An East Baton Rouge jury has returned a unanimous $411 million verdict in a personal injury case, the largest in Louisiana history for a single plaintiff.
The February 28 verdict was against Brock Services, one of the world’s largest scaffolding companies. The total verdict was $411,687,387.36.
In August 2022, Texas worker Jose Valdivia was working on scaffolding at Phillips 66’s refinery in Lake Charles when a 20-pound metal bar struck him from above. A coworker had caused the bar to fall.
Despite wearing a hard hat and appropriate personal protective equipment, the impact caused serious spine and brain injuries for Valdivia. He was left barely able to speak and is confined to a wheelchair.
Valdivia’s attorneys at Arnold & Itkin said the impact the injuries had on Valdivia’s family is impossible to measure.
“With his $40,000 annual wage, Jose had been providing for his family and was putting one of his sisters through college,” the firm said in a social media post. “After Jose’s injury, his sister dropped out of college as the whole family rearranged their lives to take care of him.”
The lawyers said Brock Services tried to sweep the incident under the rug.
“While Jose was dealing with permanent paralysis and getting treatment, Brock refused to report the incident,” the post stated. “Arnold & Itkin spent nearly two years litigating the case to get Brock Services to take responsibility for the enormous financial and medical losses Jose and his family suffered.”
During the weeklong trial, Brock Services claimed Valdivia was faking his injuries and lied about the incident, according to the plaintiff’s attorneys, who said they argued the accident was a result of unsafe work planning, unsafe practices and lack of supervision.
“We argued that Brock Services was responsible for the accident, so it was responsible for Jose’s physical pain and suffering, mental pain, anguish, distress, loss of enjoyment, impairment, loss of earnings, medical expenses, and all other losses related to the accident,” the firm stated. “In the end, the jury saw through the defendant’s evasion and excuses.”
One of the attorneys praised the jurors, who returned the verdict in less than two hours.
“I am grateful for the jury’s courage standing up to a very large company like Brock and telling Brock its conduct was unacceptable,” said Roland Christensen of Arnold & Itkin. “Without jury trials like this one, those who do the hardest and most dangerous work go unprotected.
“My hope is that this verdict will cause serious change in the scaffold industry to actually put safety first.
“Our client had a heavy scaffolding bar dropped on his head. It resulted in a brain injury and spinal cord injury, confining him to a wheelchair. After litigating the case for nearly two years, Brock never took responsibility. We are happy this verdict will hold Brock accountable for harming our client.”
Assisting Christensen with the case were Alec Paradowski and Jonathan Mack of Arnold & Itkin as well as Tony Clayton, Michael Fruge and Brilliant Clayton of Clayton Fruge Ward.
19th Judicial District for the Parish of East Baton Rouge case number C-731101