$2.25 Million Settlement for Worker Who Fell 14 Feet Through Disguised Roof Opening and Suffered Brain Injury
After trial: The case settled at mediation and was not tried or appealed. The parties and the defendant's insurer were not named in the published report, and whether the full amount was paid is not public.
Won by Emroch & Kilduff, Emroch & Kilduff, Richmond, Richmond and Washington.
A worker for a Virginia company fell about 14 feet through a roof opening in Maryland that was covered by a fiberglass panel painted to match the metal roof, landing on concrete. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, spinal, facial and skull fractures and a wrist fracture. The case was disputed on contributory negligence and on the extent of his cognitive impairment, and it settled at mediation for $2.25 million.
What happened
On September 20, 2010, a worker employed by a Virginia company that the building's occupier had hired to power-wash and paint a building in Maryland stepped onto a section of the roof that could not hold him. A skylight had once occupied the spot. In its place was an unsupported opening covered by a fiberglass panel that had been painted to match the surrounding metal roof, so nothing about it signaled a drop. He fell about 14 feet and landed on his head on a concrete floor.
Emergency crews took him to a hospital. The injuries were extensive: a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, multiple fractures of the spine, multiple fractures of the face and skull, and a wrist fracture that required surgery with open reduction and internal fixation.
He sued the building's occupier in Baltimore City Circuit Court. Walter H. Emroch and Thomas J. McNally of Richmond represented him, working with Patrick Malone and Daniel Scialpi of Washington. The theory was straightforward: the occupier had a roof opening that was covered with a panel disguised to look like solid roofing, and a worker had no way to tell it from the rest of the surface.
The case was not simple. The defense contended the plaintiff bore some fault under Maryland's contributory negligence rule, pointing to safety equipment and to what he should have checked about the roof before walking on it. A defense neuropsychologist disputed that he had permanent neurocognitive impairment, and the defense produced surveillance video that it said showed him doing things his doctors had called impossible. Maryland also limits non-economic damages in personal injury cases, which put a ceiling on the largest part of a brain injury claim regardless of how a jury might have viewed it.
Against that, the plaintiff's side documented his medical expenses, his lost wages and a loss of future earning capacity. The parties went to mediation before Thomas S. Shadrick, and the case resolved there for $2.25 million, without a trial.
Virginia Lawyers Weekly reported the settlement on September 23, 2013. The report did not name the plaintiff or the building's occupier, and it did not identify the defendant's counsel or insurer.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Emroch & Kilduff
All Emroch & Kilduff proven verdicts →A truck driver and furniture mover was hit on U.S. Route 17 in Fauquier County, Virginia, on July 21, 2000, by a Wheelabrator Water Technologies truck that pulled out from a stop sign. He broke both legs, and an infection that would not heal led to amputation of the right leg above the knee. Liability was admitted from the start. The case settled for $9 million after one day of jury trial in Richmond Circuit Court.
A 55-year-old Virginia woman sitting in a chair was struck in the torso by a piece of equipment that was inadequately secured and maintained, and she died of a perforated heart. Her family brought a wrongful death claim against the company that owned the equipment. The case resolved at mediation before retired judge Michael Allen in June 2017 for $2.5 million. The defendant and the court were not identified in the published report.
An 80-year-old woman attending a funeral reception fell down non-uniform exterior stairs at a private club, sustaining a traumatic brain injury, skull and facial fractures, and a shoulder fracture, and settled for $2.3 million in July 2024.
A 55-year-old woman had a small bowel perforated during a laparoscopic gallbladder removal, and the injury was not diagnosed for eight days. She needed multiple repair operations and a temporary ostomy, and she was left with short gut syndrome. The surgeons contested causation, citing pre-existing bowel problems. The claim settled at mediation for $1.65 million in 2017.
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.