Widower can proceed in lawsuit against robot installation firm

A federal court in Michigan on Thursday denied a summary judgment in a negligence case to a company that installed and maintained a manufacturing floor robot that fatally injured a woman.

William Holbrook sued FNG Flex-N-Gate LLC, along with several other companies, on behalf of his deceased wife, Wanda Holbrook, who was employed as a journeyman maintenance technician at Ventra Ionia LLC in Ionia, Michigan. She was crushed and killed by a robot while maintaining equipment in 2015, according to documents in William Holbrook, personal representative of the estate of Wanda Holbrook, v. Prodomax Automation Ltd., et al., filed in U.S. District Court, Western District of Michigan, Southern Division, in Kalamazoo.

Ventra settled a workers compensation claim related to the death in 2016. Mr. Holbrook filed a negligence lawsuit against six defendants in March 2017.

FNG, which filed for summary judgment, is facing claims that it negligently “performed the installation, integration, engineering and/or ongoing servicing of components” of the robot that killed Ms. Holbrook.

FNG, contending it was barred from the suit because of the exclusive remedy provision in Michigan’s workers comp law, rested its argument on the plaintiff’s “admission that FNG and Ventra are a single corporate entity. Because Plaintiff’s claim would be barred by the (state workers comp act) if FNG and Ventra were one corporation (which would certainly be a material fact), Defendant is entitled to summary judgment.”

The federal court ruled, however, that “FNG’s position is untenable” because the discovery in the case is ongoing.

“Plaintiff is not asserting that Ventra and FNG are one corporation, nor is he claiming that Ventra employees were the sole source of the tortious conduct that led to Wanda’s death,” the ruling states. “He does not face the insurmountable dilemma posited by FNG. Perhaps the dilemma will rear its head again when discovery concludes in the spring of 2021; for now, Plaintiff’s claims are not subject to dismissal.”