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Brewster v. Prestige Packaging2/12/2001
Plaintiff-appellant, Wanda Brewster, appeals a Butler County Court of Common Pleas judgment entry granting summary judgment in favor of defendant-appellee, Prestige Packaging, Incorporated ("Prestige"), in an intentional tort case. The decision of the trial court is affirmed.
Appellant had been working for Prestige for about one year and four months when she was injured at work. At the time of the accident, appellant was a first-line supervisor. Appellant's line packaged various products. Her duties included maintaining a stock of materials, checking the quality of the product, and assisting her crewmembers as necessary.
On the day of the accident, appellant's line was packaging light bulbs. This particular job had been running without any mechanical problems. According to appellant, the assembly line set-up had been basically the same ever since she began working at Prestige. A rubber conveyor belt intersected with "high-speed" rollers to make a Tformation. Once a product was packaged, it would travel to the end of the rubber conveyor belt, fall onto the high-speed rollers, and be delivered to the shipping department. The power switch for the rubber conveyor belt was located underneath that belt so as to prevent it from being hit by fork trucks. This power switch was very close to the intersection with the high-speed rollers.
Appellant always turned off the rubber conveyor belt or designated someone else to do so at the end of each shift. On the day of the accident, appellant asked a crewmember to turn off the rubber conveyor belt. When the crewmember ignored appellant and left the work-area, appellant decided to turn off the rubber conveyor belt. As she bent over the rubber conveyor belt, her ponytail fell to the side and her hair was caught in the high-speed rollers. As a result, appellant's hair and a part of her scalp were pulled from her head. Subsequently, appellant sued Prestige for intentional tort.
At the time of the accident, appellant's hair length was halfway down her back. She was wearing her hair in a ponytail but was not wearing a hat. In her deposition, appellant testified that there were no safety rules regarding how employees were to wear their hair, and that she wore her hair in a ponytail because the plant was hot.
In his deposition, Prestige's president, David Lotterer, testified that the plant had a safety rule requiring employees with long hair to wear caps around the machinery. According to Lotterer, these rules were displayed in the employee area and should have been provided to all employees as part of their training.
There was no emergency stop switch for the high-speed rollers near the intersection with the rubber conveyor belt. The closest power switch was located at the shipping department, which was at least forty feet from the site of the accident.
After the accident, the Industrial Commission of Ohio ruled that Prestige had committed a violation of a specific safety rule ("VSSR"). A hearing officer found a violation of OAC 4121:1-5-05(C)(2), which requires an employer to provide a means to disengage the power supply at any point of contact on a conveyor. The hearing officer concluded that this rule violation caused appellant's injury.
Prestige filed a motion for summary judgment with the trial court, arguing that appellant had failed to demonstrate the essential elements of intentional tort. After reviewing the evidence before it, the trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Prestige. Appellant appeals, raising one assignment of error:
THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN GRANTING APPELLEE'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT.
In her assignment of
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