Davison County Jury Awards $2.3 Million to Estate of Man Paralyzed When Menards Plywood Cart Tipped
After trial: Menards appealed only the refusal to instruct the jury on assumption of the risk, and the South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed on February 7, 2018 (2018 SD 11). The jury was instructed on contributory negligence, and neither the opinion nor press coverage reports any fault share or reduction.
Won by Hoy Law and Morman Law Firm.
Ronald Jensen, 71, was left quadriplegic when an unbraked single-rail cart of plywood tipped in the wind while a Menards employee loaded his truck in Mitchell on August 1, 2012. He died of unrelated bladder cancer on January 31, 2013. A Davison County jury awarded his estate and his wife $2,295,971.97 in November 2016, and the South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed in 2018.
What happened
On August 1, 2012, Ronald Jensen, 71, drove to the Menards store in Mitchell, South Dakota, to buy seven sheets of plywood to finish a tack room in his barn. His brother-in-law, Don Farnam, came along. Jensen had lived since 1977 with an earlier spinal-cord injury, but he was still mobile, used a cane, and was described by Farnam as active.
A Menards employee, Clint Weyand, took Jensen's invoice without being asked. Unable to find a flat cart, he stacked the sheets upright against a single-rail cart that had no brakes or wheel locks, then pushed it outside to the back of Jensen's pickup. The load weighed at least 300 pounds and was not secured to anything. It was a windy day. As the two men began loading, a strong gust moved the cart, Weyand could not stop it, and the plywood tipped over.
Jensen fell on top of the boards and struck his head on a hard surface. He told his brother-in-law he had broken his neck and could not move. Surgeons treated cervical fractures and dislocations at Queen of Peace Hospital, but he was left quadriplegic and permanently dependent on a ventilator through a tracheostomy. That September, while still in rehabilitation, he was diagnosed with an aggressive bladder cancer. He died in a Nebraska nursing facility on January 31, 2013.
Jensen and his wife, Bonita, had already sued Menards for negligence and loss of consortium. After his death she was appointed personal representative of his estate and took his place as plaintiff. Their case was that Menards failed to recognize unsafe weather and to take added precautions, and that a double-rail cart would have been the safer way to move plywood, a point their safety expert supported. Because Jensen died before he could be deposed and could not testify, the case rested on the employee, the brother-in-law and the medical evidence. Menards defended on assumption of the risk and contributory negligence.
Scott Hoy, Carleton Hoy and James Hoy of Hoy Trial Lawyers in Sioux Falls tried the case with Michael Strain of the Morman Law Firm in Sturgis. The jury heard it in Davison County Circuit Court over four days, from October 31 to November 3, 2016, before Judge Patrick Smith. The judge instructed on contributory negligence but refused Menards' request to instruct on assumption of the risk. The jury returned $2,295,971.97 for Bonita Jensen and the estate.
Menards appealed on that one instruction. At oral argument Scott Hoy told the justices that Menards had received a fair trial on the issue. On February 7, 2018, the South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed in 2018 SD 11, holding that nothing in the record showed Jensen actually knew of and appreciated the danger of the way the plywood was being handled, so the instruction was not required.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Hoy Law
All Hoy Law proven verdicts →William Owen sought care at the Indian Health Service hospital in Sisseton, South Dakota, in July 2001 for back and leg symptoms that proved to be cauda equina syndrome. After a two-day bench trial, Chief Judge Karen Schreier found the emergency physician negligent for failing to order imaging or a neurology referral on July 22, and entered judgment against the United States on July 31, 2009. The award was $300,000 for disability and disfigurement and $200,000 for pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment of life.
In Hamer v. Duffy, 2026 SD 4, the South Dakota Supreme Court ruled unanimously that violations of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations adopted into state law can constitute negligence per se, reversing a zero-damages jury verdict and remanding for a new trial.
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