A Texas man was awarded more than $1 million after his nearly three-year legal battle with an insurance defense law firm, according to court documents.
The case, tried by Texas firm Hutchison & Stoy, PLLC, centered around a 2016 incident at CFW in Gainesville, Texas.
At the time of the incident, Phil, the employee who filed the lawsuit, worked as a shipping supervisor for CFW. According to case information, he was asked to evaluate what was wrong with a door when a driver from another company came to pick up church chairs that were supposed to be delivered to customers.
The CFW worker stepped into the area where an overhead door fell on him, causing him to suffer several major injuries. His injuries included anxiety, paranoia and brain injury, which the worker was said to have experienced for a minimum of three months after the accident, causing him to miss nearly three months of work.
“For days on end, Phil would lock himself in his room or garage and refuse to interact with his wife and son,” court documents said.
A neuropsychologist said the worker suffered from permanent impairment. In light of the worker’s mental and physical dispositions, the law firm used unique methods such as reenactments, role reversals, listening exercises and chair backs in the discovery phase to determine the worker’s account of the incident.
Fortunately for Phil, his employer, CFW, was said to be empathetic and green-lighted his stay on the staff despite his missed work days.
As for the defense lawyers, word is they were not fully convinced that the worker was truly injured. In fact, they paid more than $50,000 in hopes of proving the employee’s injuries were not a result of the accident at work, and that the incident itself was a result of CFW's and the worker’s alleged negligence.
“Phil will never be the same person he was before the incident,” court documents said. “No amount of money would ever truly compensate Phil for what he went through. But, the jury’s award validated Phil’s harms and losses. It allowed him to move on with his life.”
The trial ran for a week, and a jury awarded the worker $1,134,000 for past and future physical pain, past and future mental anguish, past impairment, past and future meds and future loss of earnings.