Case Notes

In Christensen v. Thornton, 988 N.E.2d 471 (Mass. App. Ct. June 3, 2013), the plaintiff suffered injuries when he caught his hand in an industrial exhaust fan while installing drywall in a customer's home. The operating instructions supplied with the fan warned that if it was installed at a height of less than seven feet, it must be used with a guard in order to meet federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) safety standards, and a warning label to the same effect was affixed to all such fans.

The fan's manufacturer made a guard that could be purchased as a separate component, and guards made by other manufacturers also could be used, but the fan could not be purchased with a guard pre-installed. After acquiring the fan secondhand, the homeowner, a licensed electrician, temporarily mounted it to the frame of a door that opened at the top of a three-step stairway. The bottom of the fan was flush with the edge of the top step and the fan was parallel to the path of the stairs with its blades exposed. The homeowner did not obtain the operating instructions when he purchased the fan, and did not remember a warning label on it. However, he testified at deposition that even if he had seen such a warning, this would not have deterred him from installing the fan in the manner in which he did.