$157 Million Jury Verdict for Widow of Man Killed by Defective Ol' Man Tree Stand
After trial: None of the three defendant companies, including tree stand maker TSR Inc. and its predecessor L&L Enterprises, appeared to contest the case at trial, and L&L's own registered agent said he had not been involved with the company for about a year. The defendants appear to have been out of business by the time of the 2009 verdict, making the judgment largely uncollectable.
Won by Ken Nunn Law Office.
A Tippecanoe County jury awarded $157 million to the widow of Timothy Simonton, a 42-year-old Indiana man who died in October 2005 after the locking pins on an Ol' Man tree stand failed and left him hanging from a tree during a deer-scouting outing.
What happened
Timothy Simonton was 42 years old when he went out to scout deer in October 2005. He never came home. His family found him hanging from a tree where he had been using an Ol' Man climbing tree stand manufactured and sold by TSR Inc. of Pace, Florida, and distributed through L&L Enterprises and Ol' Man Tree Stands. The stand's locking pins had given way.
The defect was not unknown to the manufacturer. TSR Inc. later recalled approximately 9,000 Ol' Man tree stands and about 500 replacement pin sets in 2007, acknowledging that the locking pins could unexpectedly fall out and create a fall hazard. That recall came too late for Timothy Simonton.
Carol Simonton filed suit in February 2006, about four months after her husband's death. The Ken Nunn Law Office took the case. At trial in February 2009, attorney Mike Phelps of Bloomington presented evidence of the product's fatal flaw and argued the case to the jury. None of the defendants, TSR Inc., L&L Enterprises, or Ol' Man Tree Stands, sent a representative to court or contested the claims at trial.
Phelps asked jurors during closing arguments to award $100 million. After about one hour of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of $157 million, far exceeding what even the plaintiff's attorneys had anticipated. The original complaint had sought $6,000 for funeral expenses and $1.5 million for lost wages based on thirty years of projected earnings.
The $157 million verdict was the largest jury verdict in Indiana history at the time of the award, according to the Indiana Jury Verdict Reporter. No source located reflects any appellate reduction of the award.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Insurance Journal: Indiana Jury Awards $157 Million in Tree Stand Death (Feb. 23, 2009)·Archived copy
- 2.Law360: Jury Awards $157M In Defective Tree Stand Case (Feb. 20, 2009)
- 3.The Indiana Lawyer: Recent $35M verdict is among largest Indiana jury personal injury awards (cites Simonton $157M as benchmark)·Archived copy
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