Edward George Smith

In this products liability case under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A, Michelle Fisher and her husband sued Katy Industries (as successor to the Walsh press manufacturer) after Fisher suffered crush and amputation injuries to her hand while operating a 38-ton mechanical press at work. Following a bench trial, the court entered judgment for the defendant. The court found that the press had been designed and sold in the 1970s as a reasonably safe machine equipped with an anti-repeat device, lock washers, safety wiring, and warnings against entering the die space or using a malfunctioning press. Subsequent owners, including IPS, made unforeseeable modifications to the latch rod and air cylinder and performed improper repairs that caused the press to repeat-cycle, and the court concluded these changes—not any defect or inadequate warning by the manufacturer—were the cause of the accident.

torts & liability

In this product liability action, plaintiffs Michelle Fisher and her husband sued multiple defendants involved in the manufacture and sale of a Walsh mechanical power press after Fisher lost two fingers when the machine unexpectedly repeated its cycle while she was operating it at her workplace. The suit alleged strict liability under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A, negligence, and loss of consortium, based on a claimed defect in the press's non-repeat safety system involving loose bolts and missing safety wiring. Defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that substantial modifications and repairs by the employer after the 1976 sale relieved them of liability and that plaintiffs' expert testimony should be excluded. The court denied the motion, finding genuine issues of material fact regarding the press's condition, the cause of the failure, the effect of any changes, and the reliability of the expert's methodology, which precluded judgment as a matter of law.

torts & liabilityprocedure

This case involved a twenty-year lease dispute between plaintiffs Mary Douglas Drysdale and Simon Hershon and defendant Dorothy Woerth over a property, where the court had previously found that the defendant breached the implied covenant of quiet enjoyment and constructively evicted the plaintiffs, awarding them $76,500 in damages based on the increased value of the property from plaintiffs' improvements. The defendant moved for reconsideration of the findings of fact, arguing errors in crediting evidence and requesting review of additional materials, while the plaintiffs moved under Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e) to alter the judgment to award contract-based reliance damages of over $253,000 instead of unjust enrichment, or alternatively for a new trial on damages. The court denied the defendant's motion, finding no intervening change in law, newly discovered evidence, or manifest injustice to justify reconsideration, as the factual findings had already been thoroughly reviewed. The court also denied the plaintiffs' motion, reasoning that contract damages were unavailable for certain improvements like the fence and deck since they were not contemplated in the lease and no agreement existed on their scope, making unjust enrichment the appropriate theory.

propertyprocedure

This case involved a dispute between North American Specialty Insurance Company (NAS), acting as surety on performance and payment bonds, and the Chichester School District over the construction of an elementary school. After the original contractor defaulted and was terminated, NAS took over completion of the work but disputes arose regarding the quality and timeliness of the project, leading NAS to sue for payment and the School District to counterclaim for damages including breach of contract. Following a bench trial, the court had already entered judgments for both parties on their respective claims and now addressed the bifurcated issue of the School District's request for attorneys' fees. The court decided that the School District was entitled to recover attorneys' fees and related legal costs from NAS, to be quantified at a future evidentiary hearing. The reasoning centered on the Performance Bond's incorporation of the underlying construction contract and its explicit provisions making NAS liable for legal costs arising from the contractor's default or NAS's own actions or failures under the bond.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The case involved two plaintiffs who sued the City of Philadelphia and several police officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that officers violated their Fourth Amendment rights by detaining them at gunpoint, ordering them to the ground, searching them, and holding them for 20-25 minutes while executing a valid drug search warrant at an adjacent property. After a bench trial, the court entered judgment for the City, one officer, and the sergeant but against three individual officers, awarding $500 in compensatory damages to one plaintiff and $1,000 to the other. The court reasoned that the encounter constituted an unreasonable seizure under Terry v. Ohio because the officers' use of drawn weapons and physical searches exceeded the limited scope justified by reasonable suspicion and turned the stop into an arrest without probable cause. The court dismissed all state-law claims earlier and found no municipal liability.

civil rightscriminal lawprocedure

In Bloom v. Consolidated Rail Corp., a railroad engineer sued his former employer under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act for psychiatric injuries stemming from a train striking and killing a suicidal pedestrian, alleging the harm resulted from a patrolman’s post-incident conduct and the company’s failure to provide psychiatric treatment after three earlier fatal incidents. The court denied the defendant’s motion for summary judgment. It reasoned that genuine issues of material fact existed regarding whether the patrolman’s actions constituted an actionable assault under FELA and whether Conrail breached its duty to provide a reasonably safe workplace by not offering counseling after prior events, both of which are questions for the jury.

labor & employmenttorts & liability