Jury Awards $9.99 Million to Electrician Hurt When Crane Struck His Man-Lift; Appeals Court Reinstates Verdict

In July 2013, Frank Russo was working as an electrician at Corey Steel Company's steel beam manufacturing plant in Illinois. He was in a man-lift, a caged platform with a control panel, raised to reach overhead light fixtures. A trolley crane used to move steel beams, run by a Corey Steel employee, came into contact with the lift.

Russo reported injuries to his finger, elbow, lower back, right hip and right shoulder. His hip was the most serious. Doctors found a labral tear, and in July 2014 he had surgery to remove the torn portion of the labrum. His orthopedic surgeon testified that taking out the labrum changes how the joint moves and can speed up wear, and that Russo's mild pre-existing arthritis probably progressed faster because of the injury. By 2017 he was receiving diagnostic hip injections to see whether another hip operation was needed, and other doctors had pending requests for hip and back surgery.

Corey Steel admitted liability in Cook County Circuit Court, so the case went to a jury on damages alone. Judge Irwin J. Solganick presided. Jurors heard that Russo had returned to heavy electrical work after earlier injuries, and that he now walked with a limp controlled by medication and had constant pain in his shoulder and hip. He told them he could no longer do electrician work, which he missed, and had given up swimming, rafting, boating and playing drums without pain. His wife testified that they no longer slept in the same room because of his pain.

Corey Steel pressed the jury on his earlier medical history and on the opinion of Dr. Jeffrey Coe, an occupational medicine physician, that Russo would eventually need a hip replacement. The jury returned a verdict of $9,987,000, itemized into loss of normal life, pain and suffering, past and future medical expense, and past and future lost earnings.

The case then turned on that one expert opinion. Corey Steel retained new counsel, Judge Solganick recused himself from post-trial proceedings, and a successor judge granted a new trial solely because Dr. Coe had been allowed to testify about future hip surgery. Thomas A. Kelliher of Horwitz, Horwitz & Associates, Ltd. handled the appeal for Russo.

On December 28, 2018, the Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, reversed. It held the trial judge had acted within his discretion in admitting Dr. Coe's opinion, and that the successor judge had no basis to overturn that ruling. The court also rejected Corey Steel's request to cut the award, finding the future medical figure and the overall damages supported by the evidence and not so large as to shock the judicial conscience. The jury's verdict was reinstated.