$7 Million Verdict for Tanker Driver Killed in AEP Plant Hydrogen Explosion, With $5 Million Punitive
After trial: The jury returned the verdict on August 29, 2011, and judgment was entered with attorney fees. No appellate decision, remittitur or post-trial reduction has been reported.
Won by Bordas & Bordas, PLLC.
Lewis Timmons, 61, was transferring hydrogen from his tanker into the storage system at the Muskingum River power plant when the storage area exploded and killed him. The enclosure had a defective roof and undersized copper relief stacks that could not vent a release, and an earlier hydrogen explosion at an AEP facility had already produced safety recommendations the company never acted on.
What happened
Lewis Timmons was 61 and drove a tanker truck. On January 8, 2007 he was transferring hydrogen from his tanker into the compressed hydrogen storage system at the Muskingum River power plant. The storage area exploded and killed him.
The case his estate brought against Ohio Power and American Electric Power Service Corporation was that they already knew the enclosure was unsafe. The roof was defective. The copper relief stacks were undersized and weak, and could not vent a hydrogen release. And in December 2005 there had already been a hydrogen explosion at an AEP facility in Moundsville, which generated safety recommendations the company never acted on.
AEP's defense was that its outside inspector, General Hydrogen, had never reported the danger.
On August 29, 2011 the Marshall County jury found conscious disregard for Timmons's safety. That finding is what opened the door to punitive damages, and it awarded roughly $2,000,000 in compensatory damages and $5,000,000 in punitive damages, with attorney fees awarded to the estate on top, for $6,998,940.
One clarification, because accounts of this trial circulate a larger number. The same trial also carried a companion deliberate-intent claim brought by an AEP employee injured in the same blast, which is why some reports describe a combined trial total of almost $13 million. Only the $6,998,940 belongs to the Timmons estate, and this was not a single-plaintiff trial.
The estate, through administrator Brian Timmons, was represented by Geoffrey C. Brown and Christopher J. Regan of Bordas and Bordas, with Rodney Windom.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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