Jury Awards $8.6 Million After 'Walking Dead' Stuntman Falls 22 Feet to His Death on Set
After trial: The Georgia Court of Appeals later reversed the verdict because the Workers' Compensation Act barred the family's civil claims.
Won by Harris Lowry Manton LLP (lead counsel) and Law & Moran, Attorneys at Law.
A Gwinnett County jury awarded $8.6 million to the mother of stuntman John Bernecker, who died in July 2017 after falling 22 feet from a balcony on a 'Walking Dead' set when he missed his landing pad by inches; the Georgia Court of Appeals later reversed the verdict on the ground that the Workers' Compensation Act barred the family's civil claims.
What happened
On July 12, 2017, John Bernecker was rehearsing a fight scene for Season 8 of 'The Walking Dead' at a production location in Senoia, Georgia, roughly 40 miles south of Atlanta. The 33-year-old stuntman, who had accumulated more than 90 film and television credits, was supposed to fall from a second-floor balcony and land on a crash pad positioned on the concrete floor below. He missed the pad by inches. The fall was approximately 22 feet. Bernecker struck the concrete head-first and died two days later from his injuries.
OSHA investigated and cited Stalwart Films, the production company overseeing filming, for failure to provide adequate protection from fall hazards, imposing the maximum allowable fine of $12,675. Bernecker's mother, Susan Bernecker, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in January 2018, naming Stalwart Films, TWD Productions VIII (a co-production entity), director Larry Teng, stunt coordinator Monty Simons, actor Austin Amelio, and AMC Film Holdings among the defendants.
Jeffrey Harris of Harris Lowry Manton LLP served as lead trial attorney for Susan Bernecker. At trial in Gwinnett County State Court, the family's legal team argued that a chain of safety failures caused John Bernecker to miss his mark: inadequate pre-rehearsal planning, insufficient matting coverage, and poor on-set oversight. The case went to a jury in December 2019, presided over by Judge Emily Brantley.
After a weeklong trial and two days of deliberations, the jury returned its verdict on December 19, 2019. Jurors found Bernecker 6% at fault and allocated 46% of fault to Stalwart Films and 25% to TWD Productions VIII. AMC Networks was found not negligent. The total award came to $8.6 million: $8.5 million for the full value of Bernecker's life and $100,000 for his pre-death pain and suffering.
Stalwart Films and TWD Productions appealed. On March 11, 2021, the Georgia Court of Appeals reversed the verdict in a ruling authored by Judge Sara Doyle. The court held that Bernecker was an employee of Stalwart Films rather than an independent contractor, concluding that Stalwart retained the right to control the time, manner, and method of his work. Because Bernecker qualified as an employee, the Workers' Compensation Act provided his exclusive remedy and barred the family's civil tort claims. Co-employees named as defendants received immunity on the same grounds. Jeffrey Harris indicated at the time that he intended to petition the Georgia Supreme Court for review.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.CBS News: John Bernecker: 'Walking Dead' stuntman's family awarded $8.6 million over his 2017 death on set (Dec. 2019)·Archived copy
- 2.The Wrap: Jury Awards 'Walking Dead' Stuntman's Estate $8.6 Million In Wrongful Death Trial (Dec. 19, 2019)·Archived copy
- 3.Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Lawsuit filed in the death of 'Walking Dead' stuntman John Bernecker (Jan. 2018)·Archived copy
- 4.BuzzFeed News: After Death Of 'Walking Dead' Stunt Performer, His Family Received $8.6 Million In Damages (Dec. 2019)·Archived copy
- 5.FindLaw: Stalwart Films LLC v. Bernecker, Georgia Court of Appeals (March 11, 2021): reversed on workers' comp grounds·Archived copy
- 6.CVN Blog: Appeals Court Reverses $8M+ Award for Stuntman's Death on The Walking Dead Set (2021)·Archived copy
- 7.Daily Report (Law.com), Mar 16, 2021, by staff reporter Greg Land
- 8.Courtroom View Network, Dec 2019 trial preview by staff reporter Arlin Crisco·Archived copy
- 9.Deadline Hollywood, Dec 19, 2019: verdict amount, AMC and Amelio cleared, stunt facts, date and cause of death·Archived copy
- 10.Courtroom View Network, Dec 19, 2019·Archived copy
- 11.Georgia Court of Appeals opinion, Stalwart Films LLC v. Bernecker, A20A1896 (Mar. 11, 2021)·Archived copy
- 12.The Newnan Times-Herald, Oct 23, 2020: fault percentages by defendant, OSHA citation, filming location detail·Archived copy
- 13.Deadline Hollywood, Jul 14, 2017·Archived copy
More proven verdicts from Harris Lowry Manton LLP
All Harris Lowry Manton LLP proven verdicts →A Fulton County jury awarded $47.7 million after a defective rear seat latch in a 2000 Lincoln LS collapsed during a crash, severing a six-year-old girl's thoracic spinal cord and leaving her paralyzed.
A Floyd County jury awarded $43.5 million to the family of Morris Ellison, an 80-year-old man who suffered malnourishment, severe dehydration, and an untreated broken hip before dying at a Rome, Georgia nursing home whose operator had diverted Medicare and Medicaid funds from patient care.
A DeKalb County jury awarded $40 million to Jessica Mundy and her husband after her 2004 Ford Explorer spontaneously shifted from park into reverse, striking and running over her, after the trial team showed Ford had known about the 'false park' transmission defect for decades.
A Fulton County jury awarded $35 million to the family of Joshua Chang, a 21-year-old Yale student killed when his car struck a concrete planter on the shoulder of Batesville Road, finding the City of Milton 93% responsible for leaving a dangerous obstacle in the right-of-way.
Related wrongful death verdicts
In December 2011, a Fayette County, Texas jury awarded the family of an 8-year-old Splendora boy $150.37 billion after he was doused with gasoline and set on fire by a 13-year-old neighbor in 1998, two weeks after the same neighbor sexually assaulted him. The boy survived third-degree burns over 99 percent of his body for nearly 13 years before dying in April 2011 of a skin cancer linked to his injuries. The defendant, Don Wilburn Collins, never appeared to answer the civil suit, and the jury awarded $370 million in actual damages plus roughly $150 billion in punitive damages, the largest civil verdict in U.S. history. Attorney Craig Sico, who represented the family, said from the outset that the judgment was not collectible and was intended to pressure prosecutors into reopening the long-dormant criminal case. Prosecutors did reopen the case, and Collins was later convicted of capital murder in a separate criminal proceeding.
A Pensacola jury awarded Cynthia Robinson $23.6 billion in punitive damages against R.J. Reynolds over the 1996 lung cancer death of her 36-year-old husband, the largest single-plaintiff award of Florida's Engle tobacco litigation, but the trial judge called the number constitutionally excessive, an appeals court ordered a full retrial over improper closing arguments, and a second jury returned a complete defense verdict in 2019, so the estate ultimately collected nothing.
Frantz Law Group, representing roughly 5,000 victims, helped negotiate a $13.5 billion PG&E bankruptcy settlement covering tens of thousands of survivors and families from the 2015 Butte, 2017 North Bay, and 2018 Camp wildfires.