Michael Montgomery, a die cutter operator employed by Graphic Packaging International, LLC, died on February 6, 2022 at GPI's Phoenixville, Pennsylvania facility after entering the interior of a Bobst Mastercut 145 PER 2.0 Die-Cutter machine. Surveillance video showed that a side panel normally separating the machine's interior from its exterior had been removed and was leaning against the machine, leaving an opening under the operator platform. Montgomery passed through that opening without pressing an emergency stop button or locking out the machine. He was found dead roughly one and a half hours later under a loaded pallet in the machine's delivery area; his cause of death was traumatic asphyxiation. His daughter, Tabria Montgomery, sued Bobst North America, Inc. for strict products liability, negligence, wrongful death, and survival, and sued GPI for negligence, wrongful death, and survival.
Plaintiff's design and liability expert, Brian O'Donel, P.E., a licensed mechanical engineer with thirty years of experience in industrial and machine safety and twenty years in the printing and paper-converting industry, offered three opinions: that the machine was defectively designed for lacking an interlocked guard on the operator platform panel, that it was defectively designed for lacking an additional light curtain at the interior-side access point to the delivery area, and that the machine malfunctioned by allowing its delivery tray to descend and crush Montgomery when it should not have been able to move.
Magistrate Judge José Raúl Arteaga, sitting by consent of the parties under 28 U.S.C. § 636(c), denied Bobst NA's motion to exclude the first two opinions and granted it as to the third. On the alternative-design opinions, the court held that lack of physical testing does not render such opinions unreliable per se, and that O'Donel's reliance on his experience, review of the record — including a 3D scan, electrical schematics, photographs, operating and safety manuals, and deposition testimony — and relevant industry standards provided an adequate foundation. Critically, the court noted that Bobst NA already used both interlocked guards and light curtains elsewhere on the same machine, and that Bobst NA's own corporate designee testified the company could install a light curtain anywhere on the Mastercut that it deemed appropriate. Those facts grounded O'Donel's feasibility conclusions in something more than speculation.
The malfunction opinion fared differently. O'Donel theorized that Montgomery must have used a quick-stop or controlled-stop feature before entering the machine, and that the delivery tray therefore should not have been able to lower. The court held that theory was undercut by O'Donel's own report, which acknowledged the machine also stops when a light curtain or interlocked guard is triggered, and by record evidence that the machine pauses when a loaded pallet is full but sensors do not detect an empty standby pallet. The court further noted that post-accident evidence showed only that the delivery door was open when Montgomery was discovered, not that it was open when he entered. A Bobst NA test performed two days after the incident found no evidence of malfunction, and O'Donel himself acknowledged at deposition that the parties did not know when the delivery door opened and that it was possible the machine had not malfunctioned at all. The court concluded there was simply too great a gap between the data and the opinion proffered, quoting Oddi v. Ford Motor Co., 234 F.3d 136, 146 (3d Cir. 2000).
The ruling leaves O'Donel's design-defect testimony intact for trial while eliminating the malfunction theory. Bobst NA retains the right to challenge the surviving opinions through cross-examination and contrary evidence.