Paul Johnson v Ridge Tool Manufacturing Company, Inc.Paul Johnson v Ridge Tool Manufacturing Company, Inc.
I. Background
Ridge Tool Manufacturing Company, Inc. designed and manufactured the K-6200 drain cleaning machine. On a wheelbase sits a large drum, which holds about 100 fеet of coiled 5/8-inch cable. When turned on, the drum feeds out cable at 285 revolutions per minute. The operator guides the spinning cable into the drain. To reduce the potential for user injuries, Ridge Tool took several precautionary measures.
For one, sometimes the machine cannot be placed near the drain’s inlet. The greater distance between the machine and the inlet, the more cable is exposed. That can “result in [the] cable twisting, kinking or control problems,” the user manual warns. So as a solution, Ridge Tool offers an optional front guide-hose that channels the exposed cable into the drain, sparing the user from handling the moving cable.
For another, Ridge Tool includes specific gloves, offered in one size, to use with the machine. The manual instructs users to wear them while operating the machine. Otherwise, a “loose fitting cloth glove,” the manual cautions, could “become wrapped around the cable and cause serious injury.”
And on the machine is a warning label. At the top, it depicts a mangled hand with a cable coiled around it, with the statement: “Cables can twist, kink or break. Rotating parts can strike, catch, cut and crush body parts.” Below that, the label
In August 2019 Paul Johnson used the K-6200 to clean a drain. He neither read the manual nor wore the gloves Ridge Tool provided, opting instead for his employer’s pair, despite them being “a little large.” He did, however, read the warning label on the machine.
Johnson started the machine and began guiding the cable into the drain. As cable fed out, he supported it with his hand. But then, the middle finger of his glove “just got wrapped up into the rotating cable and it just took me along with it.” Johnson’s arm and body were twisted to the right, severely injuring him.
Johnson sued Ridge Tool for strict liability, negligence, and failure to warn. On the first two theories, he alleged the company manufactured an unreasonably dangerous and defective machine. As Johnson saw it, Ridge Tool should have installed a fixed hose-guard, which would have made holding the bare cable in his gloved hand unnecessary. For support, he relied on an expert, Chad Jones, a mechanical engineer. Jones’s report proposed that an alternative fixed-guard design that, in his opinion, would have made the machine safer.
Under a third theory, Johnson alleged Ridge Tool failed to warn users of the known hazards associated with the machine. For support, he relied on another expert, Cynthia Rando, a human factors professional.1 Rando’s report largely
Ridge Tool asked the district court to exclude the reports, opinions, and testimony of both experts and moved for summary judgment. The court granted both motions.
The court first excluded both expert witnesses under
The district court also granted Ridge Tool’s summary judgment motion. Johnson’s negligence and product liability legal theories principally relied on the now-excluded expert reports. Without evidentiary suppоrt, the theories failed. Nor could Johnson’s failure-to-warn theory succeed. Because the Rando report was also excluded, “the record [did] not contain any admissible evidence that the warning was inadequate or an alternative warning would have been better.” In any event, even if the Rando report had been admissible, Johnson would have found it unhelpful: Rando “never opined on these particular topics in connection with the warning label, and, as
II. Federal Rule of Evidence 702
A. Governing Legal Principles
On the admissibility of experts, courts walk a tightrope. On one hand, judges are gatekeepers to ensure junk science does not reach the jury. Experts in necromancy or astrology have no business in the courtroom. See Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 151 (1999). Our role is tо “ensure that any and all scientific testimony … is not only relevant, but reliable.” Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms. Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 589 (1993).
On the other hand, courts should not subsume the jury’s “essential role as the arbiter of the weight and credibility of expert testimony.” Stollings v. Ryobi Techs., Inc., 725 F.3d 753, 765 (7th Cir. 2013). The crucible of cross-examination should reveal the expert’s blemishes. “Determinations on admissibility should not supplant the adversarial process; ‘shaky’ expert testimony may be admissible, assailable by its opponents through cross-examination.” Gayton v. McCoy, 593 F.3d 610, 616 (7th Cir. 2010).
And courts must be mindful of
Appellate courts give district courts broad discretion in
B. Jones’s Report
In Illinois, a plaintiff’s case against a product manufacturer is supported by showing that a safer alternative product design was feasible. Winters v. Fru-Con Inc., 498 F.3d 734, 744 (7th Cir. 2007). Here, Johnson offered Jones’s opinion that a safer alternative design to the K-6200 was “technologically and economically feasible”: a coil spring guard fixed to the machine that guides the cable into the drain, making it unnecessary to touch the moving cable.
Yet Jones conducted no tests nor ran any models to prove the design’s feasibility. And in alternative design cases, we “have recognized the importance of testing.” Cummins v. Lyle Indus., 93 F.3d 362, 368 (7th Cir. 1996). But to Johnson, this is not a problem because Jones pointed to competitor machines that already have the alternative design—those machines, he says, are testing the design for him.
True, we have recognized that an expert need not test an alternative design that is already in the marketplace. Consider Anderson v. Raymond, 61 F.4th at 505. There, a worker fell out of a forklift, which then ran over her leg. Id. at 507. The plaintiff’s expert opined that the forklift should have had a door,
Hillman v. Toro, 164 F.4th 971 (7th Cir. 2026) is another example. There, we again rejected the need for testing an alternative design because it was already in the marketplace. Id. at 982. The plaintiff’s expert “relied on zero-radius-turn mowers offered by other companies that included independent brakes,” meaning the “alternative designs were taken from comparable products actually on the market.” Id.
Anderson’s principle, Johnson argues, means Jones did not need to test the alternative (fixed coil guard) design. To Johnson, thе fact that three competitors’ machines include such a guard is a sufficient basis to admit his expert report.
We disagree. To be sure, testing an alternative design is unnecessary if it is already used in the marketplace, as Anderson and Hillman instruct. But those cases do not hold that just pointing to competitor products is enough to admit an expert’s opinion. That a design exists, without more, cannot be the sole basis for an expert’s opinion. Yet that describes Jones’s report. To him, three comparators prove that an alternative design is feasible, so Ridge Tool should have incorporated that design when manufacturing the machine.
The inadequacy of Jones’s report is evident when compared to the expert reports in Anderson and Hillman. In
Jones’s report reads much differently. He failed to apply the factors collected in Cummins, 93 F.3d at 362, as the district court pointed out. For example, Jones did not evaluate “the short- and long-term maintenance costs associated with the alternative design” or “the degree to which the alternative design is compatible with existing systems and circuits.” Id. at 369. Nor, the district court noted, did he consider that touching the сable may improve the machine’s safety because users receive tactile feedback. In addition, Jones cites no relevant publications to conclude that a fixed guard is important or necessary. And his report fails to address the relative safety of the proposed alternative design and the actual machine. Surely this machine’s injury rate must be known; it could be one (Johnson) or much higher. But without that figurе, the machine’s safety relative to others is inconclusive. An expert opinion requires some basis, but Jones had none.
Nor is Jones’s comparison to the competitor products all that probative. One way to identify an unreasonably safe design is whether it “conform[s] with the design standards of the industry.” Anderson v. Hyster Co., 74 Ill. 2d 364, 385, 385 N.E.2d 690, 692 (Ill. 1979). Jones pointed to three other competitors
But what about the optional front guide-hose that Ridge Tool offers with the machine, Johnson points out. Because Ridge Tool already has a guide-hose design, a fixed design is thus feasible. But the designs are different. That the machine has one type of guard is not proof that another type is feasible. Thus, Ridge Tool’s own design is not evidence that a different design is an industry standard.
In sum, Jones’s methodology amounted to a faulty comparison and little else to reach his conclusion. So, the district court did not abuse its discretion when it excluded his report.
C. Rando’s Report
Johnson’s second expert, Cynthia Rando, is a certified human factors professional of about twenty years. The district court excluded Rando’s report and testimony for two reasons.
First, Rando opined that the manual was unclear, as it provided conflicting instructions. Yet Johnson had not read the manual.3 So, he cannot establish that the alleged flaws caused his injury. See Solis v. BASF Corp., 2012 IL App (1st) 110875, 979 N.E.2d 419, 439 (Ill. App. Ct. 2012) (“[A] plaintiff who does not read an allegedly inadequate warning cannot
Recognizing this problem, Johnson argues that the warnings on the machine were insufficient, and he cherry-picks statements from Rando’s report to support this theory. But as the district court accurately found, Rando did not offer an opinion about the warning label. Even reading her report charitably, not much can be extraсted about the machine’s warnings. Her report does not even include a picture of the warning label.
The district court recognized a second deficiency with Rando’s report: it does not propose an alternative warning that she believes would have prevented Johnson’s injury. Without discussing what designs would have effectively warned a user, any opinion about the ineffectiveness of the current warning is “akin to ‘talking off the cuff’ and not acceptable methodology.” Bourelle v. Crown Equip. Corp., 220 F.3d 532, 539 (7th Cir. 2000). Though no single factor is dispositive under Rule 702, an expert’s failure to “design[] or suggest[] to the court an alternative warning that would have been appropriate” signals unreliability. Dhillon v. Crown Controls Corp., 269 F.3d 865, 870 (7th Cir. 2001).
Bourelle is illustrative. There, plaintiff brought a failure-to-warn theory after being injured by a forklift. 220 F.3d at 533, 538. Her expert failed to test or even to draft an alternative warning. Id. at 538. That rendered his opinion “unreliable” for not using an “acceptable methodology.” Id. at 539. So too here. The court excluded Rando’s report as she failed to “draft or test any proposed alternative warnings.” Id. Rando, in other
III. State-Law Violations
Now to the merits. As mentioned, Johnson sued for negligence, product liability, and failure to warn. The district court granted summary judgment to Ridge Tool on all three theories. We review that decision de novo, and all inferences are drawn in favor of Johnson. Giovannelli v. Walmart Inc., 164 F.4th 1052, 1054 (7th Cir. 2026).
We can quickly dispense with the negligence and product liability theories.4 On appeal Johnson suggests these theories rise or fall with the admission of Jones’s report. He did not argue those theories are viable regardless of whether the report is admitted. By contrast, he did claim that his failure-to-warn theory is viable with or without Rando’s report. Nor does he independently analyze them bеyond a request to reverse the grant of summary judgment.
With the failure-to-warn legal theory, there is no waiver problem. In this diversity case, Illinois law applies. Giovannelli, 164 F.4th at 1054.
Illinois holds manufacturers liable for failing to warn of a product’s dangers. The product must have a “latent defect or a dangerous propensity of which a user would normally be unaware,” and the manufacturer has failed to provide an adequate warning of the danger. Hakim v. Safariland, LLC, 79 F.4th 861, 868 (7th Cir. 2023) (quoting Baltus v. Weaver Div. of Kidde & Co., 199 Ill. App. 3d 821, 557 N.E.2d 580, 588 (Ill. App. Ct. 1990)). An inadequate warning, for example, may fail to caution about the specific “risk presented by the product” or “reach foreseeable users.” Id. at 869 (quoting Palmer v. Avco Distrib. Corp., 82 Ill. 2d 211, 412 N.E.2d 959, 964 (Ill. 1980)).
Johnson has little evidence to support his failure-to-warn theory. Rando’s opinion was properly excluded. But even if not, much of Rando’s report was irrelevant to the warning label. Although Johnson’s legal theory can likely proceed without an expert, id. at 871, he is left with (1) the warning itself and (2) his testimony describing how the machine injured him. That thin evidence is insufficient to survive summary judgment.
Moreover, Johnson offered no alternative warnings—labels that, had they been affixed to the machine, would have adequately alerted him to the machine’s dangers. Illinois courts have ruled that in failure-to-warn suits, alternative warnings are necessary to survive summary judgment. “To prevail,” a plaintiff “must establish that greater warnings would have prevented [the] injuries.” Muhammad v. Abbott Lab’ys, Inc., 2022 IL App (1st) 210478, 203 N.E.3d 1001, 1018 (Ill. App. Ct. 2022). Said another way, plaintiffs cannot defeat something with nothing. “In failure-to-warn cases … there must be sufficient evidence supporting a reasonable inference, rather than a guess, that the presence of adequate warnings would have prevented the plaintiff’s injuries.” Solis, 979 N.E.2d at 439 (citation modified).
Johnson reads our decision in Hakim as greenlighting failure-to-warn cases that have no alternative warning evidenсe. In Hakim, this court considered whether expert testimony was
From Hakim’s holding, Johnson extrapolates that if expert testimony is not always necessary, and experts introduce alternative warnings, then alternative warnings must not always be necessary. To Johnson, his failure to offer an alternative warning, then, is not necessarily fatal.
We doubt that Hakim can be read that broadly. Cf. Elion v. United States, 155 F.4th 889, 905 (7th Cir. 2025) (rejecting an expansive reading of precedent); Olivier v. City of Brandon, 607 U.S. 552, 566 (2026) (overbroad sentence in prior case “was not meant to address” certain suits). Hakim stands for the rule that in Illinois, an expеrt witness is not always necessary in failure to warn cases. Inferring more from that case incorrectly expands its holding, particularly because Illinois law seems to require alternative warnings. See Muhammad, 203 N.E.3d at 1018; Dhillon, 269 F.3d at 869, 871 (excluding expert for not offering alternative designs and then granting summary judgment because plaintiff “does not dispute” that “without the proffered expert testimony, he could not prevail”).
In the end, all Johnson offered was the warning label on the machine and his assertion that it was deficient. But a party needs more than conjecture and conclusions to defeat summary judgment. In re Abbott Lab’ys, Preterm Infant Nutrition Prods. Liab. Litig., No. 25-2587, 2026 WL 2137765, at *5 (7th Cir. 2026). Johnson’s lack of evidence cannot overcome summary judgment.
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The district court did not аbuse its discretion when excluding Johnson’s two experts, and it correctly granted summary judgment.
AFFIRMED