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Ettinger v. Triangle-Pacific Corporation

In a case involving injury during assembly of an oven, an unassembled oven was not a product under Section 402A for strict liability purposes, thus the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the manufacturer is affirmed on appellants' strict liability claim.

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OPINION

�1 This personal injury action arises out of an injury suffered in a fall by Appellant Boyd E. Ettinger (“Ettinger”) while he was working as an electrician at a manufacturing plant that was under reconstruction. Ettinger and his wife, Esther E. Ettinger, appeal the judgment *fn1 in favor of Appellee Production Systems Incorporated (“PSI”) *fn2 and present a question of first impression to this Court. We are asked to determine, inter alia, whether an item that is being assembled by its producer is a “product” and whether one of its assemblers is a “user” under Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts. Specifically, we are asked to determine whether the trial court properly granted partial summary judgment to PSI based on its holding that the partially-assembled commercial furniture finishing oven in which Ettinger was installing wiring did not constitute a product and that Ettinger as one of its assemblers was not a user under Section 402A. For the reasons that follow, we affirm on this and the other issues presented by Appellants.

�2 Ettinger was injured during the rebuilding of a kitchen cabinet manufacturing plant owned by Triangle Pacific Corporation (“Triangle-Pacific”) in Thompsontown, Pennsylvania that had been destroyed in a fire. As part of the reconstruction, Triangle-Pacific contracted with PSI for the purchase of a furniture finishing system consisting of paint spraying equipment and a two-story enclosed oven with a conveyor system designed to dry wood cabinetry after it had been coated with finish. The system was to be manufactured by PSI and shipped to the Triangle-Pacific plant in sections where the steel structure would be assembled by PSI’s subcontractor, Reliable Welding.

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