Philadelphia Jury Puts 95 Percent of a $5.05 Million Verdict on the Employers Who Sent an Intoxicated Temp Worker Home Behind the Wheel
Robert Wilson, a temporary laborer placed by PeopleReady at an I.T. Landes and Son job site, showed up visibly under the influence of drugs and was told by his supervisor to leave. Driving home, he hit a parked car and pushed it onto Daniel Dwyer, pinning and crushing Dwyer's legs. A Philadelphia jury found on June 1, 2023 that Wilson was acting within the scope of his employment and that the two employers, which had substance-abuse policies they never gave him, bore 95 percent of the fault. The verdict was $5,053,946.
What happened
The crash happened on a summer morning in the East Falls section of Philadelphia. Robert Wilson had reported to a work site run by I.T. Landes and Son Inc., a mechanical contractor, through the temporary staffing agency PeopleReady Inc. According to the pretrial memos summarized by The Legal Intelligencer, Wilson was visibly intoxicated, under the influence of drugs, and his supervisor's response was to direct him to leave. Wilson got into his vehicle to drive home. He struck a parked car and shoved it into Daniel Dwyer, who was pinned between the vehicles. It took rescuers about half an hour to free him.
Dwyer's legs were crushed. According to his lawyers, he was left unable to return to work in the trades, needs help walking, lives with chronic pain and a visibly deformed leg, faces further surgery, and has been treated for depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress. Wilson later pleaded guilty to criminal charges arising from the crash.
Dwyer sued Wilson, I.T. Landes, and PeopleReady in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas. The two companies argued that Wilson alone was responsible. Wilson, for his part, claimed he had swerved to avoid an oncoming vehicle. Both employers maintained written substance-abuse policies, but the plaintiff's evidence showed Wilson had never received them. At trial, when PeopleReady asserted that Wilson could have found its policy on the company website, the witness was asked to locate it in court and could not.
The plaintiff's theory, argued by Kevin O'Brien of Stampone O'Brien Dilsheimer with co-counsel Andrea Sasso and Kristin Buddle, was that Wilson would not have been on the road at all had he not been following his employers' instructions, and that a large company which commits on paper to worker safety has to enforce those commitments rather than blame a single laborer. O'Brien said the jury read the employers' defense as hanging Wilson out to dry.
After trial before Judge Kenneth Powell, the jury returned its verdict on Thursday, June 1, 2023. It found all three defendants negligent and found that Wilson was acting within the scope of his employment when he drove away from the site. It apportioned fault 70 percent to I.T. Landes, 25 percent to PeopleReady, and only 5 percent to Wilson. The award, reported by TopVerdict at $5,053,946, consisted of roughly $3 million for medical expenses and lost wages and roughly $2 million in noneconomic damages. I.T. Landes was defended by Rawle and Henderson, PeopleReady by Margolis Edelstein, and Wilson by Curry, Roby and Mulvey.
The firm has since described the total recovery in the matter as $6.3 million, which it says includes settlements reached with other defendants before trial. We found no appeal to the Pennsylvania Superior Court and no report of post-trial reduction, so the $5,053,946 verdict is ranked as the amount that stood.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.The Legal Intelligencer, June 2, 2023: $5 million verdict returned Thursday (June 1, 2023) before Judge Kenneth Powell in Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas; Wilson driving home from a worksite under the influence of drugs pushed a parked car onto Daniel Dwyer, pinning his leg; supervisor directed him to leave; employers' substance policies never provided to him; fault split 70/25/5; about $3 million economic and $2 million noneconomic; Wilson pleaded guilty to criminal charges; plaintiff counsel Kevin O'Brien, Andrea Sasso, Kristin Buddle; defense counsel
- 2.TopVerdict.com, Top 20 Verdicts in Pennsylvania in 2023: Dwyer v. Wilson, et al., $5,053,946, motor vehicle accident, impaired driving; plaintiff counsel Kevin P. O'Brien, Andrea M. Sasso, Kristin Buddle of Stampone O'Brien Dilsheimer Law PC
- 3.Stampone, O'Brien, Dilsheimer, Holloway (firm)
More proven verdicts from Stampone, O'Brien, Dilsheimer, Holloway
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Related car accident verdicts
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