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Anderson v. Nissei ASB Machine Co.12/23/1999
AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART
In this products liability case, the jury found Nissei ASB Machine Company and Nissei ASB Company ("Nissei") liable for manufacturing a defective machine that caused Patrick Anderson to lose his right arm, and awarded $3,250,000 in damages. Following trial, however, the trial court granted Nissei's motion for judgment as a matter of law ("jmol"). On appeal, Anderson seeks to have the trial court's grant of the jmol reversed and the jury's verdict reinstated. Nissei has cross-appealed, seeking a new trial if the jmol is set aside. For the reasons that follow, we reverse the jmol, reinstate the jury's verdict, and deny Nissei's request for a new trial.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
In May of 1993, Patrick Anderson was working at Star Container Company when his right arm was caught in, crushed, and amputated by a vertical injection, stretch-blow molding bottle-making machine manufactured and distributed by Defendants Nissei. The bottle-making machine is designed to produce plastic bottles by rotating plastic resin through a multi-step operation conducted from four operating stations. First, plastic resin is fed into injectors, where it is heated and compressed. The melted plastic is injected into molds to produce "pre-forms," which then rotate to the stretch-blow molding station where they are stretched into bottles. Finally, the plastic bottles are rotated to an ejection station where they are discharged from the machine.
Each station is enclosed by a safety cage, the entry to which is guarded by "safety doors." At the injection station, yellow "purge guards" are attached by three screws to the safety doors. Opening or jarring the safety doors or purge guards automatically shuts off the entire machine.
From time to time, bottles become stuck in the ejection station and must be manually removed so that they do not jam the machine. Anderson testified that bottles regularly became stuck and that, on the average, he removed at least five stuck bottles a night. It was in removing a bottle that Anderson's arm became caught.
The machine also emits a molten waste material at the injection station, which is referred to as "drool." Drool drips onto machine parts and wires and, despite the connotations of the term, quickly hardens into rock-like lumps, which, if not promptly removed, will damage the machine and render it inoperable. The buildup of drool must be checked and removed at least every fifteen minutes.
Although Nissei distributed a detailed manual explaining the operation and safety features of the bottle-making machine, the manual contains no instructions on how to remove drool. Thus Star employees devised a method for removing it: They would insert a long stick with a hook on the end into the three-inch gap between the purge guards on the safety doors at the injection station and drag it out. Anderson testified that the drool was difficult to remove with the purge guards on because the opening was so small that it was easy for the stick or the drool to hit and jar the safety doors, which would shut the machine down. Once the machine shut down, it could remain down for as much as two hours because every time the machine stopped, the operator had to manually remove jammed bottles, restart the machine, and allow time for the resin to reheat. If the machine were shut down every fifteen minutes to remove drool, significant production delays would occur.
To facilitate the drool removal, prevent the lost production time, and make the machine work as it was intended to work, someone removed the purge guards. Doing so was easy because the guards were attached to
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