CONSTRUCTION SITE NEGLIGENCE. $______ RECOVERY

• Pages: 12-13

PRODUCT LIABILITY

Manufacturing Defect

$570,000 RECOVERY

Product Liability – Manufacturing Defect –

Edgebander’s safety feature claimed to have been

bypassed prior to sale to employer – Amputation

of several fingers and part of thumb on non-

dominant hand.

Gloucester County, NJ

In this products liability action, the plaintiff worker

was using a device known as an Edgebander,

which applied edge-banding to woodworking

materials, which were cut via a saw on trim units

located underneath a safety hood/guard

enclosure. A safety switch/interlock was designed

to shut off all power to the machine whenever the

hood was raised. The safety switch had been

bypassed sometime prior to the incident and the

machine still ran and the saw blades continued to

rotate with this safety hood/guard raised unless

the end-user remembered to turn off the saw

blades with a switch that was located on the front

of the machine. Amongst other defendants, the

plaintiff named the importer and the immediate

seller, under theories of negligence, defective

design, failure to warn and a manufacturing/sales

defect.

At the time of trial, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed

all negligence claims and then settled with the im-

porter and prior seller, defendant Adwood for

$100,000 after picking a jury and before opening

statements. The plaintiff then focused on the manu-

facturing/sales defect against the remaining defen-

dant, Skarie, Inc., and produced evidence only

regarding the bypassed safety device during trial. The

plaintiff contended that the interlock was missing

when sold to the employer by defendant, Skari, over

two years before the accident.

The plaintiff obtained a dismissal of design defect

claims and argued that failure to warn claims should

also be dismissed for lack of evidence and expert

testimony. The plaintiff also argued under Jurado v.

Western Gear Works, 131 N.J. 375 (1993), that if the

jury finds that the product was defective in the form

of the bypassed safety switch, upon sale to the em-

ployer, proximate cause is predetermined and sub-

sumed, as the safety device was designed and

intended to prevent the very harm that occurred. The

plaintiff argued that if the jury determined that the

safety switch was in a defeated condition when the

edge-bander was sold to the employer, since the

safety feature was designed to shut off power when

the hood was raised, there could be no finding other

than that the defect was at least a proximate cause

of the accident. The court did not grant the plaintiff’s

motion of a directed verdict on proximate cause.

The injuries were sustained on the left, non-dominant

hand. The plaintiff sustained amputations of the mid-

dle, ring and pinky fingers, as well as partial amputa-

tion of his thumb. His index finger was not injured in

this accident and had previously been partially am-

putated. His middle finger was successfully re-at-

tached, but required various surgical procedures,

including the removal of some bone in a later sur-

gery. The middle finger was left with no ability to

bend. The tip of the thumb and the entire pinky

(fourth finger) could not be salvaged and were lost.

The ring finger was reattached, but completely am-

putated in a subsequent surgery because of necrosis

and the failure of the salvage attempts.

The case against the co-defendant settled for

$470,000 during deliberations which is in addition to

the $100,000 settlement with the importer, for a total

recovery of $570,000.

REFERENCE

Plaintiff’s engineering expert: George Widas, PE from

Medford, NJ. Plaintiff’s orthopedic hand specialist

expert: David Zelouf, MD from PA. Plaintiff’s

orthopedic surgical expert: Gary Goldstein, MD from

Voorhees, NJ. Plaintiff’s psychiatric expert: Edward H

Tobe,DOfromMarlton,NJ.

Whiting vs. Skarie, Inc., et al.; Judge David Morgan,

05-15-12.

Attorney for plaintiff: Richard J. Talbot of Law Offices

of Andrew A. Ballerini in Cherry Hill, NJ.

CONSTRUCTION SITE NEGLIGENCE

$850,000 RECOVERY

Construction Site Negligence – Failure to provide

fall protection while plaintiff dismantles scaffold

at school construction project – Plaintiff falls

approximately 35 feet – C7 burst fracture – T1

fracture – Fusion from C6 through T1 – Plaintiff is

undocumented alien and no future wage claims.

Middlesex County, NJ

The plaintiff, 29 at the time, who was in the

course of dismantling a scaffold at a school

construction project, contended that the

defendants negligently failed to provide fall

protection. The plaintiff contended that as a

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