Walking Dead Stuntman's Family Wins $8.6 Million Verdict, Then Loses It on Appeal

On July 12, 2017, stunt performer John Bernecker was filming a fight scene for season 8 of The Walking Dead on the show's set in Senoia, Georgia. The scene called for Bernecker, doubling for a character who had just been shot, to fall backward off a balcony railing roughly 21 feet above a catcher system, a 10 foot by 10 foot bed of cardboard boxes with two port-a-pit landing pads on top. Instead of dropping into the pads, his trajectory shifted mid fall. His head struck the unprotected concrete between the catcher system and the wall beneath the balcony. He was taken to Atlanta Medical Center, where he was placed on life support and never regained consciousness. He died of his head injuries at age 33.

The plaintiffs' accident reconstruction and biomechanical expert testified that actor Austin Amelio, playing the character who threw Bernecker's character over the rail, inadvertently touched Bernecker in the back with a prop handgun during the stunt, despite being told specifically not to touch him. Bernecker grabbed the balcony railing, which sent him into a pendulum swing that carried him past the catcher system and onto the unprotected concrete. The defense disputed that Amelio ever touched him and argued that Bernecker simply held the rail too long, altering his own fall. The stunt coordinator was positioned as a spotter at only one end of the landing area, and the boxes did not extend back to the wall beneath the balcony.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated and cited Stalwart Films for a serious safety violation. Bernecker's mother, Susan, individually and as executrix of his estate, and his father, Hagan, sued Stalwart Films, production company TWD Productions VIII, unit production manager Tom Luse, first assistant director Jeffrey January, stunt coordinator Monty Simons, AMC Network and Amelio. They argued the production's own safety program required a production safety representative on set and additional spotters and padding that were never provided.

The case went to trial before Gwinnett County State Court Judge Emily Brantley in December 2019. After a two week trial, the jury found that Bernecker had been working as an independent contractor rather than an employee of Stalwart, which kept the claim in civil court instead of the workers' compensation system. Jurors cleared AMC Network and Amelio of liability but found Stalwart, TWD8, Luse, January and Simons negligent, awarding $8.6 million in damages with no punitive award. They assigned Bernecker 6 percent of the fault for his own death, which reduced the judgment Brantley entered to $8,084,000.

Stalwart and the other defendants appealed, arguing the trial court should have granted a directed verdict because Bernecker was legally an employee. In March 2021, the Georgia Court of Appeals agreed. Writing for a unanimous panel, Presiding Judge Sara Doyle held that Stalwart's written contract and its control over the time, manner and method of Bernecker's work made him an employee or borrowed servant regardless of the 1099 tax form he received, so the Workers' Compensation Act's exclusive remedy provision barred the claims against Stalwart and, as his co-employees, against Luse, January and Simons too. The court found no separate duty ran from TWD8 to Bernecker. The judgment was reversed in full.

Plaintiffs' counsel, including Jeff Harris and Yvonne Godfrey of Harris Lowry Manton, Pete Law and Brian Kaplan of Law & Moran, Rebecca Harris of Franklin Law and Gerald Davidson Jr. of Mahaffey Pickens Tucker, said they would seek reconsideration or ask the Georgia Supreme Court to take the case. No published record shows what came of that request, and no further recovery for the Bernecker family has been reported since the reversal.