JUSTICE APPLETON delivered the opinion of the court:

Grand Prairie Coop Company, Inc. (Grand Prairie), dealsin fertilizer and grain and has several branches or facilities,including the Apex facility, a mile west of Tolono. On March 4,1997, at the Apex facility, an employee of Grand Prairie, EdwardT. Bates (Bates), was fatally injured on a Wrangler front-endloader, from which employees of Grand Prairie had removed theroll bar. If the roll bar had been in place, Bates would havebeen unharmed. Richland Sales Corporation (Richland) had soldthe loader to Grand Prairie, with the roll bar installed, somefive years earlier.

Individually and as special administratrix of Bates'sestate, plaintiff, Doris Bates, sued Richland under theories ofnegligence and strict products liability, alleging the loader wasdangerously defective in its design. The trial court dismissedthe negligence counts in successive versions of her complaintbecause of failure to state a cause of action. She moved forleave to file a third-amended complaint, consisting of counts Iand II, sounding in strict products liability, and counts III andIV, sounding in negligence. The court granted the motion only asto the first two counts, refusing to allow her to replead negligence in counts III and IV. Afterward, the court granted summaryjudgment in Richland's favor on counts I and II.

Plaintiff appeals, arguing the trial court erred indenying her motion to replead negligence and in grantingRichland's motion for summary judgment on her claim of strictproducts liability. Because counts III and IV, on their face,were legally insufficient and a claim of negligence would beuntenable in light of the record, we find no abuse of discretionin the trial court's disallowance of those counts. Because thedanger that caused Bates's death would have been obvious to anordinary person driving a loader without a roll bar, we agreewith the summary judgment. Therefore, we affirm the trialcourt's judgment.

Bates was using the loader to move steel pipes into abuilding called the "Tolono South Flat." He had attached thepipes to the bucket of the loader with a chain and was draggingthem backward into the building. Grand Prairie stored grain inthe building, and to keep the grain from bellying out the walls,they were reinforced with thick steel rods, a pair of rods ateach end wall, extending diagonally from the floor to the sidewalls and forming an X. At the east end of the building, a rodslanted on either side of the door. Bates backed up against oneof these rods, which sprung over the driver's seat and struck himin the back, crushing him against the steering wheel.

Grand Prairie had bought the loader from Richland in1992, after making sure it would fit into the bins at theIvesdale facility. Don Van Lyssel was Richland's sales managerat that time. In his deposition on February 3, 2003, he admittednever telling the salespeople under him to ask potential buyersif they had buildings with low clearances. He testified, however, that Richland had a policy of "demonstrating" a loaderbefore selling it. "I would say, [']***[L]et's take it to whereyou are going to run it *** and be sure that it fits in the binsand maneuvers around the corners *** and that you have gotadequate clearance ***.[']" Because the Ivesdale facility hadbins and the Apex facility had no "bins[] per se" but, rather,"huge flat storage building[s]," Van Lyssel demonstrated theloader at the Ivesdale facility, where, he assumed, any problemswith low clearances or insufficient space would most likelymanifest themselves. "If it wouldn't fit, we would not sell it,"he said. He "turned down, on average, two to five sales perseason, because [the loader] would not fit in the building, andthere is no way [he] wanted them to take the [roll bar] off."

Plaintiff's attorney asked Van Lyssel:

"Q. *** You were familiar with all ofthe buildings [at the Apex facility]?

A. Yes, I was.

Q. At least as far as getting inside thebuilding?

THE DEPONENT: Yes."

Richland delivered the loader to Grand Prairie with arollover protection system (roll bar) installed. The roll barwas a steel structure consisting of two roughly vertical columnsmounted behind, and on either side of, the driver's seat, and asquare frame or canopy extending, from the top of these columns,over the driver's head. Van Lyssel testified the loader was 94inches tall from the bottom of the tires to the top of thestandard roll bar (the type of roll bar Grand Prairie had on itsloader). The manual that came with the loader said it was 96inches tall. He testified: "I had some guys over the years"--but never Grand Prairie--"say to me, ['W]ell, we could take that[roll bar] off[.']" He told them, "[']That is not an option. Ifyou take that [roll bar] off, huh-uh, I am not going to be anypart of that.[']" To Van Lyssel, it was "totally inconceivable"that anyone would remove the roll bar; it offended common sense,like removing a seatbelt. Other than this case, he had neverheard of anyone's actually removing the roll bar from a loader.

Plaintiff theorized that companies in the fertilizerindustry had an incentive to remove the roll bar and knowing thatincentive, Richland had failed to recommend to Grand Prairie anoptional roll bar, which had a lower clearance. In the fertilizer business, many buildings dating from the 1960s had entrancesthat were less than 96 inches tall--not enough clearance for thestandard roll bar. For those older buildings, the manufacturerhad designed an optional roll bar with a canopy that swung back. According to the manual, swinging back the canopy took six inchesoff the height of the loader, enabling it to enter those olderbuildings. Van Lyssel claimed, however, to have measured aloader equipped with the optional roll bar and found no difference at all in height. For that reason and also because he wasconcerned that a sack of fertilizer might fall on the driverwhile the top was open, he refused to sell or even recommend theoptional roll bar.

With the standard roll bar installed, Grand Prairie'sWrangler loader could enter the South Tolono Flat, although,obviously, one had to maneuver around the diagonal wall-rods. Building No. 20 in the Apex facility, however, had internalstructures, horizontal wall-rods, that were too low for theloader--unless one removed the roll bar. Sometime between March1992 and March 1997, employees of Grand Prairie did so and neverput it back, believing the sole purpose of a roll bar was (as itsname suggested) to protect the driver in a rollover--not much ofa threat, apparently, on the flat ground of the Apex facility. The manual warned, in conspicuous capital letters, never tooperate the loader with the roll bar removed, but the manual wasfiled away in the office of the Apex facility and was seldom, ifever, read.

Removing the roll bar took less than 30 minutes andrequired a hoist, wrench, and wire cutters. All employees hadaccess to the shop and its tools. Each of the two columns of theroll bar was mounted on the loader with four bolts. The rollbar weighed over 300 pounds, and while unbolting it, one had tohold onto it with a hoist, or else it would fall backward becauseof the slightly backward tilt of the columns. After looseningthe nuts and bolts and cutting the electrical wires of the canopylights, one had to lift the roll bar off with the hoist.

Unfortunately, the roll bar had not been reinstalledwhen Bates used the loader in the Tolono South Flat. If the rollbar had been in place, the diagonal wall-rods would have pressedagainst the vertical columns of the roll bar, behind the driver'sseat, instead of against Bates's back, and he would have escapedinjury. Six months after the accident, Grand Prairie bought theoptional roll bar, which, when the canopy was swung back, allowedthe loader to clear the horizontal wall-rods in building No. 20.

Plaintiff's expert opined in his deposition that theloader was defective and unreasonably dangerous because (1) theroll bar was bolted, rather than welded, to the body of theloader, making it removable; and (2) the loader lacked a warningsticker stating not to use the loader without the roll barinstalled.

On September 20, 1999, plaintiff filed a second-amendedcomplaint, the first two counts sounding in negligence and theremaining two counts sounding in products liability. In counts Iand II, plaintiff alleged Richland was negligent in that it soldthe loader (1) "without adequate protective devices on the rearof the machine to protect the head and body of the machineoperator who may be operating the machine in reverse"; (2) "witha roll[]bar that provided inadequate protection for the machineoperator, in that the roll[]bar was able to be removed, with nowarning to the consumer about the dangers associated with operation of the machine without the roll[]bar"; and (3) "with aroll[]bar whose uprights were unhinged at the center, forcing theconsumer to remove the roll[]bar rather than fold them down, inorder to operate the machine in a low-ceilinged environment."

Richland moved to dismiss counts I and II of thesecond-amended complaint, with prejudice, for failure to state acause of action, and the trial court granted the motion. On theauthority of Miller v. Dvornik, 149 Ill. App. 3d 883, 501 N.E.2d160 (1986), and section 402 of the Restatement of Torts (Restatement of Torts