News
6/29/2007 - Wilcox County Jury Issues Defendants' Verdict for Crane Inspection Companies
CAMDEN--After four and a half days of trial, it took a Wilcox County jury about 45 minutes to render unanimous defense verdicts for two Georgia crane inspection companies sued for indemnity by Weyerhaeuser after an injury at the Pine Hill paper mill. Southeastern Crane, Inc. and Gajjar Engineering, Inc. were sued after Weyerhaeuser paid $1.65 million to a man injured August 28, 2000 when his lanyard became entangled in an unguarded squaring drive shaft on the service platform of a 70-ton capacity overhead bridge crane. The crane had been inspected by the defendants within six years of the injury with Southeastern Crane performing monthly OSHA crane inspections for each month during the two years prior to the injury. The unguarded drive with exposed bolts was never mentioned in the reports. After the settlement was paid, Weyerhaeuser filed indemnity claims against all companies performing inspections within 6 years of the accident. They reached a pro-tanto settlement with one company and proceeded to trial against Southeastern and Gajjar.
The facts of the accident were that Stephen Johnson, an employee of I & E Electrical Contractor, was instructed by Weyerhaeuser to use the crane as a work platform to reach the ceiling and was allowed to pull the floor mounted control pendant to the service platform and to operate the crane from that location. As he was moving the crane he was pulled into the spinning drive shaft and crushed. He survived but was totally disabled. Suit was filed on his behalf against only Weyerhaeuser by Cunningham Bounds of Mobile.
Weyerhaeuser was represented in both suits by John M. Johnson, J. Chandler Bailey, and Will Gilchrist of Lightfoot, Franklin & White in Birmingham. They called expert witness Fred Lurwig to testify that the spinning drive shaft was an OSHA violation that should have been reported to Weyerhaeuser by a competent crane inspection company.
The defense to the Weyerhaeuser indemnity suit contended that because the normal operating condition for the overhead crane was for the operator to be on the floor, the drive shaft--located 35 feet above floor level--was not required to be guarded by OSHA section 1910.179(e) and therefore should not have been noted by crane inspectors. They also showed that the condition had existed since 1981 and that in defending the Johnson suit Weyerhaeuser had issued interrogatory answers stating that the condition was open and obvious. Dennis R. Bailey and Robert C. Ward, Jr. of Rushton, Stakely, Johnston & Garrett, P.A. also showed that Weyerhaeuser ignored for months safety items that were reported by their client Southeastern Crane. Jody Peddy and Craig Lewis of Smith Spires & Peddy defended Gajjar Engineering pointing out that their client had not been in the facility for two years before the accident and that no crane inspection company since 1981 had pointed out the hazard because it was guarded by location. The defendants jointly called former OSHA Manager John E. Hall as an expert on the issue of whether the crane inspections were OSHA compliant.
Judge Jack Meigs presided over the trial. The case was styled: Weyerhaeuser v. Southeastern Crane and Gajjar Engineering, CV-04-11 (Wilcox County).