At the time of his injury two years ago, Mr.
Since he was 10 years old, the plaintiff has been involved in timber or pulpwood operations in the Castor, Louisiana-Bienville Parish area. Arnetta Poland is an adult male, now 43 years of age. These facts are established by a preponderance of the evidence:ġ. On December 13,1978, the defendant answered the suit denying that its product is defective, and asserting that the plaintiff was contributorily negligent and that he assumed the risk of injury from the chain saw. He claims that for these injuries the defendant, as the manufacturer of the chain saw, is strictly liable. Poland claimed that the "malfunctioning of the chain saw" caused the amputation of the first three toes on his right foot and a soft tissue injury to his right knee. The saw was manufactured by Beaird-Poulan, a division of Emerson Electric Company, a Missouri corporation. The plaintiff, Arnetta Poland, a resident of Castor, Louisiana, filed this law suit on November 21, 1978, alleging that on November *1258 24, 1977, he was injured by a defectively designed and manufactured chain saw. Anyone who would like to see them in written form will have to ask Mr. Therefore, these are the court's findings of fact and conclusions of law. There is not time to stop and write an erudite opinion. There are pending on the docket for this judge 415 civil cases of all kinds, and a number of criminal cases. With the current state of this court's docket, however, rulings from the bench have become the means by which this court announces its findings of fact and conclusions of law. In normal times and in normal cases, when the testimony and the arguments were completed, the court would request briefs, and everybody would have thirty days to write a brief, then ten days to answer finally, some time would be spent to prepare an opinion. Gregory, Jr., Mayer, Smith & Roberts, Shreveport, La., for intervenor. Cook, Cook, Clark, Egan, Yancey & King, Shreveport, La., for defendant.Ī.