Wynia v. Richard-Ewing Equipment Co.

LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Senior Circuit Judge.

On August 17, 1990, fifteen-year-old Michael Whities, plaintiff-appellant, a part-time employee for Tri-State Filter Service of Belle Fourche, South Dakota, lost his left arm just below the shoulder while operating a commercial laundry water extractor (also known as a “spin dryer”), which uses centrifugal force to extract water from laundry. Whities’s mother and guardian ad litem, Avon Wynia, brought this diversity tort action on Whities’s behalf in the United States District Court for the District of South Dakota.1 Named as defendants were Ametek,…