Warshafsky's $525,000 Settlement for a Rider Thrown by a Defective Saddle Stirrup

Ron Benda rode horses for pleasure from his farm in Sullivan, Indiana. He was also a middle school teacher and a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Reserves. On April 1, 2006, he bought a new high-end saddle from West 20 of Mukwonago, Wisconsin, a dealer that was selling its saddlery at a fair in Indianapolis. About eighteen months later he took it out to ride with his daughter and a friend at the Crawford County Forest Preserve, just across the Illinois line. As he galloped to catch up with his daughter, the right stirrup failed without warning. His foot punched straight through the bottom, and he hit the ground.

He lay hurt for several hours before a Flight for Life helicopter carried him to an Illinois hospital. The fall broke four ribs on his left side and fractured his sacrum. It also disrupted the sacroiliac joint, separated the pubic symphysis, and tore the urethra, an injury that left permanent harm. His medical bills came to roughly $98,000. Benda had hoped to make full colonel before retiring and to keep teaching for years, so his lawyers put the lost future earning capacity at about $212,000, which brought his claimed special damages to $310,000.

The stirrup looked like solid leather, but it was built over a hidden plastic form. Victor C. Harding of Warshafsky filed suit in Milwaukee County Circuit Court in July 2008 and worked back through the chain that produced it. West 20 had bought the saddle from Crates Leather Company of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Crates got its stirrups from Shirley Bethune of Rainsville, Alabama, who sewed leather covers over plastic forms. Bethune bought those forms from Tri-Tech Molded Products of McMinnville, Tennessee.

The forms were molded in an I-beam shape for strength. To hold the leather in place while she stitched it, Bethune drove staples through the bottom flat section straight into the spine of the I-beam. Once the cover was sewn on, the staples did nothing useful, and they stayed buried in the plastic. Harding's engineering expert, an emeritus civil engineering professor from UW-Madison, concluded that each staple started a crack. Over months of riding, those cracks spread into the flat sections until the stirrup could no longer carry a rider, which is what happened the day Benda fell.

The defendants pointed at each other. Tri-Tech argued that Bethune had misused its product by stapling into the form. Crates' expert blamed moisture in Tri-Tech's plastic for leaving the form brittle. Tri-Tech's own expert agreed the staple caused the fracture and said the stirrup would probably never have failed without it.

The case did not reach a jury. Shortly before mediation in 2010, the parties settled for $525,000. Tri-Tech's insurer paid $415,000, Crates' insurer paid $100,000, and West 20's insurer paid $10,000. Bethune carried no insurance. The Wisconsin Law Journal recorded the result in its 2010 year in review as a settlement, with no appeal and no reduction of the figure.