Kent and Home Indemnity filed a counterclaim and raised affirmative defenses to the amended complaint. Subsequently, the trial court permitted plaintiff to amend her complaint, adding Kent and Home Indemnity as defendants. The jury awarded $121,000, attributing 45% of the negligence to Kent and 55% to Bliss. The jury found no breach of implied warranty but found that defendant's negligence in failing to warn was a proximate cause of the plaintiff's injuries. Kent was not a party to the litigation at that time. The jury received a special verdict form on which it was *202 permitted to apportion the liability among plaintiff, Bliss, and Kent. At the same time, she instituted this action against Bliss pursuant to MCL 418.827 MSA 17.237(827).ĭuring the course of trial, plaintiff advanced several theories of recovery, but only the issues of implied warranty and negligence arising from a duty to warn were presented to the jury. Plaintiff was granted workers' compensation benefits for the injury from Kent and its workers' compensation liability insurer, The Home Indemnity Company. The part of this assembly which made the press a single-stroke machine, rather than one which would continuously recycle, broke at the time of plaintiff's injury. The recycling was apparently due to the malfunctioning of the clutch latch assembly which controls the stroking motion of the press. A portion of plaintiff's hand was amputated when the press unexpectedly recycled while she was hand-loading it. Bliss Company and purchased by Kent from Bliss in 1961. The injury occurred while plaintiff was working on a power press manufactured by E.W. Plaintiff Marjorie Downie filed this products liability action for injuries sustained December 10, 1975, in the course of her employment with Kent *201 Products, Inc. Comparative negligence does not apply where contribution is sought from plaintiff's employer therefore, the apportionment of negligence by the jury, the amended complaint, and the reduction of the lien were all in error. However, evidence of warning tags used by Bliss subsequent to the sale in this case but prior to plaintiff's injury was properly admitted. ![]() Defendant Bliss' motion for directed verdict on the failure to warn count was correctly denied. We agree with the Court of Appeals on the first and third issues however, we disagree with the reasoning and result of the Court of Appeals on the second issue. The third issue involves three related questions: whether it was proper for the jury to be allowed to apply comparative negligence principles and apportion the fault between the defendant and the employer, who was not a party to the suit whether the employer could be added as a party after the verdict had been rendered and whether it is permissible under MCL 418.827(5) MSA 17.237(827)(5), to reduce the employer's workers' compensation lien by the amount determined by the jury to be reflective of the employer's responsibility for plaintiff's injuries. The second issue is whether evidence of warning labels, installed on defendants' presses manufactured after the date of sale of this press, but before the date of the plaintiff's injury, should have been excluded under MRE 407 or MCL 600.2946(3) MSA 27A.2946(3). Bliss' motion for a directed verdict premised on the assertion that plaintiff had failed to present sufficient evidence *200 to demonstrate the existence of a prima facie case of negligence due to a failure to warn. The first is whether the courts below erred in denying defendant E.W. ![]() This case poses three distinct questions for our consideration. In addition to her pursuit of workers' compensation benefits from her employer, plaintiff filed this suit against the manufacturer of the machine on which she was injured. This is an appeal of a products liability action arising out of a work-related injury. Block) for defendants Kent Products and The Home Indemnity Company.Ĭholette, Perkins & Buchanan (by Edward D. McCroskey, Feldman, Cochrane & Brock (by J.
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