$________ Plaintiff injured in course of employment while operating " Doctor Machine, " a plastic/foil converter and rewinder machine - Machine allegedly defective due to direction of rollers into which hand was drawn - Plaintiff argued reversing direction of rollers' spin would have eliminated in-running nip point.

Cook County, Illinois

This lawsuit arose out of a workplace accident involving a male plaintiff, in his mid-20s at the time, who suffered a torn scapholunate ligament in the wrist and ultimately developed reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD) of the wrist when his hand was pulled in between two spinning rollers through which webbing material was moving.

The subject workplace accident occurred on November 16, ________, while the plaintiff was working with a " Doctor Machine, " a plastic/foil converter and rewinder machine. The plaintiff maintained that he intentionally touched the moving web of material while the machine was running to check the tension of the material, as instructed by his employer. The plaintiff’s hand became caught in the webbing, according to his claims, and it was pulled into the in-running nip point.

The plaintiff’s experts were prepared to testify that the subject machine was defective due to the direction in which the machine’s rollers spun. The plaintiff’s expert opined that a change in the direction in which the rollers spun would have eliminated the in- running nip point.

Deposition testimony from the defendants’ employees in this case showed that the manufacturing facility for the subject machine had no procedure to review the machines for safety to end-users.

There were no scheduled reviews to check for compliance with current standards and no procedures for reviewing the newer model machines for compliance with standards when they were modified from an original design created during the 1950s.

The plaintiff required surgery to repair the torn scapholunate ligament in the nondominant left wrist. The plaintiff subsequently developed RSD as well as traumatically induced p 7 3 arthritis in the left wrist as an alleged result of the subject accident. The plaintiff claimed medical specials of $________.

The defense contended that the plaintiff assumed the risk and caused his own injury by touching the moving web of material while the machine was running. The defense claimed that the plaintiff’s employer, Solar Communications, was negligent in failing to properly train and supervise the plaintiff, specifically regarding the plaintiff’s contention that he was specifically instructed to touch the web of material while the machine was running. The defendant additionally cited OSHA regulations to support its contention that the plaintiff’s employer was responsible to add any guarding necessitated by the specific use of the machine and to warn the plaintiff verbally and through training. The defendant’s expert orthopedic surgeon claimed that the manner in which the plaintiff was injured could not have caused a scapholunate ligament tear and that the plaintiff’s RSD and traumatic arthritis were unrelated.

The case settled prior to trial for $________.