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Cox v. Barsplice Products6/15/2001
Plaintiff-Appellant Dennis J. Cox appeals the trial court's decision granting summary judgment in favor of Defendant-Appellee Barsplice Products, Inc. on his intentional tort claim, as well as the ancillary claims for loss of consortium and punitive damages. After applying the test in Fyffe v. Jeno's, Inc. (1991), 59 Ohio St.3d 115, the trial court found that Cox did not raise a genuine issue of material fact for the second element of the tort. Cox has presented the following assignments of error in his appeal:
I. The trial court erred in granting Barsplice's motion for summary judgment because genuine issues of material fact exist as to whether Barsplice committed an intentional tort.
II. The trial court erred in granting Barsplice's motion for summary judgment on Appellants' claims for punitive damages and loss of consortium.
An appellate court's review of a summary judgment decision is de novo. Nilavar v. Osborn (1998), 127 Ohio App.3d 1, 10, citing Grafton v. Ohio Edison Co. (1996), 77 Ohio St.3d 102, 105. In reviewing a summary judgment decision, the appellate court must apply the standard found in Civ. R. 56, the same as a trial court. According to Civ. R. 56, a trial court should grant summary judgment only when the following tripartite test has been satisfied: (1) there is no genuine issue as to any material fact; (2) the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law; and (3) reasonable minds can come to but one conclusion, and that conclusion is adverse to the party against whom the motion for summary judgment is made, who is entitled to have the evidence construed most strongly in his favor. Harless v. Willis Day Warehousing Co. (1978), 54 Ohio St.2d 64, 66.
When reviewing a motion for summary judgment, a court must be careful not to weigh the evidence or judge the credibility of witnesses. Turner v. Turner (1993), 67 Ohio St.3d 337, 341. Instead, it must consider all of the evidence and reasonable inferences that can be drawn from the evidentiary materials in favor of the nonmoving party. Hannah v. Dayton Power & Light Co. (1998), 82 Ohio St.3d 482, 485.
Construing the evidence in a light most favorable to Cox, the facts are as follows. At the time of this incident, Dennis Cox had been employed at Barsplice for approximately seventeen months. He primarily operated a saw which cut steel pipe, but also worked on other machines, including the Landis threader on at least one prior occasion. To operate the Landis threader, an employee must place a rebar into the machine and secure it in the vice. The operator then turns a hand wheel to feed the rebar into the cutting mechanism. As long as the vice is working properly and the rebar is secured, the rotating mechanism then threads the end of the rebar while the vice holds it steady and prevents the rebar from rotating.
On December 22, 1997, Darrin Rogers, Cox's supervisor, asked him to finish an order on the Landis threader. Shortly after he began running the rebars through the threader, he asked a Class A operator, Treg Lansing, whether the rebar was threading properly. Although Class A operators did not technically have supervisory powers at the time of this incident, they did have the authority to direct other operators how to operate the machines. Lansing advised Cox that the threader was too loose and he would have to apply pressure to the end of the rebar while turning the feed wheel in order to get a deeper cut. Cox testified that was not the first time he had placed his hands on a rebar as it was fed into the Landis threader. Just a few days before this incident, Cox had assisted another employee by applying pressure to the end of a twenty-five foot rebar as the o
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