Oil Field Death Case
Sep 01, 2009OUTCOME: Settlement - $4,500,000
Sullo & Sullo and Co-counsel settled a wrongful death case for in excess of $4.5 million in Liberty County, Texas. The settlement is one of the largest on record in the County. We represented a 36 ... year old widow, her three children and the estate of her 38 year old husband who was crushed to death when a forklift driver dropped thousands of pounds of oil field pipe on top of him. We filed suit against both the company operating the forklift (Shamrock Equipment Rental) and the premises owner who was supervising the activities at the time of the incident (Quail Creek Oil Corp.). Within days of being hired, we began locating and visiting the witnesses in person. Unbeknownst to the defendants, we discovered crucial facts, including the following: • that Shamrock sent an employee who it knew had no training, experience or qualifications to operate a forklift; • that while our client lay on the ground fighting for his life, Shamrock backdated a certification card to make it appear as though it had trained and certified its employee to operate the forklift; • that Quail Creek knew Shamrock’s employee was a truck driver and not a forklift operator, yet said nothing to warn our client. After we filed the lawsuit, we continued to gather evidence of the defendants’ wrongful conduct. We obtained a Court order that required Shamrock to produce historical records of when and to whom it had supplied forklift operators and we uncovered evidence that showed it had been routinely sending uncertified and untrained forklift operators into the Liberty County area for years. Armed with these key pieces of evidence, we were able to force the defendants to promptly pay more than 5 times the amount of economic damages and to do so before our clients were required to give any testimony about the loss of their loved one.