Quadriplegic Yacht Passenger's $25 Million Settlement With Brunswick Reinstated and Affirmed on Appeal
After trial: The trial court rescinded the settlement in January 2016, and a successor judge reinstated it and entered final judgment on February 15, 2017. The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed on November 27, 2017.
Won by Schwartz Jambois.
Scot Vandenberg fell from the upper deck of a Brunswick-built yacht and was left quadriplegic. Brunswick's insurer offered $25 million during jury deliberations in June 2015, and the plaintiffs accepted. A trial judge first rescinded the settlement, but a successor judge reinstated it and entered a $25 million final judgment on February 15, 2017. The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed in November 2017.
What happened
Scot Vandenberg was hosting a party aboard a yacht when he fell from its upper deck and broke his neck. The injury left him quadriplegic. The boat had been built by Brunswick Corporation and was owned and chartered by RQM, LLC. In 2010, Vandenberg and his wife, Patricia, sued both companies in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, alleging negligence and strict liability. Their claims were that the deck had no railings or equivalent protection along its edge, that nothing kept guests out of the unprotected areas, and that no one warned of the danger.
The Vandenbergs settled with RQM and took the case against Brunswick to a jury before Judge Elizabeth Budzinski. On June 9, 2015, closing arguments were made. Before they began, Brunswick's insurer, AIG, authorized an unconditional $25 million offer. It reached the plaintiffs while the jury was deliberating, and the Vandenbergs told their trial lawyer at 3:40 p.m. that they would accept it.
The case then turned on a jury note. At about 3:50 p.m. the jurors asked whether they could find fault with RQM without finding fault with Brunswick. The note's contents reached plaintiffs' trial counsel before they reached the defense, and the lawyer accepted the offer by phone at 4:03 p.m. The settlement went on the record at about 4:50 p.m., after both sides had seen the note. Brunswick's lawyers asked that the jury keep deliberating, and at about 5 p.m. it returned a verdict for Brunswick.
Brunswick moved to undo the settlement, arguing fraud and mistake. After an evidentiary hearing, Judge Daniel Lynch rescinded it in January 2016 and later entered judgment for Brunswick on the verdict. The Vandenbergs then changed lawyers, hiring Power Rogers & Smith together with John B. Kralovec and Joseph Conboy of Kralovec, Jambois & Schwartz. Judge Lynch stepped aside after the new counsel challenged his impartiality, and the case went to Judge James O'Hara. In October 2016 the plaintiffs asked him to vacate the earlier rulings and enforce the settlement.
Judge O'Hara found that the settlement had been entered on the record only after every party knew the contents of the note and when it arrived. Brunswick's counsel had not objected at that point. He vacated the judgment for Brunswick and reinstated the settlement in December 2016, and on February 15, 2017 he entered final judgment for the Vandenbergs for $25 million.
Brunswick appealed. On November 27, 2017, the Illinois Appellate Court, First District, affirmed in Vandenberg v. Brunswick Corp., 2017 IL App (1st) 170181. The panel held that Brunswick had not shown the fiduciary relationship that fraudulent concealment requires, and it upheld the reinstatement of the agreement the parties reached in 2015. In a 2020 opinion on the fee dispute that followed, where the same counsel appeared for the Vandenbergs, the appellate court noted that the couple had already received their share of the settlement funds.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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