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67 N.Y.2d 871

Lopez v. Precision Papers, Inc.

New York Court of Appeals

Decided March 18, 1986

New York Court of Appeals · decided 1986-03-18

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“was purposefully manufactured to permit its use without the safety guard.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Liriano v. Hobart Corp.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1986-03-18

How this case has been cited

Cited by 23 later decisions — most recently January 2015

4 federal appellate · 3 district ·

1401986199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1OPINION OF THE COURT

¶2Memorandum.

¶3The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, with costs.

¶4The record presents triable issues of fact concerning whether the forklift, as marketed with an attached but removable overhead safety guard, was "not reasonably safe” (Voss v Black & Decker Mfg. Co., 59 NY2d 102, 108) for the uses intended or reasonably anticipated by the manufacturer (see, Micallef v Miehle Co., 39 NY2d 376, 385-386).

¶5As correctly noted by the Appellate Division in denying defendant’s motion for summary judgment (CPLR 3212), this court’s holding in Robinson v Reed-Prentice Div. (49 NY2d 471) does not compel a different result. In contrast with the detaching of the removable safety guard in this case, Robinsoninvolved "[mjaterial alterations [i.e., cutting a 6-inch by 14-inch access hole in the safety gate of a plastic molding machine] which work[ed] a substantial change in the condition in which the product was sold by destroying the functional utility of a key safety feature” (49 NY2d, at p 481). There is evidence in this record that the forklift was purposefully manufactured to permit its use without the safety guard.

¶6Chief Judge Wachtler and Judges Meyer, Simons, Kaye, Alexander and Hancock, Jr., concur; Judge Titone taking no part.

¶7Order affirmed, with costs, in a memorandum. Question certified answered in the affirmative.

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