Liriano v. Hobart Corp.

170 F.3d 264 (2nd Cir. 1999)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

P was severely injured on the job in 1993 when his hand was caught in a meat grinder manufactured by D and owned by his employer, Super Associated (D1). It had been sold with a safety guard, but the safety guard was removed while the machine was in D1's possession and was not affixed to the meat grinder at the time of the accident. The machine had no warning indicating that the grinder should be operated only with a safety guard attached. P sued D for failure to warn. D brought a third-party claim against D1. The jury returned a verdict for P on the failure to warn. It attributed five percent of the liability to D and ninety-five percent to D1. On retrial, the jury assigned D one-third of the fault. Ds appealed, arguing (1) that as a matter of law, there was no duty to warn, and (2) that even if there had been a duty to warn, the evidence presented was not sufficient to allow the failure-to-warn claim to reach the jury.