A man crushed and seriously injured by an electrical
transformer weighing nearly a ton-and-a-half has been awarded $8.5
million by a Philadelphia jury.
The verdict in favor of plaintiff Jason Pinnock was handed
up Monday in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Angelo
J. Foglietta's courtroom after six days of trial and three hours of
deliberation.
The jury found defendant Midway Services, the company
taking delivery of the transformer, 65 percent causally
negligent. National Delivery Services, the company Pinnock worked
for, was found 35 percent negligent, but had previously settled
under a joint tortfeasor agreement, according to Pinnock's counsel,
David Kwass and David Langsam of Saltz Mongeluzzi Barrett &
Bendesky.
Another defendant that went to trial, LJAY LLC, was found
negligent but the jury determined its negligence was not causal to
Pinnock's injuries.
Pinnock was injured when the transformer, being offloaded
from a truck, was pushed onto Pinnock by another worker at the job
site. Pinnock suffered a fractured spine, pelvis, fibula and
several torn ligaments.
"We were very excited by the jury's verdict," Kwass said.
"It was clear in talking with them after the verdict that they did
understand the issue that had been presented in the case and had
worked very hard to understand what was going on."
He continued, "Though the lawyering on both sides was
good, the verdict has much more to do with the fact that we had an
outstanding client that the jury really liked. And I just had the
good sense not to make too many mistakes and not to snatch defeat
from the jaws of victory."
Midway's attorney, Nicholas Salter of Fox Rothschild, and
LJAY's attorney, Daniel Linn of Aversa & Linn, did not
immediately respond to requests for comment.
According to the plaintiff's pretrial memorandum, as
Pinnock "lay crushed and screaming on the ground" a group of
workers attempted to lift the transformer off him by hand, but
ended up dropping it on him again. A skid lifter was ultimately
used to move the transformer off of Pinnock.
Midway blamed the accident not on the employee who pushed
the transformer, but on Pinnock, who it claimed was
inexperienced.
"Midway is not liable for this accident," the company said
in its court papers. "Unbeknownst to Midway, plaintiff had been in
the delivery business for less than four months and had no
experience delivering objects of the size of this particular
transformer."