Court rules that mechanic failed to provide adequate evidence of causation

William Lubanski sued NLC, Inc. and several other defendants, alleging that they manufactured and sold a welder that was improperly designed. Lubanski argued that he was badly hurt when the 285 pound welder fell on him while he was spot-welding under a vehicle. He claimed that the welder was badly designed because it was so top-heavy that it could be overturned merely by positioning the welding cables near the floor. He testified that he didn't know why the welder fell and that he hadn't pulled on the welding cables, and he offered testimony that the weight of the cables alone could induce the welder to tip over. The Court concluded that Lubanski's argument was simply too speculative to go forward, since he had no direct proof that the design of the welder caused it to fall. In a typical Richard Bandstra opinion, the Court ruled that Lubanski had "failed to present any evidence, circumstantial or direct, creating a 'logical sequence of cause and effect' between the alleged defects and the injury." In other words, merely demonstrating that the welder was so unstable that it could fall merely as a result of the positioning of the cables--in the absence of any other cause--was not adequate to prove that it did so. Sometimes, when you learn the identity of the judges in an appeal, you can predict the outcome of the case.