In Kornfiend v. New Werner Holding Co., Kornfiend sued New Werner as well as Home Depot and alleged strict product liability and negligence claims related to the design, manufacture, and sale of a ladder which Kornfiend fell from as he worked on his house. The Superior Court ruled that the lower court erred in denying Home Depot’s motion for summary judgment because to find that Home Depot sold the ladder, which caused Kornfeind’s injuries, would require a jury to use “conjecture, surmise, guess or speculation.” The Court next ruled that the Pennsylvania legislature intended the phrase “period of limitation” in Pennsylvania’s borrowing statute to include only statutes of limitations, not statutes of repose. The trial court also did not abuse its discretion by declining to grant summary judgment based upon the existence of a genuine dispute of material fact regarding the location of the ladder’s design because the location might shed light on how to balance the interests of Pennsylvania and Illinois in a conflict-of-law analysis.
