## Facts

- Larry Green was an employee of Allendale Planting Company (Allendale) and had worked there for about twelve years as an experienced farmhand.
- Green was operating a “mule boy,” a tractor-pulled-and-powered farm implement owned by Allendale and manufactured by The KBH Corporation (KBH).
- Allendale purchased the mule boy from KBH roughly three to four weeks before the accident, did not modify it, and had not experienced any problems with it.
- On September 28, 2001, while operating the mule boy, Green heard a loud, unusual noise coming from the rear of the machine.
- Green left the mule boy running, got down from the tractor, and knelt near the mule boy’s exposed metering chains to determine the source of the noise.
- Green lost his balance, and his hand contacted the moving chains; three fingers were severed.
- Green sued KBH asserting product-liability claims for defective design (lack of a safety guard) and failure to warn.
- Green also sued Allendale under employer-liability negligence theories, including claims tied to the equipment’s condition and the safety of the work environment.
- The trial court ultimately granted summary judgment to both KBH and Allendale on all claims after reconsideration.

## Issues

1. Whether KBH was entitled to summary judgment on Green’s defective-design and failure-to-warn claims because Green knowingly, voluntarily, and deliberately exposed himself to an obvious danger, establishing assumption of risk as a matter of law.
2. Whether Allendale was entitled to summary judgment on Green’s employer-liability negligence claims, including allegations tied to maintenance/inspection and the safety of the workplace, or whether fact issues required a trial on some of those theories.

## Decision

- The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for KBH on Green’s product-liability claims.
- The court held that the summary-judgment record showed Green voluntarily and deliberately placed himself in close proximity to exposed, moving chains on a running machine, and that this established assumption of risk barring his claims against KBH.
- As to Allendale, the court affirmed summary judgment on certain theories (including claims framed as design/guard or warning-type fault attributed to the employer rather than the manufacturer).
- As to Allendale, the court reversed summary judgment on remaining negligence theories that turned on the employer’s own conduct (including claims involving maintenance/inspection and workplace safety) and remanded those claims for further proceedings.

## Legal Principles

- Summary judgment is proper only when the record shows no genuine dispute of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
- Assumption of risk requires proof that the plaintiff knew of and appreciated the danger and voluntarily exposed himself to it; when established, it can bar recovery on product-liability theories.
- A danger that is open and obvious, coupled with a plaintiff’s deliberate exposure to it, can support an assumption-of-risk defense at the summary-judgment stage when the plaintiff’s own testimony removes any real dispute about knowledge and voluntariness.
- An employer’s liability turns on the employer’s own duties (including reasonable care in providing a safe workplace and reasonably safe equipment through inspection and maintenance), and claims based on those duties may present triable issues even when manufacturer-focused theories do not.

## Conclusion

Green held that Green’s decision to kneel beside exposed, moving chains on a running implement established assumption of risk as a matter of law, supporting summary judgment for the manufacturer on defective-design and failure-to-warn claims, while the employer’s summary judgment was affirmed only in part and otherwise reversed and remanded to allow litigation of negligence theories based on the employer’s own maintenance/inspection and workplace-safety duties.


Green v. Allendale Planting Co. & the KBH Corp., 954 So. 2d 1032 (2007)