor of defendant, finding no manufacturing defect. Plaintiff appeals and defendant cross-appeals.
Plaintiff contends on appeal that the Judge erred in: 1) denying plaintiff's motion to introduce into evidence the expert report of Martin Glickman, Ph.D., an expert retained but not called by the defense, as an adoptive admission; 2) improperly instructing the jury as to the use of circumstantial evidence to prove a manufacturing defect; 3) allowing defendant's expert to rely upon inadmissible hearsay concerning the manufacturing and quality control processes in effect at Western Forge in 1980; and 4) precluding plaintiff's counsel from cross- examining defendant's expert as to federal specifications which were not adopted by defendant as part of its own manufacturing specifications. We find no trial error warranting our intervention and affirm the judgment under review. Accordingly, we need not address the issues presented in the cross-appeal.
The accident occurred on October 21, 1990, while plaintiff was working in his father's driveway attempting to replace the rear brakes on his friend's station wagon. Plaintiff used his father's tools to perform the brake job . He testified that he used the subject needle nose pliers, which he described as being in " ood condition," to remove without incident the brake springs from the brake assembly. Once the springs were out, plaintiff was able to remove the brake shoes. Plaintiff then began to replace the brake shoes by reversing the process.
While seated on a tire, plaintiff looked to see if the brake spring was aligned with the assembly, thereby placing his eye in line with, and within inches of, the spring. He held the needle nose pliers in his left hand, gripped the spring at approximately the pliers' eighth serration, and pulled the spring from left to right, towards his face, in an effort to reconnect the spring between the brake shoe and the brake self-adjuster. According to plaintiff, at that moment the pliers "broke," causing them to release from the spring and hit him in the left eye.
Plaintiff's father immediately drove plaintiff to the hospital. The emergency admission record indicated: "patient states a pair of needle nose pliers slipped and penetrated [his left] eyeball." Plaintiff later denied making that statement.
Upon returning home, plaintiff retrieved the needle nose pliers, which his friend had placed back in plaintiff's father's tool box, and brought the pliers to his bedroom where it remained for approximately one year to eighteen months. Plaintiff testified that he was unable to find the 1/8-inch section of the jaw tip that had broken off the pliers.
The pliers involved in this incident was manufactured by Western Forge in 1980, and sold by defendant under the Craftsman brand. Defendant admitted that the pliers had "an indefinite life provided . . . [it was] properly used and cared for."
Peter Elliot, plaintiff's expert in the areas of failure analysis, metallurgy and forensic engineering, testified that the pliers was defective when manufactured. He explained that when he examined the pliers in 1992, 1/8-inch of one of the jaws, from the tip to approximately the third serration of the pliers, was missing. He also observed that the pliers was dirty and had "bits of surface r
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