$7 Million Settlement After Corroded Gas Line Causes Poolside Grill Explosion in Virginia Beach
Won by Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers.
A 23-year-old mother suffered burns to 36% of her body after a corroded natural gas pipe fed an undetected leak into an apartment complex's outdoor grill enclosure, triggering an explosion when she attempted to light it.
What happened
On the afternoon in question, a 23-year-old mother walked to the poolside area of her Virginia Beach apartment complex and attempted to light the outdoor gas grill the property provided for tenant use. What she could not have known was that the hardline natural gas pipe feeding the grill had corroded over time, allowing gas to pool unseen inside the brick enclosure. The moment she tried to ignite the burner, the accumulated gas exploded and flames engulfed her.
First responders transported her to the hospital with burns covering roughly 12% of her body. As doctors worked to stabilize her, the burns expanded. By the time progression stopped, 36% of her body surface had been burned. Over the weeks that followed she underwent four surgeries, including an autograft procedure to replace destroyed skin, and remained hospitalized for 19 days. Her past medical bills exceeded $262,000.
Beyond the physical damage, the injuries created long-term complications the trial team documented in detail. A pain management specialist, a clinical psychologist treating the plaintiff for PTSD, and an OB-GYN who addressed new risks to any future pregnancy all testified to the scope of her losses. Even the defense's own plastic surgery expert, when deposed, conceded that multiple additional surgeries would be required in the future.
Cooper Hurley attorneys John Cooper, Griffin O'Hanlon, John Baker, and Bailey Gifford built the premises liability case around the apartment complex's duty to maintain the gas infrastructure it supplied for tenant use. The team conducted 40 depositions plus four de bene esse depositions, establishing that the corrosion was a maintainable defect the property owner could and should have detected.
Mediation was attempted four months before trial but broke down without resolution. Talks resumed as trial approached. On February 4, 2026, the day before jury instructions were due, the apartment complex's side agreed to pay $7 million to settle all claims. No reduction of the settlement has been reported.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers
All Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers proven verdicts →A 23-year-old grain truck driver was killed when an electrical arc jumped from an overhead high-voltage power line to the portable auger he was using at a commercial silo, and his family recovered $12 million from the power company and property owner.
Related premises liability verdicts
Anapol Weiss shareholder Kristen Gibbons Feden helped secure $1.6 billion in default verdicts for 104 women sexually abused as children by former Long Island pediatrician Stuart Copperman, one of the largest cumulative civil awards against a single individual in U.S. history.
A Dallas jury awarded $1.1 billion against a trust fund heir who beat a 2-year-old into a permanent vegetative state in 2021, a verdict the firm calls the largest child-assault award in U.S. history.
A Clayton County jury awarded $1 billion to a woman who was raped at age 14 by an armed security guard her employer hired without verifying he was licensed to carry a weapon.
Joseph Bruno and Bruno & Bruno served as lead plaintiffs' counsel in a landmark class action brought by more than 8,000 Gentilly residents exposed to a butadiene tank-car fire in 1987, securing a jury verdict that included $2.5 billion in punitive damages against CSX Transportation alone, later reduced to $850 million on appeal and affirmed by Louisiana's Fourth Circuit.