Mine Safety Appliance Company v. Holmes
Annotate this CaseThirty-eight years after going to work for T.P. Groome, breaking up concrete culverts with a jackhammer, plaintiff Huey Holmes was diagnosed with silicosis. In six years that Homles worked for Groome, he was exposed to dusty work conditions. Groome provide a respirator that was manufactured by defendant Mine Safety Appliances (MSA). Holmes testified that, although he wore the mask, he often ingested so much dust while jackhammering that his mouth would fill with dirt and his spit would become black. Holmes filed a products-liability suit against MSA, claiming, among other things, that the respirator failed to protect him from overexposure to respirable silica. Holmes was dismissed from the suit without prejudice in light of the then-recent changes to Mississippi joinder rules. Holmes refiled his suit against MSA on May 16, 2007. In its answer, MSA asserted that Holmes filed his second suit after the statute of limitations had run. This case was a direct appeal of the trial court's judgment awarding Holmes, $875,000 for silicosis-related injuries allegedly caused by the respirator. After review, the Supreme Court agreed with the trial court’s ruling that the complaint was filed within the statute of limitations, and that Holmes was exposed to a harmful level of silica during the relevant time period. But the Court found that the trial judge erred in denying MSA’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) regarding Holmes’s warnings claim. Additionally, the Court found MSA was entitled to a judgment as a matter of law regarding Holmes’s design-defect claim because misuse of the respirator materially changed the product’s condition after it left MSA’s control. The Court therefore reversed and remanded on these issues.
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