Partner Daniel Munley was able to reach a $3 million product liability settlement with an industrial manufacturer for our client, a young man whose arm was amputated after being caught between components of a dangerously modified piece of box-crushing equipment.
Our client and his co-worker were compacting cardboard boxes for recycling with a mechanical baler at the distribution center where they worked. The machine was improperly assembled with the chamber door on the wrong side—the manufacturer was supposed to ensure that the control panel must be located on the same side as the chamber door and latch plate to give an operator a clear view. When his co-worker operated the control panel, he could not see or locate our client and closed the latch plate, crushing and amputating the plaintiff‘s dominant left arm.
Daniel Munley showed that the manufacturer not only redesigned the baler machine to fit in the customer’s facility by choosing an unsafe configuration but did so knowingly, despite the defendant‘s claim that it was modified after installation. Testimony from one of the manufacturer’s employees established that the control panel had been mounted on the wrong side due to space constraints, proving that the manufacturer was responsible.
Munley was grateful for the opportunity to represent the plaintiff for whom the settlement will afford needed care and a comfortable, independent life. “The outcome fairly reflected both the defendant’s negligence and recklessness and the plaintiff’s enormous suffering,” says Dan Munley.
