and direction of force 63 can vary upon being transmitted to other members the basic concept of using engagement force 63 to positively and directly move member 56 to an unlatched position can be carried out by a variety of structures too numerous to mention however as one example release link 62 connects lip lug 52 to main link 40 so as lip 22 pivots upward relative to ramp 24 the resulting rotation of lug 52 pulls on link 62 to force main link 40 to rotate clockwise about pin 42 thus moving main link 40 and lip link 44 to an under toggle position in this example the action is facilitated by pin 46 being free to slide within slot 48 with dock leveler 20 in the position shown in fig6 vehicle 32 may now be loaded or unloaded if desired when vehicle 32 departs as shown in fig7 lip 22 drops slightly as allowed by the travel of pin 46 within slot 48 this removes the tension in release link 62 and allows lip 22 to descend while in an unlatched mode now lip 22 and ramp 24 are both free to pivot downward to the position shown in fig2 and eventually return to its standby position of fig1 to prevent lip 22 from undergoing rapid descent a dampener 64 can be added to dampen the motion i e reduce the velocity of at least one of lip 22 lip lug 52 lip link 44 or main link 40 for example in one embodiment dampener 64 is a piston cylinder arrangement with an integral spring 66 fig7.