Jefferson County Jury Awards $1.25 Million to Family of Teen Killed by Stray Voltage Under Spring Lake
After trial: AmerenUE said after the March 2009 verdict that it had not decided whether to appeal. We found no appellate opinion or post-trial ruling in this case and could not confirm payment.
Won by Gray Ritter Graham, Gray, Ritter & Graham, P.C. and Other counsel.
A 16-year-old boy drowned in March 2006 after an electric current immobilized him and three friends in Spring Lake, just south of De Soto, Missouri. In March 2009 a Jefferson County jury found that AmerenUE's underground cable caused the current and awarded his parents $1.25 million. The same jury made separate awards to two 15-year-olds who were critically injured.
What happened
On March 18, 2006, four teenagers who had been sitting in a hot tub at a friend's home in the Summer Set subdivision, just south of De Soto, Missouri, jumped from a dock into Spring Lake. Shortly after they hit the water, an electric current immobilized them. A 16-year-old boy drowned. Two 15-year-old boys were resuscitated and airlifted in critical condition to St. John's Mercy Medical Center. The fourth teenager, who was 18, was not hurt.
In the first days after the accident, investigators looked at the dock itself, which carried electrical power for a boat lift and lighting, and at whether rising lake water had reached an electrical box. Nobody could say at that point where the current had come from.
The families built a different case. They argued that the source was an AmerenUE distribution cable buried under the lake bed, which they said had put current into the water around the dock. AmerenUE contested that claim through trial.
The families of the boy who died and of the two injured 15-year-olds sued the utility, and their claims were tried together in Jefferson County Circuit Court in Hillsboro. Maurice Graham of Gray, Ritter & Graham, with Michael Williams and Brooks Kenagy, represented the families. James Virtel defended AmerenUE.
The jury heard nine days of testimony and deliberated for a day and a half. By a vote of 9 to 3, it found that Ameren's cable under the lake caused the current that paralyzed the swimmers. It awarded $1.25 million to the parents of the boy who died. In separate awards, it gave $725,000 to one of the injured 15-year-olds and $350,000 to the other, about $2.3 million across the three families.
The families wept and embraced in the courtroom as the verdict was read. Graham said afterward that the families were relieved to have the case behind them. An AmerenUE spokeswoman said the company had not decided whether to appeal and did not plan to make any changes to the underground cable at the lake.
The verdict covered only the boy who died and the two 15-year-olds. The 18-year-old who had been in the water with them was not part of the case. We found no later appellate opinion or post-trial ruling, and the amount paid has not been made public.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 'Jury orders Ameren to pay $2.3 million to families of teens', Mar. 6, 2009 (reprint)·Archived copy
- 2.Lake Expo, 'Jury orders Ameren to pay $2.3 million to families of teens', Mar. 2009·Archived copy
- 3.Missouri Lawyers Media, 'Prominent St. Louis attorney dies after 62 years of practice', Sept. 10, 2025·Archived copy
- 4.St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 'De Soto Youth Electrocuted, Two More Hurt', 2006 (reprint)·Archived copy
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