Personal Injury Law Blog on Lawyers.com

Philadelphia personal injury attorney and products liability lawyer Peter Patton, argued a case before an en banc panel of Pennsylvania’s Superior Court on September 24, 2009.  Arguments before an en banc panel, which consist of at least 9 judges of the Superior Court, are rare as a panel is only seated after a majority of Pennsylvania’s Superior Court judges deem the issue at question to be of special importance. In 2008 there were more than 7900 cases on appeal to the Superior Court by year’s end and less than 30 were slated for argument before an en banc panel.

In his argument, Mr. Patton seeks to overturn a lower court decision which determined that a federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulation preempted our client’s claim under state law.  If upheld, this lower court decision would restrict the rights of workers to recover for on-the-job injuries caused by defective machinery or equipment.

The case, Kiak v. Crown Equipment, involves a client who suffered a serious leg injury when a forklift, coasting in reverse, struck him in a warehouse.  The forklift had a back-up beeper that beeped when the forklift traveled in reverse but did not beep when the forklift coasted.  Without this safety feature, our client did not hear the approaching forklift truck and suffered debilitating injuries.
 
The lead issue before the court was whether a federal OSHA regulation preempted the plaintiff's strict liability claim under state law.  The manufacturer of the forklift truck argued that that the strict liability claim was preempted by a American National Standards Institute ("ANSI") standard that was incorporated in the OSHA regulation. The claim was prevented from going to trial when the trial court agreed that the ANSI standard created a conflict between the OSHA regulation and our strict liability claim and granted summary judgment to the manufacturer. Arnoldy v. Forklift L.P. 927 A.2d 257 (Pa. Super 2007),
 
Mr. Patton argued to the Superior Court, en banc, that the ANSI standard was not, in fact, part of the OSHA regulation.  If there was no OSHA regulation, there could be no preemption.  Therefore, the trial court was wrong to grant summary judgment.

You can see a taped broadcast of Mr. Patton’s argument on PCN TV on October 15 at 9:00 p.m.

Joseph Lurie
Galfand Berger, LLP
1818 Market Street, Suite 2300
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Tel: 1-877-228-1528