A woman residing in Mexico is suing a manufacturer in Virginia over an allegedly defective machine that contributed to the death of her husband two years ago in Warren County.
Rosa E. Perez …
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A woman residing in Mexico is suing a manufacturer in Virginia over an allegedly defective machine that contributed to the death of her husband two years ago in Warren County.
Rosa E. Perez Serrano is suing the American Spin-A-Batch Company, the maker of a galvanizing machine that includes liquid galvanization and spin-drying components. Perez Serrano’s husband, Carmen Duran Lara, was using the machine for his job at Universal Galvanizing in Wright City when, according to the lawsuit, a malfunction in the machine caused him to take actions that led to his death.
The machine at the center of the lawsuit works, in part, by moving a rack of steel parts covered in galvanizing fluid into a sealed booth, where the rack is spun rapidly to remove the excess fluid.
The lawsuit states Duran Lara was using this machine on Sept. 27, 2019, when it got stuck on maximum spin inside the booth. The machine did not include a separate control mechanism to slow the spin of the rack, nor did it include a display to warn of how fast the rack was spinning, the lawsuit alleges.
Duran Lara attempted to move the rack out of the booth while it was still spinning, at which point a 54-inch steel bolt from the rack came free and struck him in the head. He died as a result of his injury a month later, the lawsuit states.
Perez Serrano is being represented in the lawsuit by St. Louis attorney Cesar Millan, who alleges that the Spin-A-Batch Company was negligent in the manufacture of their machine, and should have to compensate the widow and their four children for Duran Lara’s death. Millan accuses the company of selling a purportedly safe machine that lacked important safety features.
“The machine lacked any feature (such as a light, display screen, or other indicator) that indicated to the user if the machine was spinning, (or) how fast the machine was spinning,” Millan wrote in the lawsuit, adding “The machine only had two levers, one to rotate the machine clockwise, and one to rotate the machine counterclockwise. There is no separate lever or button to slow or halt the machine’s spin rate.”
Additionally, Millan alleges that a defect in the machine shipped from the manufacturer is what caused one of the levers to be stuck in the maximum spin position.
The plaintiff is seeking an unspecific amount of money in the suit.
The lawsuit is being overseen by 12th Circuit Presiding Judge Jason Lamb.
