When the Crawler Crane Tipped, the 18,000-Pound Counterweights Stacked on Its Back Slid Forward Into the Cab. The Manual Never Said They Could. A Gulfport Jury Returned $8.5 Million; the Judgment Was $3.4 Million.
After trial: Reduced by apportionment, not by a cap, and then affirmed. The October 2016 jury verdict was $8,500,000 ($7,000,000 economic, $1,000,000 noneconomic, $500,000 loss of consortium), but the jury put 50 percent of the fault on the employer VT Halter, 40 percent on Manitowoc and 10 percent on Williams, and under Mississippi's several-liability rule the court entered judgment against Manitowoc for its 40 percent share: $2,800,000 economic plus $600,000 noneconomic, $3,400,000 plus post-judgment interest. The $1,000,000 noneconomic award sat exactly at the Miss. Code Ann. 11-1-60 cap, so the cap made no further cut. Manitowoc's renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law and motion for a new trial were denied, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed on August 3, 2018 (No. 17-60458). Collectability: the payer is a crane manufacturer; no source reports the payment itself, so the disclosure stays at not public. Attribution: the trial firms were Owen, Galloway & Myers (now Owen, Owen & Smith) and Tobias, McCormick & Comer (now Tobias & Comer Law); the verdict is credited to the successor firms.
Won by Owen, Owen & Smith, PLLC.
On June 25, 2014 John Williams Jr., a certified crane operator at the VT Halter Marine shipyard in Pascagoula, was in the cab of a Manitowoc Model 16000 crawler crane during a three-crane lift of a ship's bow when the cranes began pulling apart and his tipped. The 18,000-pound steel counterweights stacked on its rear slid forward and struck the cab, throwing him eight feet head-first onto concrete. He survived, permanently incapacitated. A Gulfport jury found Manitowoc never warned operators that could happen and awarded $8,500,000; after fault was split 50/40/10 the judgment against Manitowoc was $3,400,000, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed in 2018.
What happened
John Williams Jr. was a certified crane operator at the VT Halter Marine shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi. He usually ran a Manitowoc Model 16000 Series crawler crane, a machine that lifts hundreds of tons and carries, on a tray at its rear, a stack of steel counterweights each roughly seven feet wide, eight feet long and 18,000 pounds.
On June 25, 2014 he was one of three crane operators performing a tandem lift of a ship's bow section. The lift rotated the bow as planned, and one crane disconnected as planned. Then the two remaining cranes unexpectedly began to separate. The other crane pulled Williams's crane forward until its tracks came off the ground. He stayed in the cab, trying to control the load. As the crane tipped, the counterweights slid forward off the tray and at least one struck the operator's cab. Williams was thrown eight feet, head-first, onto concrete.
He survived. He is permanently physically and mentally incapacitated. His wife, Wanda Williams, sued Manitowoc Cranes individually and as his conservator under the Mississippi Products Liability Act.
The design-defect claims were dismissed before trial. What went to the jury was warnings, and the jury drew a careful line: it rejected the claim that Manitowoc's warnings about performing tandem lifts safely were inadequate, and it found that Manitowoc had failed to warn Model 16000 operators that if the crane tips over, the counterweights on the rear can slide forward and strike the cab.
In October 2016 the jury in Gulfport awarded $7,000,000 in economic damages, $1,000,000 in noneconomic damages and $500,000 on Wanda Williams's loss-of-consortium claim, $8,500,000 in all. It also found that negligence had contributed to the injury and apportioned fault 50 percent to VT Halter, 40 percent to Manitowoc and 10 percent to Williams himself. Mississippi's several-liability rule means each defendant pays only its share, so the court entered judgment against Manitowoc for $2,800,000 in economic damages and $600,000 in noneconomic damages, a total of $3,400,000 plus post-judgment interest.
Manitowoc moved for judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial, lost, and appealed. On August 3, 2018 the Fifth Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Don Willett, affirmed.
Ben F. Galloway of what was then Owen, Galloway & Myers in Gulfport tried the case with Desmond V. Tobias, Bryan E. Comer and Jason S. McCormick of Tobias, McCormick & Comer in Mobile. The Gulfport firm has since become Owen, Owen & Smith and the Mobile firm Tobias & Comer Law.
The $8,500,000 verdict is the number that circulates. The judgment is $3,400,000, and that is the figure ranked here.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Fifth Circuit, Williams v. Manitowoc Cranes, L.L.C., No. 17-60458, August 3, 2018 (Willett, J.): the June 25, 2014 tandem lift at VT Halter Marine, the tipping crane and the sliding 18,000-pound counterweights; the jury's failure-to-warn finding and its rejection of the tandem-lift warning claim; the $7,000,000, $1,000,000 and $500,000 awards; the 50/40/10 apportionment; the $3,400,000 judgment against Manitowoc; the denial of post-trial motions; and the affirmance
- 2.CourtListener RECAP record for Fifth Circuit docket 17-60458: the attorney field naming Desmond V. Tobias, Bryan E. Comer and Jason S. McCormick of Tobias, McCormick & Comer, L.L.C., Mobile, and Ben F. Galloway of Owen, Galloway & Myers, P.L.L.C., Gulfport, for the plaintiff-appellee
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