Grain Delivery Driver Electrocuted at Silo: $12 Million Settlement Against Power Company and Property Owner
Won by Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers.
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.
What happened
A 23-year-old husband and father showed up at a commercial grain storage facility to make a routine bulk delivery. He positioned a portable auger to move grain into the silo. As he worked, an electrical arc discharged from an overhead high-voltage power line owned by American Electric Power Service Corp. to the metal auger, electrocuting him on the ground.
His family retained Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers in Norfolk, joining forces with Kevin Biniazan of Breit Biniazan in Virginia Beach and Katie Rose Marion of Rose Marion Law in New Mexico. Together the trial team prepared to argue that the power company and the third-party commercial property owner each bore responsibility for failing to maintain safe clearances and warn workers about the hazard.
The defense pushed back on the core question of cause. Defendants argued the worker had made direct contact with the power line, an act they characterized as open and obvious. The plaintiff's team countered that no direct contact occurred: the line's proximity allowed an arc to bridge the gap to the auger without any contact at all. Establishing that distinction mattered both legally and factually, because it determined whether any negligence on the victim's part could offset liability.
The case went through mediation before retired Judge Stanley P. Klein. Roughly one month before the scheduled trial date, the property owner defendants resolved their portion for $5 million. The power company held out. On the morning trial was set to begin, February 18, 2025, American Electric Power and its related entities agreed to pay an additional $7 million, bringing the total recovery to $12 million.
Virginia Lawyers Weekly reported the result in October 2025 and included it among the state's million-dollar-plus settlements of 2025. The settlement was reached without a jury verdict.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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