HVAC tech awarded 75Mil in lawsuit
Curious of other opinions on this matter,
recently read the following…
while I am very sorry for what the tech went through, I am surprised they were able to find the company liable.
i would think if he had proper gloves he would not have sustained these injuries, also
“trying to save other people in the store from toxic chemicals being sprayed out in the middle of the day in front of the meat department.”
my training in HVAC taught me to evacuate the area in the event of an uncontrollable leak.
based on the limited information in the article it seems the tech made some poor decisions and his injuries may have been avoidable.
curious if there was any expert testimony in this case, it sure didn't seem it from the article.
Comments
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You would have to go over extensive legal documents to get the 100% full story. IMO if you own a building that is open to the public, or if you invite someone into your building/home and your negligence leads to their injury/death, you should almost always be held accountable. I don't think there is enough info here to say the tech should have known he would get hit with r22, so not sure how he would have known to be wearing gloves. Odds are good if the tech hadn't sacrificed his hands it could have been someone elses face in there.
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Kroger has had some negative publicity lately, much of it revolving around its attempt to merge with Albertsons, closing a bunch of stores, and some "interesting" pricing practices. I can't help but wonder if this was the result of a chain-wide practice of deferring maintenance.
With regard to getting people away from the leak, I would have done the same thing. That was a life-threatening situation.
All Steamed Up, Inc.
Towson, MD, USA
Steam, Vapor & Hot-Water Heating Specialists
Oil & Gas Burner Service
Consulting2 -
From what I read...he "jumped on the grenade" to save others...25 surgeries? Pay the man. Mad Dog
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Big pocket business with big insurance coverage always looses in court. I don't know why Kroger didn't settle before it got to court.
This story from 2013, shows how that works.
Shore Guys converted the equipment in the home from LP to Natural gas after installing new gas piping to current standards. South Jersey Fuel owns the LP Tank that the homeowners were using up to the day it was disconnected. What you don't get from this story is the homeowner still had some LP Gas left in the tank. There was a LP gas log in the fire place that was not able to be converted to Natural Gas. The homeowner was talking to a neighbor who was a bit of a handyman and got to talking about the leftover propane in the tank and using the Gas Fireplace to get extra heat since they were not going to get any $ refund from the Fuel company.
It can't be all that hard to do, just reconnect the disconnected copper fuel line to the thank, open the valve on the gas tank and light the fireplace. After being unsuccessful at lighting the fireplace the neighbor went home and didn't turn off the gas tank. The helpful neighbor didn't realize the old LP gas line was cut off under the house when the natural gas piping was connected to the other appliances.
Helpful neighbor was a fault. helpful neighbor does not have deep pockets or large insurance policy.
The person who cut the line in the Crawl space after turning off the gas and removing the copper line from the tank was at fault because he left the gas line behind. He works for a company with a deep pocket insurance policy.
Fuel company was at fault because they left the tank on the property with fuel that can't be used for anything else but blowing up the home. The fuel company has deep pockets and an insurance policy with deep pockets.
Just find one thing that could be construed by a Judge to be the least bit suspect and you can get the idiots some money for being stupid. The helpful neighbor went off Scott Free.
I did offer to write advertising scripts for both companies after the incident.
Call the Shore Guys, our workers will blow you away
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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i kind of agree that the gas tech should have either capped the cut line or made it hard enough to hook it back up to the tank that one would ask should i be doing this.
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R22 isn't normally explosive. There are some things that can happen to make a system explode but this sounds way more like it was escaping somewhere and he got it on his hands instead of letting it leak out. Of course this could be the result of poor training and they are responsible for the accident but it likely didn't have to happen that way.
R22 is not toxic either. It could be an asphyxiant but telling people to leave is usually sufficient to get them out of there.
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the store involved could not produce service records. That leaves them with no defense.
Those are freeze burns.
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I would like to know how it blew up.
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It also says freon 22 is toxic so I think one has to keep looking until they find articles that don't say that to find out what actually happened. I strongly suspect the employer was more concerned about the value of the freon than the employee in the way they managed their employees.
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I’ve seen helpers trying to stop a leaking Schrader valve. Hard lesson to learn.
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I wasn't sure about commenting here, but I will.
Not on fault; I don't know enough about the circumstances to make any kind of judgement on that.
But on the damages. And all I will say is that people should read — and heed — the Torah or the Quran, if preferred) on the subject of punishment. It's pretty clear… and the admonitions also apply to Christians… and should also, to those who base their ethics on a similar background
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England0
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