A federal judge from the District of Connecticut has denied a sporting good manufacturer’s motion for summary judgment in a case in which an injured skier filed a products liability action against the manufacturer.
Motion Ocean Sports, Inc. (MWS) argued unsuccessfully that it should not be held liable because it wasn’t the company that actually manufactured the allegedly faulty ski, rather it acquired that company.
Plaintiff Russell Altman was water skiing on Candlewood Lake in Danbury, Connecticut on July 21, 2004, when the binding on one of his skis failed to release, causing him to suffer permanent physical injuries. Altman alleged that the ski was defective in several respects.
Altman had purchased the skis from the manufacturer Earth and Winter Sports, Inc. (EOS), which was subsequently bought by MWS.
Altman sued MWS, seeking to recover damages for his injuries pursuant to the Connecticut Product Liability Act (Act). The defendant moved for summary judgment on the threshold issue of successor liability.
The court noted that after buying EOS, MWS continued to manufacture the same products under the same names, including the “O’Brien” line of water skis. MWS took over the EOS factory in the state of Washington and continued employing Jeffrey Bannister, who held the positions of General Manager and Senior Vice President while at EOS. Bannister was not a director of EOS. MWS also hired about 50 former EOS employees, including about 21 who went to work on the O’Brien skis.
MWS argued that the plaintiff’s contention “flies in the face of the Act’s plain language.” Specifically, it claimed that the Act impugns liability on the original seller of the product.
“There is force to MWS’s argument. But the statute’s language sweeps broadly, and it is not evident that MWS may avoid liability merely because it did not sell the particular ski that injured Altman,” wrote the court. “On its face, the statute requires only that the seller have ‘engaged in the business’ of selling ‘such products.’”
The court added that “there is lingering uncertainty on the question of MWS’s liability, and it results in large measure from the Act’s silence about the liability of a successor product seller who acquires the assets of a predecessor product seller who had previously manufactured and sold the offending product to the injured consumer. Altman contends that the Act’s definition of ‘product seller’ is broad enough to include MWS — specifically because MWS falls under certain exceptions to the general rule against corporate liability for asset purchasers.”
The court agreed, at least in part.
“MWS continued the manufacture and sale of the same O’Brien-brand water skis, using for that purpose EOS’s former plant and a significant number of EOS’s former employees,” it wrote. “Altman is … entitled to invoke the product line exception to the general rule against successor liability, and MWS is not entitled to a summary disposition of the issue. As with the mere-continuation exception, there must be full discovery.”
Russell Altman v. Motion Water Sports, Inc.; D. Conn.; 3:07-cv-01383 (CSH), 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68935; 7/12/10
Attorneys of record : (for plaintiff) Attilio A. D’Oro, LEAD ATTORNEY, Motola Klar Dinowitz & Carfora, New York, NY; Timothy P. Pothin, LEAD ATTORNEY, Lynch, Traub, Keefe & Errante, New Haven, CT. (for defendant) Bruce H. Raymond, Sharon Sloan Koziol, LEAD ATTORNEYS, Raymond & Bennett LLC, Glastonbury, CT; Carol A. Schrager, LEAD ATTORNEY, New York, NY; Neyah K. Bennet, LEAD ATTORNEY, Raymond & Bennett, Glastonbury, CT.
