assumption of risk

In 1932 Jennie M. Clapper, a New Hampshire citizen serving as administratrix, filed suit in a New Hampshire court against Bradford Electric Light Co., Inc., a Vermont corporation. She sought damages for the death of Leon J. Clapper under the employers’ liability provisions of the New Hampshire Employers’ Liability and Workmen’s Compensation Act. The Company maintained its principal place of business in Vermont and operated lines extending into New Hampshire. Leon Clapper, a Vermont resident, was hired by the Company in Vermont as a lineman for emergency service in either state. While performing his duties in New Hampshire by restoring burned-out fuses at a substation, he was killed. The case was removed to federal district court on diversity of citizenship. The Company raised a special defense that the Vermont Workmen’s Compensation Act barred the action because the employment contract had been made in Vermont, both parties resided there, and both had accepted the Vermont Act as a term of the contract. The district court rejected the special defense and denied a motion to dismiss. After three jury trials the third resulted in a $4,000 verdict for the plaintiff. The Circuit Court of Appeals first reversed the judgment but on rehearing affirmed it, one judge dissenting. The Company sought review in the Supreme Court by appeal and petition for certiorari. The appeal was denied and certiorari was granted. The Vermont Act provided that every contract of employment made in the state was presumed subject to its provisions unless expressly declined in writing. Acceptance made its remedies exclusive for injuries inside or outside the state. The New Hampshire Act required an employer to file a declaration to become subject to its compensation provisions yet still permitted an employee to elect after injury to sue at common law. The Company had filed the required declaration in New Hampshire.

Transatlantic Financing Corporation, the operator of the SS CHRISTOS, entered into a voyage charter with the United States on October 2, 1956, for the carriage of a full cargo of wheat from a United States Gulf port to a safe port in Iran. The charter specified the points of origin and destination but did not indicate the route to be taken. On July 26, 1956, the Government of Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal Company. During the ensuing international crisis, on October 27, 1956, the SS CHRISTOS sailed from Galveston on a course that would have taken her through the Suez Canal. Israel invaded Egypt on October 29, 1956, followed by invasions of the Suez Canal Zone by Great Britain and France on October 31, 1956. On November 2, 1956, the Egyptian Government closed the Suez Canal to traffic by obstructing it with sunken vessels. After the closure, Transatlantic's representative contacted an employee of the United States Department of Agriculture on or about November 7, 1956, to request instructions on the cargo and to seek additional compensation for a voyage around the Cape of Good Hope. The ship changed course and arrived in Bandar Shapur, Iran, on December 30, 1956. Transatlantic later filed a libel against the United States in the District Court seeking recovery of the costs attributable to the diversion around the Cape of Good Hope. The District Court dismissed the libel, and Transatlantic appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

In the mid-1960s through 1987, the plaintiffs worked as grinders at the General Dynamics Corporation Electric Boat facility in Groton, Connecticut, where their duties required them to use pneumatic hand tools manufactured by the defendants Chicago Pneumatic Tool Company, Stanley Works, and Dresser Industries, Inc., to smooth welds and metal surfaces. During this employment the plaintiffs developed permanent vascular and neurological impairment of their hands, manifesting as blanching of the fingers, pain, numbness, tingling, reduction of grip strength, cold intolerance, and clumsiness, symptoms diagnosed as hand arm vibration syndrome. Ronald Guameri, an industrial hygienist at Electric Boat, performed extensive testing of tools used at the shipyard and found that a large number of the defendants' tools violated vibration exposure limits established by the American National Standards Institute and exceeded the threshold limit promulgated by the American Conference of Governmental and Industrial Hygienists. Richard Alexander, a mechanical engineering professor, testified that methods to reduce vibration through isolation, dampening, and balancing had been available to manufacturers for at least thirty-five years. Charles Suggs, a research engineer, testified that he had reduced vibration hazards in chain saws by inserting rubber mounts in the 1960s, reduced vibration by 70 percent in tools without handles in the 1970s by wrapping them with resilient foam rubber and a metal sleeve, and in 1988 reduced vibration levels in the defendants' die grinders by between 35 and 60 percent using similar techniques. After a six-week trial the jury returned verdicts awarding the plaintiffs compensatory damages on their design defect claims, found that the defendants had provided inadequate warnings but awarded no damages on that claim because the plaintiffs failed to prove causation, and declined to award punitive damages. The defendants appealed from the judgment, and the plaintiffs cross-appealed. The Supreme Court of Connecticut transferred the appeal and cross-appeal from the Appellate Court to itself pursuant to Practice Book § 4023 and General Statutes § 51-199(c). Electric Boat followed a regular maintenance program involving daily inspection of tools. It purchased chucks and other replacement parts from outside vendors. It periodically removed certain safety features and used longer burr attachments on the tools.