Concrete Worker Knocked Off A Nine-Foot Wall By A Pressurized Pump Hose Wins An Affirmed Judgment

On March 22, 2010, Hildo F. DeFranca, a 42-year-old concrete worker employed by Girafa Construction, was helping pour the walls of a new home in Perkasie, Pennsylvania. He stood on top of a nine-foot form wall, directing the discharge hose of a concrete pump truck operated by an employee of 5 Star Concrete Pumping. The line clogged three times that day. The first two times, the operator shut the pump down, let DeFranca get clear, and cleared the blockage by hand.

On the third clog the operator did something different. He increased the pressure on the pump to drive the clump through the line, against the procedure set out in the truck's owner's manual and against known industry practice, and he gave DeFranca no signal to put the hose down and move out of the way. DeFranca was still holding the hose when the pressure built and released. The hose whipped and struck him in the head. He fell nine feet off the wall into the unfinished basement below and was knocked unconscious.

DeFranca sustained a mild traumatic brain injury, a compression fracture of the T11 vertebra, and an aggravation of degenerative disc disease at the lumbar and cervical levels of his spine. He did not return to work. He and his wife, Maria DeFranca, sued in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas. Locks Law Firm partner Andrew J. DuPont and associate Priscilla Jimenez tried the case for them, and Jonathan W. Miller also appeared as counsel of record for the plaintiffs.

The central fight was over who answered for the pump truck. Trans-Fleet Concrete, Inc. delivered the concrete. 5 Star, which owned and staffed the pump truck, was never a party to the case. Both companies were run by the same husband and wife, shared a business address, office space and employees, and a single call to Trans-Fleet got a customer the concrete and the pump truck together. Trial ran from November 18 to November 25, 2013. The jury found that 5 Star was acting as Trans-Fleet's agent, that both were negligent and that their negligence caused DeFranca's injuries, and it divided liability evenly between them. It awarded Hildo DeFranca $2,000,000 and awarded Maria DeFranca $250,000 for loss of consortium. The jury found the concrete contractor, Albino Concrete Construction, not negligent; the DeFrancas had settled their claims against Albino before closing arguments.

Because Trans-Fleet was answerable both for its own negligence and for its agent's, the even split left it responsible for the whole award. On June 6, 2014, Judge Paul P. Panepinto denied Trans-Fleet's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or a new trial, granted the DeFrancas' motion for delay damages of $63,590.62, and molded the verdict. Judgment of $2,313,590.62 was entered on June 17, 2014. The trial court's opinion was later published at 41 Pa. D. & C.5th 518.

Trans-Fleet appealed. It argued that the agency theory should never have gone to the jury, that there was no evidence of negligence by 5 Star, that GPS records it said would have placed the pump truck somewhere else were wrongly excluded as hearsay, and that the negligent training claim was unsupported. In a memorandum decision filed January 6, 2016 at No. 1868 EDA 2014, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania held that every issue was waived or devoid of merit and affirmed the June 17, 2014 judgment.