Vol. 55 No. 2

Trial Magazine

Verdicts & Settlements: Workplace Safety

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Inadequate Guard on Rotary Mold Press Machine

February 2019

John Smokes, who worked for temporary employment agency Adecco Staffing, was assigned to work at Dentsply Prosthetics. At Dentsply, Smokes was trained on the operation of a rotary mold press machine.

Two weeks into his training, while placing a mold into the load area of the mold press, Smokes’s hand became caught in the machine’s automatic push mechanism, causing his long, ring, and index fingers to be crushed by two platens. Although Smokes pressed the emergency stop button, the platens did not reopen, and his hand was trapped for almost half an hour while his coworkers disassembled the press.

Smokes required amputation of the three fingers. His past medical expenses exceeded $197,500.

Smokes sued Dentsply Prosthetics’s parent company, Dentsply International, Inc., alleging that the mold press was inadequately guarded in that he was able to bypass the guard while working on the machine. The plaintiff asserted that a subsequent OSHA investigation resulted in a violation being issued to Dentsply Prosthetics for the mold press’s unsafe condition.

Additionally, Smokes argued that other presses at the facility were con­figured with complete barrier guarding with interlock access doors and ­two-hand operator controls—features that would have prevented his injury. The defense countered that the press was adequately guarded and that the plaintiff had committed willful mis­conduct by reaching over the guard to reposition his work, contrary to his training.

The plaintiff claimed past lost wages of approximately $81,800 and future lost earnings of over $489,300.

The parties settled at mediation for $1.3 million.

Citation: Smokes v. Dentsply Int’l, Inc., No. 2016-SU-00969-72 (Pa. Ct. Com. Pl. York Cnty. Sept. 11, 2018).

Plaintiff counsel: AAJ member Richard M. Jurewicz, Philadelphia.

Plaintiff experts: Craig Clauser, mechanical engineering, West Chester, Pa.; Colin Brigham, workplace safety, Exton, Pa.; and John Risser, vocational economics, Elizabethtown, Pa.