The state Superior Court has agreed with a McKean County Court
ruling that held spark sensor maker GreCon Electronics Inc.
blameless in the Temple-Inland Particleboard Plant explosion on
Feb. 13, 2001.

In a ruling made Jan. 2, a three-judge panel affirmed President
Judge John Cleland’s decision of Oct. 17, 2005, in the civil suits
filed by Tony and Billie Barnish, Sandy and Christine Bussard,
David and Stacey Johnson, Jody Covert on behalf of her husband,
James, who was killed; and Joyce Engelken on behalf of her husband,
Gregg, who was also killed.

Cleland’s ruling held GreCon without fault in the explosion, as
GreCon’s sensors had been in place at the plant since 1991 without
incident. He said the plaintiffs were required to prove the product
was defective, the defect caused the harm and the defect existed
when the product left the defendant’s hands, according to court
records.

While the plaintiffs did show that the spark detectors failed to
work properly the night of the fire and subsequent explosion, there
was no evidence to support that the defects had existed when the
detectors left GreCon’s control, Cleland ruled.

In fact, the 10-year use of the sensors without prior defect
showed that the sensors were not previously defective, but may have
failed because of wear and tear, Cleland said in his ruling.

The Superior Court agreed with Cleland’s analysis of the
case.

” … a jury could not reasonably infer the existence of a defect
in the sensors when they left GreCon’s hands 10 years prior to the
malfunction of the sensors,” reads the majority opinion, written by
Judge John T. Bender. “This is so because plaintiff/appellants
conceded that the sensors functioned properly during that 10-year
period, and plaintiff/appellants failed to present any satisfactory
proof of an original defect.”

And the appellants’ suit was not free of possible secondary
causes, such as wear and tear on the sensors causing the failure,
Bender said. A product liability case under the malfunction theory
must be free of reasonable secondary causes, he explained.

“A jury could not reasonably infer that a defect existed at the
time the sensors left GreCon’s hands, as any such inference would
constitute mere speculation,” Bender wrote. “Judgment
affirmed.”

On Feb. 13, 2001, outside contractors had been welding inside
the plant and sparks had fallen into sawdust, igniting it.
Employees of the plant worked several hours to try to extinguish
all the sparks, but the sparks eventually entered an auger, causing
an explosion and fire.

Three men – James Covert, Gregg Engelken and Roger Smith – died
as a result of injuries sustained in the explosion and fire.
Several others were seriously injured, including Tony Barnish,
Sandy Bussard, David Johnson, Stephen Meade and David Whipkey.