While working for Grove River Mills, Inc. GRM, Mariusz Cieplinski accidentally stepped into an uncovered section of a moving conveyor used to transport corn and other animal feed material into the GRM feed mill. His leg was pulled into the conveyor, and he suffered a serious injury requiring amputation of the lower portion of the leg. Cieplinski received workers’ compensation benefits from GRM for the job-related injury, then sued Henning Construction Company, Caldwell Electrical Contractors, Inc., and Fred Fairchild as third-party tortfeasors alleging that they proximately caused his injury by negligently installing the conveyor or negligently making subsequent improvements to the conveyor. Cieplinski appeals from the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of all the defendants. For the following reasons, we affirm. To prevail on a motion for summary judgment under OCGA § 9-11-56 c, the moving party must demonstrate that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the undisputed facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, warrant judgment as a matter of law. The moving party may carry this burden either by 1 presenting evidence negating an essential element of the nonmoving party’s claim, i.e., affirmatively disproving the element with evidence which makes it impossible for the nonmoving party to prove the element at trial; or 2 demonstrating an absence of evidence to support an essential element of the nonmoving party’s claim. If the moving party discharges this burden, the nonmoving party cannot rest on its pleadings, but rather must point to specific evidence giving rise to a triable issue. On appeal, we review de novo the trial court’s ruling on a motion for summary judgment, construing all facts and reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmovant. Parks v. Multimedia Technologies, Inc. , 239 Ga. App. 282, 286-287 520 SE2d 517 1999 citations and punctuation omitted; Lau’s Corp. v. Haskins , 261 Ga. 491 405 SE2d 474 1991. Applying these standards, the record shows the following: The feed conveyor in which Cieplinski was injured was manufactured by Schlagel, Inc.1 and installed by Henning Construction when Henning constructed the feed mill for GRM about two years prior to the injury. Fairchild, an engineer and a professor in the Department of Grain Science and Industry at Kansas State University, was hired by GRM as a consultant during the construction process to advise on feed mill design. As installed, the conveyor ran from the feed receiving area into the feed mill by means of a 107 foot long underground tunnel, which was accessible from both ends to allow inspection and maintenance on the conveyor. After the conveyor was installed, GRM hired Caldwell Electrical to put additional lighting in the tunnel.
On the day of the accident, Cieplinski testified that he noticed what appeared to be excessive dust coming from the conveyor tunnel, so he climbed down a ladder into the tunnel at the access on the feed mill end of the tunnel to inspect the conveyor while it was running to determine where the dust was coming from. Cieplinski knew that the tunnel was completely dark unless the lights installed in the tunnel were switched on. When he could not find a light switch in the tunnel on the feed mill end, he exited the tunnel at that end and asked someone at GRM where the light switch for the tunnel lights was located. He was told that the only light switch was at the other end of the tunnel at the access located in the feed receiving area. Although the tunnel had been built by Henning Construction with access at both ends, at some point after the conveyor was installed by Henning Construction, and after Caldwell Electrical installed additional lighting in the tunnel, GRM blocked access to the tunnel from the feed receiving end. GRM did this by closing the feed receiving access to the tunnel with a chain that could only be unlatched from inside the tunnel. Cieplinski testified that, because he was prevented by the chain from gaining access to the tunnel from the feed receiving end where the light switch was located, he got a flashlight and entered the darkened tunnel from the feed mill end with the intention of walking the length of the tunnel to reach the light switch at the other end. As Cieplinski stated at his deposition, “That way I could get better lighting inside the tunnel to see where the dust was coming from.”
