Appeals Court Upholds Summary Judgment for Defendants in Wrongful Death Case Arising from Industrial Accident

Phelps’ litigation team convinced a panel of judges at the North Carolina Court of Appeals to affirm a trial court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of all defendants on the plaintiff’s wrongful death claims.

The decision from the appeals court serves as a reminder that in negligence claims, the plaintiff must prove that an injury is reasonably foreseeable to result from the defendant's alleged negligence in order to show proximate cause.     

In this case, the plaintiff’s decedent, who was an employee of a subcontractor, and the defendants, who are maintenance workers at a major research university, were tasked with draining a mobile HVAC chiller unit to enable contractors to move the unit as part of a construction project.  The chiller had been disconnected from water and electricity, and it was assumed to be depressurized.  Below freezing temperatures in the area caused refrigerant tubes in the unit to freeze and crack, which led to a chain reaction that resulted in the unexpected pressurization of the unit. The plaintiff’s decedent failed to realize the unit was pressurized.  He and a coworker were attempting to remove a metal cap from an intake pipe on the unit when the cap blew off the pipe and struck him in the face and head.  He suffered catastrophic injuries that led to his death five days later.

The decedent’s estate alleged the defendants were negligent because they failed to use antifreeze when disconnecting and draining the chiller unit, and that such negligence led to the damage to the refrigerant tubes, the inadvertent pressurization of the unit and ultimately the decedent’s injuries and death.

Following extensive discovery spanning 16 months and expert and fact witness testimony, the appeals court agreed with Phelps that the plaintiff’s catastrophic injury could not have been a reasonably foreseeable result of the alleged negligence of the defendants.  Instead, the tragedy occurred through “an improbable chain of events that industry veterans had never seen before.” The appeals court found that the facts of the case entitled the defendants to summary judgment under North Carolina law.

In its decision, the appeals court found that the plaintiff had contributory negligence to his own injury and therefore cannot recover from the defendants. 

The Phelps team was led by Raleigh partners Patrick Meacham and Jonathan E. Hall.