Hirchak v. W.W. Grainger, Inc., No. 19-2642 (8th Cir. 2020)Annotate this Case
Plaintiff and his wife filed claims of negligence and failure to warn against Grainer, a distributor of industrial equipment, and its subsidiary, Dayton, after plaintiff was injured by a web sling at work. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for defendants, holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion by excluding plaintiff's expert's opinion that the subject sling was a Grainger-distributed Juli sling. In this case, the district court concluded that the expert's report was inadmissible because his opinion that the subject sling was a Grainger-distributed Juli sling was based on insufficient facts. Without the expert's report, plaintiff failed to present sufficient evidence that defendants supplied the sling to the employer in order to defeat summary judgment.