Bates v. Richland Sales Corp.

Grand Prairie Coop Company, Inc. (Grand Prairie), deals in fertilizer and grain and has several branches or facilities, including the Apex facility, a mile west of Tolono. On March 4, 1997, at the Apex facility, an employee of Grand Prairie, Edward T. Bates (Bates), was fatally injured on a Wrangler front-end loader, from which employees of Grand Prairie had removed the roll bar. If the roll bar had been in place, Bates would have been unharmed. Richland Sales Corporation (Richland) had sold the loader to Grand Prairie, with the roll bar installed, some five years earlier.

Individually and as…