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Employer actions don’t show intent to injure

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industrial

A worker who suffered a degloving injury in a machine failed to show that his employer intentionally caused his injury.

In Bliss v. Johns Manville, the Ohio Court of Appeals, Sixth District in Toledo on Friday reversed a jury court ruling that the employer deliberately left off safety guards on a machine that severely injured the worker’s hand.

John Bliss worked for insulation insurer Johns Manville Corp. On Nov. 17, 2015, he opened the access window of a conveyer machine to clear a sensor while the machine was running, sustaining a degloving injury to his right hand.

The plant had three such machines, and the company had added bolts to the access windows on two of the three machines to prevent such injuries. However, the machine Mr. Bliss used did not have bolts to impede employee access to the window.

He filed a complaint in the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas, alleging that Johns Manville intentionally caused his injury and that its removal of a safety guard entitled him to the presumption that the company had an intent to injure. A jury found in favor of Mr. Bliss, awarding him $451,000 in damages.

Johns Manville moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, arguing that there was no evidence that the company deliberately removed safeguards on the machine and that the trial court erred in denying its motion for summary judgment. The appellate court agreed, finding that adding the bolts to the machines to discourage workers from opening the access window did not constitute an equipment safety guard and that there was no evidence that Johns Manville intended to injure the worker.

As a result, the court reversed the judgment and vacated the jury’s decision.

 

 

 

 

 

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