$17.48 Million Verdict for Toolpusher Burned in Well Gas Fire
After trial: Reduced on appeal, with collection limited. The jury awarded $17,480,438.03 and the Louisiana Second Circuit amended the total to $17,130,468.03 on May 23, 2018.
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 full 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.
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