They Sent the Crew Down With 8.4-Pound Fluid Where 10.5 Was Needed to Hold Back the Gas, and Never Wrote a Completion Plan.
After trial: Amended and rendered on appeal, with a collectability ceiling well below the judgment. The jury awarded Shephard $17,480,438.03; the Louisiana Second Circuit reduced the future lost wages component and rendered an amended total of $17,130,468.03 on May 23, 2018 (No. 51,965-CA, 249 So.3d 194), disposition affirmed in part, amended in part, rendered. AIX Energy was in Chapter 11 (In re AIX Energy, N.D. Tex. No. 15-34245) and the decree limits recovery from AIX to insurance proceeds, fixing St. Paul Fire & Marine's liability to Shephard at $7,983,886.74. On scope: the suit carried two injured workers and their spouses, and the opinion opens by describing a total of about $22.45 million to the two men, but the money judgments are itemized and rendered per plaintiff rather than pooled, so Shephard's award is one man's recovery and is recorded as individual.
Won by Scott Chafin Law.
AIX Energy ordered a workover cleanout on a Claiborne Parish well using completion fluid far too light to hold back the formation's gas pressure, and never wrote or circulated a completion plan to the crew. Gas broke out and ignited. Jeremy Shephard, the toolpusher, was burned over a third to half of his body.
What happened
AIX Energy owned and operated the Bud Meadors No. 3 well in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana. It ordered a workover cleanout on the well.
The job was run with a 2 percent KCl completion fluid weighing about 8.4 pounds per gallon. Holding back the gas pressure in the Smackover formation needed roughly 10.5 pounds per gallon. Fluid weight is what keeps a well from coming up at the people standing over it, and this fluid was two pounds per gallon too light.
AIX also never wrote or circulated a completion plan to the crew, so nobody on the rig floor had the document that would have told them what they were dealing with.
Gas broke out of the well and ignited. Jeremy Shephard was the toolpusher. He suffered second-degree burns over roughly a third to a half of his body, required facial reconstruction, and sustained a traumatic brain injury with seizures.
The jury allocated 97.5 percent of the fault to AIX, 2 percent to Bear Creek Services and 0.5 percent to an individual defendant, and awarded Shephard $17,480,438.03. On May 23, 2018 the Louisiana Second Circuit amended the future lost wages component and rendered an amended judgment of $17,130,468.03, affirming the rest.
There is a hard limit on what that judgment is worth, and it belongs in any honest account of the case. AIX Energy was in Chapter 11, and the decree caps recovery from AIX to insurance proceeds. The court fixed St. Paul Fire and Marine's liability to Shephard at $7,983,886.74. That is the collectible number.
Shephard was represented by Scott Chafin Jr. and Julie Payne Johnson, then of Gregorio, Chafin, Johnson, Poolson and Tabor in Shreveport and now practising as Scott Chafin Law, with Ward F. LaFleur and Richard J. Hymel of Mahtook and LaFleur as co-counsel.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Scott Chafin Law
All Scott Chafin Law proven verdicts →Lynda Palmer, 75, was working the night shift at the front desk of the Best Western Plus DeSoto Inn & Suites in Mansfield, Louisiana on April 12, 2021 when she was shot and killed in a robbery. The card reader that controlled entry to the hotel was broken, and although the surveillance cameras recorded the entire crime, nobody was monitoring them. On February 21, 2025 a DeSoto Parish jury awarded her two adult daughters $2,000,000 each and assessed 50 percent of the fault to the motel, leaving $2,000,000 cast to it.
Related workplace injury verdicts
After nearly 30 years of litigation, Markovits Stock and DeMarco secured a $742 million-plus-interest settlement for approximately 23,000 Navistar retirees whose healthcare and life insurance benefits had been repeatedly reduced.
Paul Napoli served as court-appointed co-liaison counsel for nearly 10,000 firefighters, police officers, and construction workers who developed respiratory diseases after working at Ground Zero, securing a settlement worth up to $712.5 million against the city and its contractors.
Sullivan Papain served as court-appointed co-liaison counsel in the World Trade Center Disaster Site Litigation, helping secure a settlement of more than $712 million for roughly 10,000 police officers, firefighters, and construction workers who developed serious respiratory and other illnesses after working in the toxic ruins of the World Trade Center.
Jose Valdivia, 25, was building scaffolding at the Phillips 66 refinery in Lake Charles when a co-worker above him lost his grip on a steel scaffold bar. It struck him on the head and spine through a hard hat and full protective equipment. He is in a wheelchair with limited speech. Brock never reported the accident to OSHA.