Oppedahl v. Mobile Drill International Inc., No. 17-1925 (8th Cir. 2018)
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Plaintiff Jeffery Oppedahl and his family filed suit against Mobile Drill after Jeffery was injured in an accident involving a truck-mounted drill auger that left him a quadriplegic. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to Mobile Drill on plaintiffs' negligent entrustment claim involving the auger and the related consortium claims. The court held that the refurbishment exception did not apply here and that the district court did not err in dismissing plaintiffs' negligence and strict liability claims based on the running of the Iowa statute of repose. Even if the exception applied, plaintiffs' claim would still be barred where the existing case law in which courts have adopted a refurbishment exception to statutes of repose requires that the refurbishment be completed by the party being held accountable for the harm. In this case, it was IDOT, not Mobile Drill, that conducted the auger refurbishment.
The court also held that the Iowa Supreme Court likely would not apply negligent entrustment against a product manufacturer when the claim relates to the sale of the product. Assuming that negligent entrustment applied, plaintiffs' claim failed where there was insufficient evidence to support a claim that Mobile Drill had knowledge that IDOT would use the auger in a manner involving unreasonable risk of physical harm or that it was foreseeable to Mobile Drill that IDOT would use the auger in an unsafe way.
Court Description: Shepherd, Author, with Melloy and Grasz, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Products liability. Even if the Iowa Supreme Court would adopt a "refurbishment" exception to the Iowa Statute of Repose, plaintiff's claim against Mobile Drill, the original manufacturer of the auger, would still fail as the refurbishment was performed by plaintiff's employer and not by Mobile; plaintiff's claim that Mobile Drilling had the requisite knowledge to support a negligent entrustment claim is not supported by the record, as Mobile Drilling did not have knowledge that plaintiff's employer would use the auger in a manner involving unreasonable risk of physical harm and had no reason to foresee that the employer would use the auger in an unsafe way.
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