$12M for the Family of a 23-year-old Husband and Father

Case Summary:

Plaintiff’s decedent, a 23-year-old husband and father, worked in the agricultural industry as a commercial truck driver for a grain delivery company. On the date of his electrocution, Plaintiff’s decedent transported grain in a bulk-feed truck to a commercial third-party’s property on behalf of his employer. When Plaintiff’s decedent attempted to deliver grain into the top of a grain bin (silo) using a portable auger, an electrical contact occurred between his machinery and a nearby overhead high voltage power line, electrocuting him on the ground. An electrical contact can occur without direct physical contact. The catastrophic electrocution caused severe electrical injuries, including multiple burns. Plaintiff’s decedent was pronounced dead approximately an hour later. These lines were owned by Appalachian Power Company and operated by American Electric Power Service Corporation, subsidiaries of nonparty American Electric Power Company, Inc., a publicly traded utility conglomerate also known as “American Electric Power” and “AEP.”

Plaintiff decedent’s estate, his surviving spouse and infant child, brought suit against the power companies and the third-party commercial property owner, alleging joint responsibility for the placement and maintenance of overhead high voltage power lines in close proximity to grain silos, and that these acts created a known deadly condition. Plaintiff’s claims included premises liability, general negligence, negligence per se, and negligence in use, distribution, and production of dangerous instrumentalities.

Defendants, all of them, denied liability. The commercial property owner defendants denied the existence of a dangerous condition on the property and any notice of any alleged condition due to the absence of prior similar instances of electrocution events or near misses. The power company defendants denied the proximity of their lines to any structures created a dangerous condition. The power company defendants asserted their lines complied with the National Electrical Safety Code (NESC) in effect at the time the lines were built in 1964, and continued to comply with any new editions of the NESC pursuant to its “Grandfather” rule. Further, power company defendants claimed Virginia Code Section 59.1-406 et seq, the Overhead High Voltage Line Safety Act, granted them immunity under the provisions of Section 59.1-412, and filed a Special Plea in Bar on these grounds. All defendants asserted Plaintiff’s decedent was contributorily negligent for operating a grain auger within several feet of the overhead high voltage power lines, which they asserted were open and obvious. All defendants also asserted the assumption of risk defense and sought to introduce evidence at trial of Plaintiff’s decedent’s past employment history for a nonparty company where he cleared the rights-of-way around power lines, as well as alleged past training/training materials related to power lines.

A central dispute in the matter involved the presence or absence of an electrical arc and the distance, if any, the electrical arc traveled from the overhead high voltage power lines to the portable auger. Defendants denied an electrical arc of anything more than an inch or two, and asserted the direct, immediate cause of the electrocution event was the contact between the grain auger and the power line. Plaintiff asserted the volume of voltage on the power lines (69,000 volts) resulted in an arc at a greater distance than that claimed by defendants due to numerous conductive factors that led to the electrocution. Plaintiff denied any direct physical contact between the grain auger and the power line.

Plaintiff retained the services of two electrical engineering experts and an industrial engineering expert in support of their liability theories as well as an economist to discuss the loss of lifetime earnings of the Plaintiff’s decedent, among other experts.

Approximately one month before trial, the parties participated in a mediation, which was unsuccessful on the day of, but later resulted in a resolution between the Plaintiff and property owner defendants in the amount of $5,000,000 (five million dollars). On February 12, 2025, the Court ruled on more than a dozen motions in limine, including Plaintiff’s motion to exclude evidence relating to the Overhead High Voltage Line Safety Act (OHVLSA). Plaintiff asserted the OHVLSA was not relevant to the action as it did not provide the immunity the power company defendants claimed and Plaintiff no longer sought to pursue an action of negligence per se in reference to the OHVLSA. The Court granted Plaintiff’s motion excluding the OHVLSA and found “no justification exist[ed] for evidence of [the] statute to be admitted at trial and any admission would confuse the jury.” Further, the Court ruled the OHVLSA did not abrogate Plaintiff’s common law negligence claims and a plain reading of the statute did not provide immunity to the owners and operators of high voltage lines against claims of common law negligence. On the issue of assumption of risk, Plaintiff successfully managed to exclude Defendants from introducing evidence of her decedent’s past work history involving power line rights-of-way or alleged training/training materials regarding power lines. The Court found the “former employer is not relevant” and “no foundation” was laid to establish the decedent assumed the risk. Among other key motions, the Court also granted Plaintiff’s motion in limine to exclude any “empty chair” defenses against the decedent’s employer, the nonparty grain delivery company, at the time of the electrocution.

Trial was scheduled to begin on February 18, 2025. On the morning of trial, Plaintiff and the power company defendants agreed to resolve the remaining claims for $7,000,000 (seven million dollars) bringing Plaintiff’s total recovery to $12,000,000 (twelve million dollars).