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Stapper v. GMI Holdings12/31/2001
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 977(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 977(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 977.
Plaintiff/appellant Melanie Stapper appeals a judgment on a jury verdict in favor of defendant/respondent GMI Holdings, Inc., in her personal injury action for damages allegedly caused by a defectively designed garage door opener. She asserts juror misconduct, inconsistent special verdict findings, an improperly granted non-suit, and evidentiary error.
BACKGROUND
Respondent designs and manufactures an electric garage door operator known as a Genie. The Genie may be operated by a remote control or by a button mounted on the inside garage wall. When the closing procedure activated by the Genie is completed, the garage door is locked. The Genie includes a red safety release cord hanging six feet above the garage floor that, when pulled, permits the electronic Genie operator to be disconnected from the garage door so the door may be opened or closed manually.
To protect against people, particularly children, being pinned underneath the closing garage door , the Genie contains a photo beam sited four to six inches above ground level for detecting objects underneath a descending door. If the beam is broken while the door is closing, the door stops and reverses to an open position. The Genie also automatically stops and reverses a closing door within two seconds of the door's contact with an object one and one-half inches tall or taller on the ground situated near the center of the closing door. In a brochure compiled by the National Safety Council, Consumer Product Safety Commission, and a coalition of garage door operator manufacturers that accompanies each Genie, respondent instructs owners to test the automatic reverse mechanism monthly by placing "`a one-inch-thick piece of wood laid flat on the floor in the [garage] door's path at approximately the center of the doorway. A one-and one-half-inch piece of wood is best. If you don't have one, use a two-by-four laid flat.'" The owner's manual also recommends testing the reverse mechanism monthly by placing a 2x4 board in the center of the doorway, closing the door, and making the necessary adjustments if the door does not stop and reverse to the open position.
Appellant is a San Francisco firefighter who was part of a crew called to extinguish a fire at a house belonging to the Lee family. The house had an attached garage, whose exterior door was equipped with a Genie. There was also a pedestrian door within the garage that led into the house. The Genie's interior operating button was located on the garage wall near the interior door.
When the firefighters arrived, the exterior garage door was open. Carrying a charged hose, appellant and two colleagues entered the garage and began to fight the fire at the doorway of the interior garage door. They were compelled to retreat from the interior doorway because of intense heat and flames, but, for reasons that were never certain, the exterior garage door had closed, trapping them in the garage. The firefighters' hose lay beneath the exterior garage door and created a narrow gap between the bottom of the garage door and the garage floor. Appellant could get only her fingers in the gap and was unable to lift the door. She was unfamiliar with electric garage door operators and did not know the door was equipped with one.
Firefighters outside the garage door were eventually able to force the garage
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