Electrician awarded $9.4 million after worker steps on his head

An electrician won a $9.4 million verdict from a St. Clair County jury last week after a construction worker stepped on the man’s head while climbing down a ladder during construction of the Prairie State Energy campus in 2010.

“The jury is the conscience of the community, and we are very grateful for their judgment,” said Tom Keefe, a Belleville lawyer who represented the injured electrician, Craig Spencer.

Spencer was injured in October 2010 when he was studying plans at the power plant in Lively Grove. Two employees of API Construction, who were hired to provide insulation, descended a ladder and stepped on Spencer’s head, knocking his hard hat off and injuring his neck. Neither of the two men reported the incident to their employer, Keefe said.

Attorneys for API Construction could not be reached for comment.

The jury awarded:

▪  $140, 318 for past medical expenses

▪  $803,000 for future medical expenses

▪  $1.5 million for lost wages and benefits

▪  $1 million for the loss of a normal life in the past

▪  $2 million for the loss of a normal life in the future

▪  $1 million for pain and suffering experience in the past

▪  $3 million for pain and suffering to be experienced in the future

Spencer sustained two ruptured discs in his neck. He underwent surgery to fuse two of the cervical vertebrae, Keefe said, but he continues to suffer pain. Spencer did physical therapy, acupuncture and surgery to correct the injury, but has yet to be able to return to work.

The lawsuit was filed in 2013. During the course of the lawsuit, Keefe requested documents related to the accident and the company’s safety and training policies.

The company maintained it did not have those documents, Keefe said, but Aug. 12, two days before the trial was set to begin, API’s lawyer stated they had more than 20,000 documents related to the case.

Keefe said he did not believe the omission of the documents was intentional, but it did change how he presented the case.

“I had prepared to try a completely different case,” Keefe said.

While API said they did not have certain documents related to safety and training, Keefe said the documents turned over on the eve of trial may have contained them.

“I was preparing to tell a jury that this wasn’t an accident, but an accident that was waiting to happen,” Keefe said.

From his trial preparation, Keefe said the accident was not reported to API, no drug test of the employees involved in the accident occurred and no investigation was conducted. Keefe, his son Tom Keefe III, and their assistant Debbie Eastridge, received and were reviewing about 1,700 pages of the 20,000 documents, Keefe said.

Spencer, now 55, worked as an electrician for 30 years, Keefe said. He worked for Bechtel as a general foreman at the Prairie State site.

“This goes to show you that safety is a paramount importance at these large job sites,” Keefe said.

In 2011, a St. Clair County judge stripped the makers of a ballistic shield of their defense in a lawsuit filed by former Belleville Police Officer Jon Brough.

The lawyers for Safariland, the makers of the ballistic shield, failed to turn over documents until the eve of trial to Keefe and Bruce Cook, who then represented Brough.

The case settled for an undisclosed amount.

Brough, a 22-year-police veteran, was shot in the face on Nov. 10, 2006 when he and other officers raided a home in Belleville in a search for double-homicide suspect Larry Sicka. Sicka shot Brough when the door was breached. The shot struck Brough in the face, disfiguring, blinding him and depriving him of sense of smell.

The insurance company sued Sandberg, Phoenix & Von Gontard, P.C. in federal court. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount.

This story was originally published August 22, 2016 at 3:34 PM with the headline "Electrician awarded $9.4 million after worker steps on his head."