Corporate Accountability Project · EvilCorporations.com
Worker Safety · Corporate Misconduct
Crown Equipment Built a Dangerous Forklift and Walked Away Clean
A warehouse worker was seriously injured on a forklift with an open operator compartment. Crown Equipment designed it, sold it, and then used procedural legal strategy to escape accountability entirely.
🟡 HIGH SEVERITY
TL;DR
In 2016, Christopher Hanshaw was injured while operating a Crown Equipment forklift that had an open operator compartment, a design he alleges was defective and unreasonably dangerous. He sued Crown Equipment for product liability and sought punitive damages, arguing the company knew the design posed risks and that simple safety additions, like a door or bumper, could have prevented his injury. Crown Equipment fought back not by proving its forklift was safe, but by getting Hanshaw’s expert witness thrown out on procedural grounds. Without that expert, the court ruled there was no case left to try. Crown Equipment never had to defend the safety of its forklift design in front of a jury.
Workers deserve equipment that won’t hurt them. When corporations escape accountability through procedural maneuvers instead of safety accountability, everyone on the warehouse floor pays the price.
2016
Year of Hanshaw’s forklift injury
10 yrs
From injury to final ruling (2016 to 2026)
$0
Compensation awarded to injured worker
7
Judges on Missouri Supreme Court, all concurring
⚠️ Core Allegations
What Crown Equipment Is Accused Of
Design defect · Worker safety · Open operator compartment
| 01 | Crown Equipment designed, manufactured, and distributed a forklift with an open operator compartment that Hanshaw alleges was unreasonably dangerous for workers to operate. | high |
| 02 | Hanshaw’s expert witness concluded that adding a door or a bumper to the forklift would have meaningfully improved worker safety, indicating Crown Equipment chose not to implement known protective features. | high |
| 03 | Crown Equipment had access to its own accident data and OSHA forklift accident records showing injury patterns, yet the open compartment design remained in production. | high |
| 04 | Hanshaw sought punitive damages, alleging Crown Equipment acted with complete indifference or conscious disregard for the safety of forklift operators, a standard requiring knowledge of the danger. | high |
⚖️ How Crown Equipment Escaped Accountability
Corporate Accountability Failures
Expert exclusion · Procedural victory · No jury trial on safety merits
| 01 | Crown Equipment simultaneously filed motions to both exclude Hanshaw’s expert witness and for summary judgment, a coordinated procedural strategy designed to end the case before it reached a jury. | high |
| 02 | Crown Equipment’s own lawyers described Hanshaw’s expert witness as offering “nothing more than rank speculation and inadmissible ipse dixit,” a characterization the courts ultimately accepted. | med |
| 03 | By the time the court ruled on the expert exclusion, discovery had already closed, making it legally impossible for Hanshaw to find a new expert or fix the deficiencies the court identified. | high |
| 04 | The case was decided on procedural grounds about expert methodology, not on whether the forklift was actually safe. Crown Equipment never had to prove its design was appropriate in front of a jury. | high |
| 05 | Punitive damages were dismissed without any examination of Crown Equipment’s conduct, because once the underlying liability claim was dismissed, the court ruled the punitive damages claim automatically failed. | med |
👷 The Human Cost to Workers
Worker Exploitation and Safety Failures
Injured warehouse worker · No compensation · Decade-long legal fight
| 01 | Christopher Hanshaw was injured on August 25, 2016, while doing his job operating a Crown Equipment forklift. He pursued justice through the courts for nearly a decade and received nothing. | high |
| 02 | The open operator compartment design at the center of this case puts forklift operators at heightened physical risk during accidents, as they lack the protection that a door or barrier would provide. | high |
| 03 | Hanshaw’s expert reviewed Crown Equipment’s own accident data and OSHA records, suggesting a pattern of injuries connected to this forklift design that the company had documented but not acted on. | high |
| 04 | The legal outcome means Hanshaw bore the full personal and financial cost of his injury while the manufacturer that built the equipment he was required to operate faced no financial consequences. | high |
📜 The System Working Against the Worker
Legal Minimalism and Procedural Advantage
Expert witness rules · Daubert standard · Corporate legal resources
| 01 | Missouri’s expert witness standard, mirroring the federal Daubert rule, requires detailed documentation of testing methodology. A well-resourced defendant can use these rules aggressively to block expert testimony before trial. | med |
| 02 | Hanshaw’s expert had published peer-reviewed research and reviewed Crown Equipment’s own accident data. Despite this background, the court found the expert failed to document how that research connected to his opinions in this specific case. | med |
| 03 | A critical PowerPoint presentation the expert prepared to detail his methods and source materials was referenced in his affidavit but was never submitted to the court, a procedural gap that helped seal Hanshaw’s fate. | high |
| 04 | Crown Equipment’s legal strategy exploited the timeline: by filing its motions simultaneously and waiting until discovery closed, it removed any possibility of Hanshaw correcting the expert documentation problems the court identified. | high |
🕐 Timeline of Events
Aug. 2016
Christopher Hanshaw is injured while operating a Crown Equipment forklift with an open operator compartment during the course of his work.
Filing
Hanshaw files a product liability lawsuit against Crown Equipment alleging defective design of the forklift and requesting punitive damages.
Dec. 19, 2022
Crown Equipment simultaneously files motions for summary judgment and to exclude Hanshaw’s expert witness, arguing the expert’s opinions are unreliable and amount to “rank speculation.”
Jun. 5, 2023
Circuit court excludes Hanshaw’s expert witness, finding he failed to demonstrate reliable research methods supporting his alternative forklift design opinions.
Jun. 6, 2023
Circuit court grants Crown Equipment’s motion for summary judgment. Without the expert, there is no admissible evidence supporting Hanshaw’s claims. The case ends.
Feb. 24, 2026
Missouri Supreme Court issues its opinion affirming the circuit court in full. All seven justices concur. Hanshaw’s decade-long pursuit of accountability ends with no compensation.
💬 Direct Quotes from the Legal Record
Quote 1
Crown Equipment’s own characterization of the worker’s expert
Accountability Failures
“amount[s] to nothing more than rank speculation and inadmissible ipse dixit”
💡 This is how Crown Equipment’s lawyers described the testimony of a trained safety engineer who reviewed Crown’s own accident data. This framing shaped the entire case and helped keep the safety question away from a jury.
Quote 2
The court on what Hanshaw failed to provide
Legal Minimalism
“Hanshaw failed to demonstrate how the papers were relevant to or supported the expert’s testimony”
💡 The expert had published peer-reviewed work on forklift design. The court still excluded him because the connection between that research and his case-specific opinions was never formally documented. Procedure over substance.
Quote 3
The court on the “analytical gap” in expert testimony
Accountability Failures
“A court may conclude that there is simply too great an analytical gap between the data and the opinion proffered.”
💡 Citing federal precedent, the court used this standard to dismiss the expert’s opinions. The “gap” was a documentation gap, not necessarily a factual one. The safety question never reached a jury.
Quote 4
The missing evidence that proved decisive
Legal Minimalism
“Such PowerPoint is not in the legal file.”
💡 The expert prepared a full presentation detailing his methods and source materials. It was never submitted to the court. This single procedural failure contributed significantly to the exclusion of all his testimony.
Quote 5
Why punitive damages were also wiped out
Worker Impact
“Punitive damages, however, are available only if the requesting plaintiff prevails on an underlying claim and is entitled to actual damages.”
💡 Once the product liability claim fell, punitive damages fell automatically. Hanshaw’s allegation that Crown Equipment acted with “conscious disregard” for worker safety was never examined on its merits.
Quote 6
How courts treat expert testimony in summary judgment
Legal Minimalism
“Only evidentiary materials that are admissible or usable at trial can sustain or avoid summary judgment.”
💡 This principle is the hinge on which the entire case turned. Once the expert was excluded, there was legally nothing left. A worker’s injury became, in the eyes of the court, a case without evidence.
💬 Commentary
Did Crown Equipment prove its forklift was safe?▾
No. Crown Equipment never had to prove anything about its forklift’s safety. The case was resolved entirely on procedural grounds. By successfully excluding Hanshaw’s expert witness, Crown Equipment ensured the jury never heard evidence about whether the open compartment design was dangerous. The company did not win on the merits. It won by making the evidence inadmissible.
What was wrong with Hanshaw’s expert witness?▾
The court did not find the expert was wrong about forklift safety. The court found that the expert’s legal team failed to document his methodology in a way that satisfied Missouri’s evidentiary standards. Specifically, the court found the team did not explain how the expert’s peer-reviewed research connected to his opinions in this case, did not submit testing results with their methodology, and critically, never submitted the expert’s detailed PowerPoint presentation to the court. These are legal process failures, not factual ones.
Is Crown Equipment forklift design actually dangerous?▾
That question was never answered in this case. The open operator compartment design was the central safety issue, and Hanshaw’s expert, who reviewed both Crown Equipment’s own accident data and OSHA records, believed it was unreasonably dangerous and that a door or bumper could have prevented injury. But because the expert was excluded before trial, no factfinder ever evaluated whether that assessment was correct. The design remains in the marketplace with the safety question unanswered in court.
What does “ipse dixit” mean, and why does it matter here?▾
Ipse dixit is Latin for “he himself said it.” In legal contexts it refers to an assertion made without supporting proof. Crown Equipment’s lawyers used this term to argue that Hanshaw’s expert was simply stating conclusions without showing his reasoning. Courts are required to scrutinize expert methodology, and the ipse dixit label is a powerful tool corporate defendants use to disqualify experts who lack thorough procedural documentation. The label stuck here, and the safety evidence was thrown out with it.
Why couldn’t Hanshaw just get a new expert?▾
Because discovery had closed before the court ruled on the expert exclusion. Missouri law generally treats motions to exclude as interlocutory, meaning they can be revisited. But the court’s ruling on exclusion came after the deadline to endorse new witnesses had passed. Crown Equipment’s strategy of filing both motions simultaneously, combined with the timing of the ruling, locked Hanshaw out of any remedy. He could not fix the problem because the legal window to do so had closed.
Who is Crown Equipment Corporation?▾
Crown Equipment Corporation is one of the largest forklift manufacturers in the world, headquartered in New Bremen, Ohio. The company designs, manufactures, and distributes forklifts and warehouse equipment used in industrial and logistics settings globally. It is a privately held company with significant legal and financial resources. Workers across the country operate Crown Equipment forklifts daily in warehouses, distribution centers, and manufacturing facilities.
What can I do to prevent this from happening again?▾
Several concrete actions matter. If you work in a warehouse or industrial facility, know your OSHA rights and report forklift safety concerns in writing. Support stronger product liability laws that make it harder for manufacturers to escape accountability through procedural tactics. Advocate for stricter forklift safety standards at OSHA, which has authority to mandate enclosure requirements on certain forklift types. Support workers’ organizations and legal aid funds that help injured workers access expert witnesses and legal counsel equal to what corporations can afford. And if you are an employer, do not wait for litigation to add safety features to equipment you know carries risk.
Is the lawsuit legitimate? Was Crown Equipment actually at fault?▾
The courts never made a finding on whether Crown Equipment was actually at fault for Hanshaw’s injury. The case was dismissed on procedural grounds before any determination of fault was made. That is exactly what makes this outcome troubling. Hanshaw was a real worker who was really injured on a Crown Equipment forklift. His expert, a trained safety engineer, reviewed accident data and reached the conclusion that the design was dangerous. The question of whether he was right was never put to a jury. Procedural victory is not the same as factual innocence.
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