Jeff Gaddy v. Terex Corporation, et al.

Jeff Gaddy

The legal system. What does that make you think of first? Greedy lawyers trying to make money at the expense of their clients, boring legal terminology. The movies where lawyers stand up and yell “OBJECTION YOUR HONOR!” No matter what you think of the legal system, I think it's a fair assumption that for most people, spending a day watching a trial that you are not involved in seems very uninteresting. While there is a lot of professional calm testimony, there is also a lot going on that is not revealed at first glance and with a bit of research, everything becomes much more interesting. This was definitely the case for the Galloway Law Excursion.

On April 9, 2014, a man named Jeff Gaddy left Ace Tree Surgery headquarters in his bucket truck to go trim trees at a nearby orchard. Ace Tree Surgery was a company founded by his family and Jeff Gaddy worked closely with his father on the tree trimming business. When Jeff Gaddy made it to the orchard, he began to climb into the bucket, passing by the warning label showing the weight capacity. He had never paid attention to the label and had never read the owner’s manual that came with the truck. Unlike a commercial product, like your iPhone or toaster, it is essential to read the owners manual for a bucket truck. That is because in that owner’s manual, it carefully explained the weight capacity and how to calculate it. It also said that each time before using the product, you must inspect the vehicle for cracks or other signs of wear and tear. Additionally, it said that the owner of the bucket truck must have a yearly inspection done by a professional to check it top to bottom for any damage. But sadly, since Jeff Gaddy had never read the owner’s manual, he did not know to do this. He climbed into the bucket, which inside had another two warning labels both proclaiming that it was unsafe to exceed the weight capacity of 350 lbs. That day, and every day for the past twelve years, Jeff Gaddy overloaded the bucket truck to a margin of 50-80 lbs. Due to this constant misuse, a crack began to grow in the lower beam which at the time of the accident was 18 inches long. Because Jeff Gaddy had never read the manual or the warnings, he never inspected the vehicle during the twelve-year period. While he was up trimming trees, the boom that had been overloaded for years finally gave out and collapsed. Due to the risk of an individual falling out of the bucket, anyone inside the bucket must be strapped in. This meant that instead of flying out when the bucket started to collapse, Gaddy was kept in and was slammed 2 ft. into the ground causing his lower back to be smashed against the lip of the bucket, paralyzing him from the waist down. Or, at least that's what the the defense said.

The plaintiff, however, tells a very different story. Jeff Gaddy  sued Terex Corporation and Terex South Dakota (the specific facility that made the truck) on two counts, one is negligent design, and the other is failure to warn. Mr. Gaddy sued on negligent design, based off of the faulty steel Terex used. When the truck was built in 2002, Terex had been asking, and paying for, a specific steel which could hold up to 700 pounds, 2:1 of the national ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard at the time. Terex’s company goal was that all of their trucks had a 2:1 safety standard above the legal requirement. Jeff Gaddy says that Terex should have known the steel they were shipped in 2002 was faulty, and that they broke the law by not complying to their internal 2:1 safety standard. They are also suing on the basis of failure to warn. They say this is because ever since 2002, when they started to release faulty trucks, consumers had reported cracks in the area that broke on Jeff Gaddy’s bucket truck. Terex then designed a fix kit to stop cracking in that area, but did not publicly distribute it or notify all owners of that model of bucket truck, instead giving it to consumers only when they asked.

However, eagle-eyed viewers will notice that there are some problems with Jeff Gaddy’s lawsuit. First, on the basis of negligent design, you may notice that the 2:1 safety standards are Terex’s internal standards, and not legally binding in any way. This is because Terex only promised that their truck could hold 350 lbs., and testing of the faulty steel revealed that it could still hold 460 lbs.! Furthermore, on the failure to warn claim, ANSI says that if you have a problem in your equipment, you must have a publicly available solution or you must notify all product owners about the defect. Since Terex was able to have a publicly available solution, and the truck still passed all legal requirements, I believe that the defense should have won.

However, as of January 23, 2019, the case was privately settled out of court, meaning we will never get to know the full story of Jeff Gaddy v. Terex Corporation, et al.