Stephen E. Darling Prevails in a Wrongful Death Product Liability Case

Stephen E. Darling, a shareholder with Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, PA in Charleston, South Carolina, recently obtained affirmation by the South Carolina Court of Appeals of the lower court’s grant of summary judgment in a wrongful death product liability action. The decedent, a checker at the Port of Charleston, was crushed to death by a container being transferred by a Ports Authority employee who was operating a rubber-tired gantry crane designed and manufactured by the Defendant, a Finnish company. The Plaintiff, represented by the national firm of Motley Rice, alleged product liability theories, asserting that the crane was defective and unreasonably dangerous and that the Defendant failed to warn about the crane’s sight limitations.

The Plaintiff’s theory was that the operator of the crane lowered containers with visibility limitations, and his two experts proposed mounting a closed circuit video camera on the edge of the crane’s trolley as a feasible design alternative.

The South Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment and found the testimony of the experts was not sufficient to prove the crane was defective and unreasonably dangerous. The Defendant’s two experts testified that the crane met industry standards and was not defective. The decedent failed to produce evidence of a feasible design alternative or that a risk utility analysis was conducted by his experts. The testimony was that no crane on the market had better visibility than the Defendant’s operator’s cab, that no cranes used the camera suggested by the Plaintiff, and that the crane in question met industry standards and regulations and had other means such as a two-way radio, telephone and intercom to allow the operator to supervise loading and transfer. The court analyzed applicable law and upheld summary judgment on strict liability, negligence, defective design and failure to warn theories.