Philadelphia Jury Awards $9.1 Million After Golf Pro Is Killed by Falling Oak at Country Club
After trial: The parties signed a pre-verdict agreement limiting the outcome, and the verdict cannot be appealed. The terms of that agreement were not disclosed, so the amount actually paid is not public.
Won by Saltz Mongeluzzi & Bendesky.
Justin Riegel, 38, the director of golf at Philmont Country Club in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, was crushed on June 3, 2020 when a 90-year-old oak fell into the club's cart barn during a storm. In August 2024 a Philadelphia jury awarded $9.1 million to his son, who was born weeks after his death. The jury found the three Concert Golf entities that own and manage the club equally responsible.
What happened
On June 3, 2020, a storm moved through Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, while Justin Riegel, 38, was working as director of golf at Philmont Country Club. Riegel helped bring golf carts in off the course and was parking one in the club's cart barn when a 90-year-old oak uprooted by the wind fell across the building. He died of crush injuries. His son was born weeks later.
Riegel's widow, Kate Hannon, sued on behalf of the child and the estate. The defendants were Concert Golf Partners Holdco LLC, the Florida-based company that owns the club, along with Concert Philmont LLC and Concert Golf Management LLC, which operate it. David Kwass of Saltz Mongeluzzi & Bendesky was among the lawyers who tried the case for the family.
The plaintiff's case rested on two points. First, the lawyers argued, the tree was a known kind of hazard: industry standards call for risk assessments of trees near high-traffic areas every three to five years, and the defendants never did one for this oak beside the cart barn. Second, the club could have seen the storm coming and cleared the course sooner, which would have kept Riegel out of the barn. As Kwass put it to the jury, the defendants did not create the storm, but they could have known about it earlier and prepared.
The defense argued that the storm was unprecedented and that Riegel was in a storage room talking with a colleague when the tree came down, not parking a cart. The court also let the jury decide a question about Riegel's employment status, which the Inquirer described as unusual for a case of this kind.
The trial ran about two weeks in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court before Judge Damaris Garcia, and the jury deliberated for roughly a day. On August 29, 2024, it returned a verdict of $9.1 million for Riegel's son and found all three Concert Golf entities equally responsible.
Before the verdict, the parties had signed an agreement that set limits on the outcome, so the result could not be appealed. The terms of that agreement were not made public, and neither were the amounts the defendants finally paid.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Philadelphia Inquirer, 'Montco country club ordered by jury to pay $9.1 million to son of a golf professional killed by fallen tree', Sept. 6, 2024·Archived copy
- 2.Glenside Local, 'Philmont Country Club in Huntingdon Valley ordered to pay $9.1M to son of pro golfer who was killed by a tree', Sept. 2024·Archived copy
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