Martha Hunt v. Home Depot, Inc., No. 22-2437 (8th Cir. 2023)
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Plaintiff and her husband purchased a ladder at Home Depot some years ago. Plaintiff’s husband was found dead near the ladder with injuries consistent with a fall. Plaintiff sued Home Depot, alleging that a defect in a ladder caused her husband’s death. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Home Depot, concluding that Plaintiff’s evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to show causation. On appeal, Plaintiff asserted that she provided sufficient evidence that establishes her claims against Home Depot, and, at a minimum, her evidence creates a genuine dispute of material fact making a grant of summary judgment improper.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that here, Plaintiff has failed to negate other causes of the accident. In addition to the unaccounted-for 11-year period between the purchase of the ladder and the accident, the expert hypothesized that an electrical malfunction may have caused the fall. Plaintiff replied that this sort of malfunction would have given her husband electrical burns, which were not observed by the coroner. However, a minor spark that did not contact her husband could have startled him and caused him to lose his balance. Plaintiff has provided no evidence to refute this. The court concluded that there is no proof here sufficient to induce the mind to pass beyond conjecture.
Court Description: [Smith, Author, with Stras and Kobes, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Products liability. The district court did not err in granting Home Depot's motion for summary judgment on plaintiff's claim that the ladder involved in her deceased husband's fatal fall was defective, as the evidence failed to show that the alleged defects, either singularly or in combination, caused him to fall; plaintiff failed to negate other causes of the observed failure and she could not raise an inference that the design defect was at work in the accident. [ June 20, 2023 ]
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