Lane v. Bethlehem Steel Corp.

667 A.2d 962, 107 Md. App. 269, 1995 Md. App. LEXIS 190
CourtCourt of Special Appeals of Maryland
DecidedDecember 1, 1995
DocketNo. 146
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 667 A.2d 962 (Lane v. Bethlehem Steel Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Special Appeals of Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lane v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 667 A.2d 962, 107 Md. App. 269, 1995 Md. App. LEXIS 190 (Md. Ct. App. 1995).

Opinion

ALPERT, Judge,

Specially Assigned.

In this case, we are called upon to decide whether an employer/premises owner can discharge his duty to warn an independent contractor’s employee of a latent danger by warning the independent contractor or his supervisory personnel.

[271]*271Mr. Carroll Lane (“Lane”), an employee of BMI, Inc., an independent contractor, suffered work-related injuries while working for BMI, Inc. (“BMI”), which had been contracted to maintain the coke ovens at Bethlehem Steel Corporation’s Sparrows Point Steel Plant. The unfortunate industrial accident and the events that transpired thereafter gave rise to a lawsuit filed by Lane, the injured worker, against Bethlehem Steel Corporation (“Bethlehem”).

The resulting jury trial, presided over by the Honorable Lawrence R. Daniels, Circuit Court for Baltimore County, closed with the jury returning verdicts in Bethlehem’s favor.

In this appeal, Lane presents three questions.

I. Did the trial court err in instructing that if the jury found that [Lane] was injured solely as a result of his employer’s failure to supervise [ ] properly, they must find [Bethlehem] not negligent?
II. Was there legally sufficient evidence to support the trial court’s instruction that the jury must find [Bethlehem] not negligent if it found that [Lane] was injured due to a dangerous condition about which he knew o[r] should have known?
III. Did the evidence compel the conclusion that [Bethlehem] was negligent as a matter of law?

Our discussion as to the first issue answers the second issue in the affirmative; Lane was charged with the knowledge of his employer, BMI, the independent contractor. As to the third issue, certainly reasonable minds could differ as to whether BMI was warned of the potential dangers; if it was warned, then, based upon the law as explicated under the first issue, Bethlehem was not negligent.

A counterweight,1 weighing approximately 120 pounds, used to shut a damper in an industrial oven standpipe,2 broke off [272]*272and struck Lane after he pulled on a damper handle. Bethlehem had hired BMI to maintain the coke ovens; BMI, in turn, had hired Lane, sometime in May of 1989, to work on the ovens.

Mr. Joseph Samuel Barker, Lane’s Job Steward, who saw the counterweight fall, explained to the jury what happened.

I checked the equipment out, walked around the other side, looked out on to the battery top for my hand signals. The counterweight was falling. It had not hit the ground yet. I saw the counterweight hit the ground; and at that same time, Carroll was going down to the ground, on his way down. He pulled himself back up. He was just like, you know, pulled himself back up.
Then he went to go down again, pulled himself back up a third time not pulling himself up, but got his balance back and stood back up rather; and by this time, I was running out to him because I thought he was hit with the counterweight.

Lane, Barker testified, did not know what had happened. Barker picked up the counterweight arm, which was “rusted all the way through.” The part remaining in the standpipe, which Barker stored in his locker until he was laid off,3 was partially rusted through.

According to Barker, in 1989, operating the standpipe mechanism was easy. Regarding safety routines, Barker stated that Bethlehem’s manager asked members of Barker’s crew if BMI’s supervisors had discussed banging counterweights.

Q And the Beth—the Bethlehem manager person whoever it was, you don’t know his name?
A Yes, sir.
Q Asked your members of the crew if your boss had ever explained to you that you shouldn’t bang those things, is that what he asked you?
[273]*273A Not in those words. He asked us if we had ever been told that this could happen, that this is something to watch out for? Told him no.
Q Didn’t he also ask you if your boss or your supervis[or] hadn’t instructed you not to bang these counterweights? A Ask me that again.
Q Didn’t tne Bethlehem supervisor whoever it was also ask[ ] you if your boss hadn’t told you not to bang the counterweights?
A I can’t remember if he asked me that or not, but our boss never told us not to bang them.

Lane testified that his duties included unclogging and patching stand pipes and carrying hoses and heavy equipment. Barker and Tom Leadbitter taught Lane how to operate the standpipe mechanisms.

A Yeah. Joe [Barker] really showed me the right way to do it, but I learned from Tom the first time, you know, Tom showed me how to basically do it just to get by.
Q Was it Joe who told you to bang those?
A No. I just picked that up from watching people do it.

Barker stated that the damper had to make a tight seal, otherwise, gases and flames could shoot into the section under repair and could possibly injure anyone working in that area.

A Okay. Right here’s where the top of the ovens would be. These ovens are about 200 degrees. There’s a lot of gases right in here. He’s supposed to flow up and flow down through here, get caught in this here. When you close this damper down like where it’s flat in here which is to seal off the gases from coming out when the ovens dampered out, pull air through here across the top of the battery up through the other stand pipe4 down there at the main away from where people work.
[274]*274Q People work here?
A Yeah, being pulled away from outside. If you just pull it down, that flap will do this but carbon builds up like.
Q When you say do this, what do you mean?
A Turn and close when you pull the damper flap, he turns and closes. When you turn, it will turn this counterweight, keep it in that position but will be little gaps where the carbon’s not smooth, kind of like when the oven gets dirty bumps and stuff all over the place. Gas seeps around and hot [ ]air. It’s ignited. People work up here, and people have to be up here working. If that fire comes up, it would be 20-foot flames.

In interrogatories, read into evidence, Bethlehem admitted that it “generally maintained” the coke battery at issue.

MR. CASKEY: Number 13, identify any person, firm or corporation which had any responsibility or duty for the maintenance of the A-battery at the time and place of the occurrence including in your answer the nature and scope of such responsibility.
Excuse me.
Answer, this Defendant [Bethlehem] generally maintained the A-battery at the time of the occurrence. Plaintiffs employer [BMI] was engaged to do many [sic] maintenance and repairs to the battery.
Plaintiffs employer was engaged and responsible to gunite the stand pipe where the accident occurred.

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Bluebook (online)
667 A.2d 962, 107 Md. App. 269, 1995 Md. App. LEXIS 190, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lane-v-bethlehem-steel-corp-mdctspecapp-1995.