Grissom v. Modine Manufacturing Co.

581 S.W.2d 651, 1978 Tenn. App. LEXIS 348
CourtCourt of Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedAugust 8, 1978
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 581 S.W.2d 651 (Grissom v. Modine Manufacturing Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Grissom v. Modine Manufacturing Co., 581 S.W.2d 651, 1978 Tenn. App. LEXIS 348 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1978).

Opinion

SUMMERS, Judge.

Pearl Grissom, plaintiff-appellee, sued Modine Manufacturing Company and Ro-bertshaw Controls Company in the Circuit Court of Knox County for the wrongful death of her husband, Ralph Henry Gris-som. An order of nonsuit was entered as to Robertshaw Controls Company. Modine Manufacturing Company is the defendant-appellant before this court.

This case was tried before a jury which awarded the plaintiff the sum of $185,-000.00. Defendant appealed from the verdict.

The accident of October 23, 1974, in which the plaintiff’s husband suffered his fatal burns occurred at the new vocational building of the Powell Valley High School in Claiborne County, Tennessee. Mr. Gris-som was attempting to light the pilot light of the fifth in a series of six Modine heaters in the school building. Gas which had escaped into the room exploded and burned Mr. Grissom over 95 per cent of his body. He died on October 25, 1974.

The heater Mr. Grissom was attempting to light was manufactured by the defendant at its plant in Buena Vista, Virginia, in November, 1973. Later that same month it was shipped to Cureton Plumbing and Heating Company of Knoxville. Cureton installed the six Modine heaters in the new vocational building during the late spring or early summer of 1974. Two heaters were installed in each of the three shop rooms. Cureton was the employer of Mr. Grissom at the time he was sent to the school with instructions to light the pilot lights of the heaters which had been installed.

Mr. Grissom lit the pilot lights of the first four heaters but had trouble with the fifth heater. Charles Cheek, one of the teachers at the school, testified he watched Mr. Gris-som attempt to light the fifth heater; when it didn’t light, Mr. Grissom used a wrench or pair of pliers and turned a valve on a pipe which supplied gas to the heater. Again the pilot didn’t light, and Mr. Cheek left the room at this time.

[652]*652Thomas Tinnell, another teacher at the vocational school, testified that he then came into the room because the students in his classroom nearby had begun to complain of the odor of gas. He testified that they had noticed the odor for about 30 to 40 minutes. When he told Mr. Grissom this, Mr. Grissom said there was plenty of ventilation in the room and he would be through shortly.

Mr. Grissom lit another piece of cardboard to light the pilot light, and the gas in the room exploded. It started around Mr. Grissom’s head and went all around him and spread throughout the room.

Plaintiff alleged in her complaint that the defendant was liable for the injuries and death of her husband in that the heater Mr. Grissom was trying to light was in a defective condition when it was sold. Plaintiff later amended her complaint to allege that “The defective condition of the heaters, which proximately cause the decedents death, was foreign materials on the downstream side of the pilot orifice of the heater which caused the difficulties the decedent experienced in lighting the heater. . . ”

The defendant answered denying that its heater was in a defective condition and averred that the decedent lit the pilot light in a manner which caused the dangerous accumulation of propane gas in the room in which the fire occurred.

Defendant listed six assignments of error, the first of which is:

1. The Trial Court erred in overruling defendant’s motion for directed verdict or to set aside the jury’s verdict, because there was no material evidence to show the gas which burned was introduced into the atmosphere from a defect in the heater.

Lowe v. Preferred Truck Leasing, Inc., 528 S.W.2d 38 (1975), was a case dealing with injuries plaintiff received due to the alleged brake failure of the truck he was driving. The Eastern Section of the Court of Appeals said in regard to its review of jury verdicts:

This Court does not sit as a jury of three to re weigh the evidence in jury cases. Once a jury, who has the opportunity of seeing and hearing the witnesses themselves, has determined the factual issues involved in a law suit and that determination has been approved by the Trial Judge, we may only review the evidence to ascertain if there is any credible evidence upon which that determination may be predicated. If there is, then even if we believe that the trier of fact has reached an erroneous decision, we must accept it. As is well known to all who practice before the appellate courts of this state, the burden of showing that there was no credible evidence to support a jury verdict is a massively heavy one to bear.
However, this does not mean that we must passively sit by and allow patently, impossible, incoherent, or perjured testimony to support a jury verdict. The rule is that there must be some credible evidence — not merely some evidence — to support a jury verdict. That is, there must be some evidence which is capable of being believed by reasonable men, although we may not choose to believe it ourselves.

McCandless v. Oak Constructors, Inc., 546 S.W.2d 592 (1976), was a ease from the Middle Section of the Court of Appeals, in which that court referred to Lowe, supra, and said that even if the findings and the verdict of the jury are not necessarily those which that court would have reached, the court is not authorized to substitute its judgment for that of the jury where the verdict is supported by material and substantial evidence.

We agree with both cases above. In the instant case, however, we find no credible evidence on which the jury could have based its verdict that the defendant’s heater was defective and that such defect was the cause of the injuries and resulting death of the plaintiff’s husband.

Gerald Cureton of Cureton Plumbing and Heating Company, the company which contracted for all of the mechanical work at the vocational school, testified that the heaters had been installed at the school four or five months prior to the accident. He testified the heaters were tested when they [653]*653were hung and there were no problems with them as far as he knew.

Under cross examination Mr. Cureton said the following concerning Mr. Grissom’s qualifications as an employee:

Ralph Grissom was an exceptionally good mechanic. He was a craftsman in the trade, and known to be. He was an exceptionally good repairman, or what we call a refrigeration man. He handled HDAC type problems, which is hard to come by. They’re scarce as hen’s teeth. He was also an expert on oil and gas burners, as good as anybody, as good as there is in the industry.

James E. Geiger, a consulting engineer, testified that he supervised the moving of the heater in question to his office several days after the accident. He found nothing wrong with the electrical apparatus on the heater when he tested it. He stated he was present when Charles Kock, a chemical engineer hired by the defendant to test the heater, lit the pilot light of the heater and then the main burner. Mr. Geiger testified the heater was in his possession in his garage until it was taken away to be tested by Dr. Harvey Joe Wilkerson, the expert witness of the plaintiff.

Mr.

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Bluebook (online)
581 S.W.2d 651, 1978 Tenn. App. LEXIS 348, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/grissom-v-modine-manufacturing-co-tennctapp-1978.