Company has to pay $5.4M in worker’s death
November 18, 2010 by Fred HosierPosted in: Fatality, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, new court decision, Transportation safety, Workers' comp
PDF A Georgia court has ordered a trucking company to pay the heirs of a worker $5.4 million. The worker was killed when he was run over by a dump truck.
Mack Pitts was working as a spotter/flag-man for Archer-Western Contractors at the Atlanta International Airport.
On June 14, 2007, he was directing trucks that had lined up to dump their loads of dirt.
Sarah Okoro, a driver for A & G Trucking, positioned her truck to back up without waiting for a signal from Pitts.
Pitts used his flags to give Okoro a stop signal and then turned his attention to another driver. Okoro ignored the signal and began backing up.
Other trucks sounded their horns to let Okoro know that Pitts was behind her truck, but she responded with an obscene hand gesture and continued to back up.
By the time Pitts realized Okoro’s truck was coming toward him, it was too late. The truck struck him, and Pitts died from his injuries.
Pitts’ heirs sued A & G Trucking for negligence.
At trial, testimony established that Okoro violated several safety rules immediately before she struck Pitts, including:
- entering the area before being signaled to do so by a spotter
- failing to remain still after the spotter directed her to stop
- backing up without receiving a signal to do so by the spotter, and
- backing up without locating the spotter.
The trial court awarded Pitts’ heirs $5.4 million. The company appealed.
A & G argued that the trial court shouldn’t have allowed cross-examination of Okoro about her employment application.
Okoro had testified that she had no experience driving dump trucks before being employed by A & G.
However, an employment application entered into evidence stated she had previous experience.
Okoro said the application wasn’t in her handwriting.
The company later admitted that Okoro’s actual application was misplaced and that a manager filled out an application for her during a workers’ compensation audit.
An appeals court said the trial court did nothing wrong by allowing Okoro to be questioned about the application and affirmed the previous verdict. The company has again been ordered to pay $5.4 million.
(A & G Trucking v. Pitts, Court of Appeals of GA, No. A10A1096, 11/5/10.)
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Tags: A & G Trucking, trucking, worker death, workers' compensation audit
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November 18th, 2010 at 6:57 am
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December 6th, 2010 at 11:34 am
There are a couple of problems I have with this article. One-The suit was against both the company and Sarah (Sarah is not mentioned in the article as part of the suit) and Second (in doing a little research) Sarah had been working for the company for EIGHT years. I would think that she would have learned how to drive a truck in that time even if she’d not had any previous experience. I think in this case that while the company has some responsibility, Sarah has the most and should be brought up on criminal charges as well as civil. We need to stop blaming companies so much and start holding the people that screw up accountable.
March 1st, 2011 at 3:12 pm
I agree with you, Mike, Sarah definitely needs to be brought up on charges, but clearly, there would be no way for her to compensate the family for their loss. The company probably holds insurance for these kinds of things, and if they don’t, maybe they should consider it.