A combination of a company’s
lax attitude toward safety, an untrained and inexperienced forklift
operator, and an unsafe forklift work platform were the recipe for
a serious forklift accident at a grocery distribution warehouse
in Kansas City, Kansas. Steve Six represented the surviving spouse
and two adult children of Bill Stadtherr in their wrongful death
claim against the company which operated the warehouse, obtaining
a $1,800,000 settlement as the trial was set to begin.
Bill Stadtherr, a senior systems engineer for a Minnesota company,
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came to the warehouse to repair computer
equipment housed in the warehouse ceiling. After arriving, Bill
was led to the maintenance shop where the defendant provided a forklift,
a dangerous and unsafe work platform, and an inexperienced and untrained
forklift operator to take him to the worksite. Bill climbed into
the work platform along with an employee from another company, and
after traveling only a short distance forward, the forklift operator
inadvertently engaged the lift toggle switch on the travel control
lever of the Raymond Model 31 forklift raising the work platform
and propelling the men into the ceiling, whereupon Mr. Stadtherr
was crushed to death.
Depositions of the plant safety and training officers revealed that
the forklift operator had not received the required training on
the use of the Raymond Model 31 forklift, had not been trained on
the use of a work platform with a forklift, and did not have the
proper forklift certification as required by OSHA 29 C.F.R. 1910.178.
The defendant contended that it did not provide the operator training
on the Raymond forklift because it assumed the operator had been
trained by another company, and it did not provide the operator
with training on the use of a work |
Work platform attached to
Raymond forklift.
platform because the responsible
company official did not know a work platform was in use in
the warehouse. Other depositions of current and former employees
who worked at the warehouse revealed that work platforms were
used daily in the plant for numerous maintenance and repair
procedures, and this had been a long-standing practice.
Under the Kansas comparative fault statute, K.S. A. § 60-258a,
the defendant compared the fault
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