$40 Million After a 6-Year-Old Drowned When His Arm Was Trapped in a Backyard Pool Drain Built Without Required Safety Devices
After trial: The $40 million is the sum of five separately negotiated settlements with nine defendants, completed by May 2013, as itemised by Pool & Spa News and Aquatics International citing the Connecticut Law Tribune. The Town of Greenwich's $10 million share was a public municipal payment. The proceeds went to the family's foundation, which is why we treat the amount as paid. Only Ernie Teitell is independently documented as the family's counsel; the firm also credits Peter Dreyer, but no independent source names him.
Won by Silver Golub & Teitell LLP.
On July 26, 2007, a 6-year-old boy drowned in his family's backyard pool in Greenwich when his arm was sucked into a wall drain feeding a spillover spa. Connecticut had required dual drains and a vacuum-release device since 2004, a year before the pool was permitted, and the builder had installed neither. The pool company's president pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide in 2011, the first such prosecution of a pool builder in the country. By May 2013 the parents, Brian and Karen Cohn, had settled with all nine defendants for a combined $40 million, all of it directed to the water-safety foundation they created in their son's name.
What happened
On July 26, 2007, Brian and Karen Cohn's 6-year-old son was playing in the family's in-ground pool in Greenwich, Connecticut. The pool had a spillover spa fed by a wall drain, and the suction at that drain was strong enough that when the boy's arm slipped into it, he could not pull free. His father and another adult tried to pull him out and could not overcome the pull of the pump. He drowned.
Connecticut had changed its pool code in 2004. New pools were required to have dual main drains, which split the suction so that no single opening can hold a body, and a safety vacuum release system that shuts the pump off when it senses a blockage. The Cohns' pool was permitted in 2005 and built by Shoreline Pools of Stamford. It had neither device. Prosecutors later said Shoreline's president, David Lionetti, knew about the code changes through industry alerts, and that pool experts agreed the drowning would not have happened with entrapment protection in place.
In January 2008 the Cohns filed a wrongful death suit in Stamford Superior Court. Over time the case came to name nine defendants: Shoreline Pools and its service company; Hayward Industries, which made the pump and the drain cover; A.O. Smith, which made the pump motor; the distributor Baystate Pool Supplies; the engineering firm S.E. Minor & Co.; the property developer Aberdeen Properties; and the Town of Greenwich, which had inspected and permitted the pool.
The state also brought a criminal case, the first known prosecution of a pool builder for a drowning in a pool he built. Lionetti was charged with second-degree manslaughter in July 2008. On April 13, 2011, in Stamford Superior Court, he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of criminally negligent homicide and entered a guilty plea on behalf of Shoreline Pools to second-degree manslaughter, a felony. He received a suspended one-year sentence and three years of probation, and the company handed over a $150,000 check in court to the foundation the Cohns had started. Ernie Teitell of Silver Golub & Teitell, the family's lawyer, read the Cohns' statement to the court.
The civil defendants settled one by one. Shoreline paid $11 million. Hayward and A.O. Smith resolved the product liability claims against the drain cover and pump for a combined $15 million after mediation in Massachusetts. S.E. Minor and Aberdeen Properties paid $2 million each. The Town of Greenwich was the last to settle, for $10 million. The Connecticut Law Tribune reported the completed $40 million total in May 2013, and the Cohns directed the entire sum to their foundation, which teaches children to swim and campaigns for drain safety.
The number here is an aggregate of separate settlements with separate defendants, but every dollar of it compensated one family for one death, so it is treated as a single result.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Pool & Spa News, May 2013: the $40 million total, the per-defendant breakdown, the nine defendants named in the 2008 suit, the Massachusetts mediation, proceeds to the family's foundation
- 2.Aquatics International (Rebecca Robledo), May 16, 2013, republished by Lifesaving Resources: the same breakdown, the 2004 dual-drain and vacuum-release requirement, the 2005 pool permit, and the criminal sentence
- 3.Connecticut Post, April 13, 2011: Lionetti's guilty plea to criminally negligent homicide, the company's plea to second-degree manslaughter, the suspended sentence, the $150,000 check, the prosecutor's account of the missing safety devices, and Ernie Teitell reading the Cohn family's statement as their attorney
- 4.ABC News, July 21, 2008: the July 26, 2007 drowning, the failed rescue by the father, the manslaughter charge, and the civil suit filed in January 2008 in Stamford Superior Court by Brian and Karen Cohn against the town, Shoreline Pools and others
- 5.NBC Connecticut, April 2011: the first case nationwide in which a pool company executive was criminally charged in a drowning
- 6.Silver Golub & Teitell LLP (firm)
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