$26.5 Million Verdict for Paraplegic Worker After Contractor Ignored Its Own Fall-Protection Rules
After trial: The parties later reached an agreement, and on November 9, 2018 the Dallas Court of Appeals, at their joint request, set the judgment aside without ruling on the merits and sent the case back for a take-nothing judgment. The settlement terms were not disclosed.
Won by Miller Weisbrod Olesky.
A Dallas County jury returned a $26.5 million verdict for Fernando Canales, a construction decker left paraplegic after a two-story fall, finding that general contractor RJC Midwest bore full responsibility for failing to train subcontractors on the proper use of fall-protection equipment.
What happened
Fernando Canales worked as a decker, the laborer responsible for laying plywood over structural framing to form the floors, walls, and roof surfaces of a building under construction. His job required working at height, and his employer issued him a personal fall-arrest system. No one ever showed him how to use it correctly.
Over time, Canales developed a habit he had learned by watching coworkers: he attached his lanyard to a wood structure on the building and clipped the other end to his safety harness, reversing the intended connection. The mistake was invisible until it mattered. When he slipped and fell two stories, the rope paid out instead of arresting his descent. He hit the ground and suffered a spinal cord injury that left him a paraplegic.
RJC Midwest, L.P. served as general contractor on the project. In deposition and again on the witness stand, its corporate representative acknowledged that RJC had a duty under its own safety manual to train not only its direct employees but also subcontractors working on site. Its on-site safety coordinator had never carried out that training. The defense argued vigorously that Canales bore sole responsibility because he had rigged the equipment incorrectly. The jury disagreed.
Clay Miller and Josh Birmingham of Miller Weisbrod tried the case. They placed RJC's admissions at the center of their argument: a general contractor cannot delegate a training obligation it has already claimed as its own and then shift blame to a worker who was never taught the correct technique. The jury assigned 100 percent of fault to RJC Midwest.
On October 4, 2017, the 68th Judicial District Court entered a verdict of $26.5 million, comprising $11.5 million in actual damages and $15 million in punitive damages. RJC Midwest appealed. The Texas Court of Appeals for the Fifth District issued a memorandum opinion on November 9, 2018, under cause number 05-18-00878-CV, remanding the case to the trial court for further proceedings. The final disposition after remand is not reflected in publicly available appellate records.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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