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Hart-albin Co. v. Mclees Inc.2/17/1994
Rehearing Denied April 14, 1994.
, 51 St.Rep. 112
Submitted September 16, 1993.
Plaintiffs sued defendant Leviton Manufacturing Co., Inc., in strict liability, claiming an electrical extension cord connector manufactured by Leviton caused a fire in the Hart-Albin store in downtown Billings, Montana. A jury in the District Court for the Thirteenth Judicial District, Yellowstone County, apportioned fault 40 percent to Leviton and 60 percent to plaintiffs, and the court entered judgment for Leviton. We reverse and remand for retrial on limited issues relating to damages.
The dispositive issues are:
1. Did the District Court err in instructing the jury on Leviton's misuse defense?
2. Did the court err in prohibiting the plaintiffs from using videotaped depositions of Leviton's designated corporate witnesses?
3. Did the court err in directing a verdict against the plaintiffs on their punitive damage claim?
4. Did the court err in allowing the testimony of the plaintiffs' human factors expert?
In December of 1988, an early-morning fire caused extensive smoke damage in the flagship Hart-Albin department store located in downtown Billings, Montana. The store was closed for two months before reopening in February 1989. Just over a year later, Hart-Albin Company went out of business. Plaintiffs Broadway Realty Corporation, owner of the building in which the department store was located, and Hart-Albin Company (hereafter referred to collectively as Hart-Albin) brought this action seeking recovery for damages, including loss of the business.
The fire started in a Christmas display suspended in the atrium of the store. Leviton, the only defendant remaining in the case at the time of trial, was the manufacturer of an electrical extension cord connector used in the Christmas display. During trial, Hart-Albin presented evidence that Leviton's Catalog No. 67 extension cord connector overheated and started the fire.
The Catalog No. 67 cord connector was sold unattached to any electrical cord. In order to fasten an electrical cord to the screw terminals inside the connector, the user had to open the clamshell casing of the connector. Then, when the cord connector was reassembled, brass contact blades inside the clamshell served as the electrical contact for the "male" end of a second electrical cord plugged into the cord connector.
In this case, when the clamshell casing was reassembled, one of the brass contact blades, which were curved, was put in backwards. This prevented a solid electrical contact between the contact blades and the "male" end of the second electrical cord, which was plugged into the cord connector.
Hart-Albin's theory was that the cord connector was a defective and unreasonably dangerous product because it was sold without assembly instructions and its misassembly caused it to overheat. Leviton's defense was that no assembly instructions were needed with this particular type of cord connector, because of its design. Leviton also argued that the fire was a result of faulty construction of the Christmas display, including wiring code violations and use of flammable materials in violation of fire code.
After an eight-day trial, the jury answered a set of special interrogatories. It found that the fire was started by the Leviton cord connector, that the connector was unreasonably dangerous due to a failure to instruct, and that the defective connector was a proximate cause of Hart-Albin's damages. The jury also found that Hart-Albin misused the cord connector and that the misuse was a proxim
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