Wolf v. Stanley Works

757 So. 2d 316, 2000 WL 311507
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedMarch 28, 2000
Docket1999-CA-00221-COA
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 757 So. 2d 316 (Wolf v. Stanley Works) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Mississippi primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wolf v. Stanley Works, 757 So. 2d 316, 2000 WL 311507 (Mich. Ct. App. 2000).

Opinion

757 So.2d 316 (2000)

Elsie WOLF, Appellant,
v.
The STANLEY WORKS, A Connecticut Corporation a/k/a Stanley Access Technology, Appellee.

No. 1999-CA-00221-COA.

Court of Appeals of Mississippi.

March 28, 2000.

*317 Mark W. Davis, Gulfport, Attorney for Appellant.

Robert C. Galloway, Jackson, Attorney for Appellee.

BEFORE SOUTHWICK, P.J., LEE, AND MOORE, JJ.

SOUTHWICK, P.J., for the Court:

¶ 1. This is a products liability action brought by Elsie Wolf against The Stanley Works. Mrs. Wolf alleges that automatic doors manufactured and installed by Stanley malfunctioned and caused her injury. Stanley's motion for summary judgment was granted because, among other grounds, the trial court found that a substantial change had occurred to the product since its installation, thereby terminating Stanley's responsibility as manufacturer. Mrs. Wolf appeals and alleges that a dispute of material fact existed. We disagree, find no error, and affirm.

*318 FACTS

¶ 2. Joseph and Elsie Wolf (who was seventy-four at the time) were registered guests at the Best Western Seaway motel in Gulfport on May 6, 1997. That morning they entered the motel through its double, sliding-glass, automatic doors to go to breakfast. The exterior set of doors opened normally, then so did the interior set. However, as Mrs. Wolf proceeded on the right side of her husband across the threshold of the interior doors, the right door closed prematurely. The door hit Mrs. Wolf, knocked her down, and caused injuries to her leg. The incident was witnessed by three other people.

¶ 3. The two sets of doors move in a vertical plane to the right and left from the center of the doorway as a person approaches. Each set of doors is operated by three electronic devices: (1) Two microwave motion detectors are located on either side of the doors. They pick up signals from persons or objects approaching the doors from several feet away and send a signal to the doors's motor to cause the doors to open. Stanley calls its motion detectors "StanRay." (2) A threshold presence sensor covers the area in the threshold of each door and immediately outside the threshold on both sides, in an ellipse. Its infrared range overlaps that covered by the motion detector by eight to ten inches, and it sends a signal to the motor to keep the door open as long as a person or object is within the area covered by the presence sensor. It is located in the top of the door frame directly above the threshold. Stanley's proprietary name for this sensor is "StanGuard." (3) An electronic control box receives signals from the motion detector and threshold presence sensor and sends its own signal to the motor to open the door and hold it open for as long as a person or object is within their range and for 1.5 seconds afterward.

¶ 4. Stanley manufactured the doors and their original component parts, and also installed them at the Best Western Seaway Inn in March 1988. Over a period of time, the various parts of the door system require adjustment to make sure the infrared rays sent out by the motion detectors and the presence sensor are sent into the proper areas and that these areas overlap. In addition, various parts wear out over time and have to be replaced. After Stanley installed the doors in March 1988, it had no further responsibility for inspection, service or repair of the doors. Stanley provided the motel with a Daily Safety Check sheet and recommended that the motel personnel check the doors each day for proper operation.

¶ 5. In early January 1996, eight years after Stanley installed the doors, motel personnel noticed that the doors were not operating properly. They contacted Dor-O-Matic of the Gulf States, a Mobile, Alabama company in no way affiliated with Stanley, to service the doors. Dor-O-Matic is in the business of selling and servicing automatic doors but is not an authorized Stanley dealer. When Dor-O-Matic's representative inspected the doors, he found that the controller needed replacing and that something was wrong with the threshold presence sensor. On January 10, 1996, Dor-O-Matic's service representative replaced the threshold presence sensor with a used StanGuard unit that had been rebuilt by Addison Automatics, Inc., a corporation independent of Stanley. There were no reported incidents of the doors operating improperly until Mrs. Wolf's accident on May 6, 1996. Following this incident, however, one or more of the motel's employees were able to make the doors malfunction intentionally.

¶ 6. The day after the Wolf injury, a Dor-O-Matic technician inspected the doors and found all of the electronic devices to be out of adjustment. He properly adjusted them, tested the system and left it in good working order. Until summary judgment was rendered in this case, no more incidents of the doors closing on any person were reported.

¶ 7. Mrs. Wolf filed claims against the motel and Dor-O-Matic for negligence. *319 The suit against those defendants was resolved without the need for appellate review. Mrs. Wolf also brought suit against Stanley for products liability, negligence and gross negligence in the design, manufacture, assembly, sale, marketing, testing, and installation of the automatic doors. The circuit court granted Stanley's motion for summary judgment. Mrs. Wolf appeals this judgment in Stanley's favor but does not pursue the claim for breach of express or implied warranty.

DISCUSSION

¶ 8. Summary judgment cannot substitute for a trial to resolve disputes of material fact, but neither should a trial on undisputed material facts substitute for a summary judgment. M.R.C.P. 56. Based on the controlling legal principles for this action, we must examine the evidence presented on the motion and determine whether any dispute material to those principles exists.

Products Liability Law in Mississippi

¶ 9. Our starting point is the statute that gives structure to a products liability claim in Mississippi:

(a) The manufacturer or seller of the product shall not be liable if the claimant does not prove by the preponderance of the evidence that at the time the product left the control of the manufacturer or seller:
(i)1. The product was defective because it deviated in a material way from the manufacturer's specifications or from otherwise identical units manufactured to the same manufacturing specifications, or
2. The product was defective because it failed to contain adequate warnings or instructions, or
3. The product was designed in a defective manner, or
4. The product breached an express warranty or failed to conform to other express factual representations upon which the claimant justifiably relied in electing to use the product; and
(ii) The defective condition rendered the product unreasonably dangerous to the user or consumer; and
(iii) The defective and unreasonably dangerous condition of the product proximately caused the damages for which recovery is sought.

Miss.Code Ann. § 11-1-63 (Supp.1999).

¶ 10. A plaintiff has the burden of showing that the defect that allegedly was the proximate cause of injury existed at the time that the product left the hands of the manufacturer, and that the defect rendered the product unreasonably dangerous. Accordingly, the proof must support that no material change in that product occurred after leaving the manufacturer's control.

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Bluebook (online)
757 So. 2d 316, 2000 WL 311507, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wolf-v-stanley-works-missctapp-2000.