© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.
By Natalie Posgate
(Feb. 11) – A Houston jury on Wednesday awarded $53 million to the family of a construction worker from Irving who died in late 2013 while working on renovations for Texas A&M University’s football stadium, Kyle Field.
Angel Garcia, 28, passed away after sustaining fatal injuries on Dec. 3, 2013 from a heavy piece of concrete that dislodged on the machine Garcia was working on and catapulted him to a four-story fall.
Garcia worked for Irving-based Lindamood Demolition, a demolition and implosion company that assisted in removing concrete debris in the expansion of Kyle Field’s capacity to about 102,500 seats.
After five hours of deliberation, the jury put 25 percent of the blame of Garcia’s death on Lindamood Demolition and the remaining 75 percent liability on Manhattan-Vaughn JVP, which was the general contractor in charge of the renovation project.
“The verdict means everything for my clients,” said Houston attorney Jason A. Gibson, who represented Garcia’s mother, Josephina Garcia, as well as Mr. Garcia’s two children in the case. “They were happy and sad at the same time yesterday, they really didn’t know what to think. I’m still processing it myself.”
Gibson said the $53 million award covered pain and mental anguish, loss of companionship and loss of income suffered by Garcia’s family, which includes his two children, ages eight and nine.
Gibson said he rejected an offer by the defense to settle the case for $150,000 prior to the jury returning with its verdict of $53 million.
Houston attorney Wade Quinn, one of Manhattan-Vaughn’s attorneys, said in an email that his client will appeal the jury verdict.
“The Manhattan-Vaughn team takes safety seriously and Angel Garcia’s accident is heartbreaking,” said Quinn, a shareholder at Ramey, Chandler, Quinn & Zito. “Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the Garcia family.”
Michael A. Miller represented Lindamood Demolition. Miller said his client settled with the plaintiffs one week after the three-week trial began for close to $1 million. State law required jurors to still consider Lindamood’s percentage of liability even though it reached its settlement before the trial concluded, Miller said.
“The verdict in my opinion is misleading in that regard,” said Miller, founder of The Miller Law Firm in Dallas. “It gives the impression that we were down there defending Lindamood every day, which we weren’t.”
Had Lindamood finished the trial, Miller said he would have argued that Lindamood’s demolition plan met the industry standards and was executed a sweeping majority of the time without any incident. Miller also would have argued that Garcia was well-trained for the job.
Though the jury found Lindamood partially liable, Gibson said he believes Texas District Judge Larry Weiman will find Manhattan-Vaughn 100 percent liable during the post-trial proceedings.
Gibson said at the beginning of the case he considered adding A&M to the lawsuit, but decided against it after he read the two parties’ contract that assigned Manhattan-Vaughn with full responsibility of the project and learned A&M was not on the project site on a daily basis.
“Manhattan-Vaughn contractually held all responsibilities for all the contractors and employees,” said Gibson, founder of The Gibson Law Firm. “They were 100 percent responsible for the overall safety of the work-site, audits, equipment [and] the demolition plan.”
Manhattan-Vaughn is a domestic joint venture partnership that Houston-based Vaughn Construction and Tulsa-based Manhattan Construction Company formed specifically to become the general contractor of the Kyle Field project.
Gibson argued at trial that Manhattan-Vaughn’s negligence for taking proper safety procedures derived from the pressure it felt to finish the project before A&M’s first home game in the fall of 2015. A liquidation provision in A&M’s contract with Manhattan-Vaughn said that if the renovation was not finished on time, Manhattan-Vaughn would have been forced to pay $1.5 million per game, Gibson said.
“They had people working 24/7 around the clock. I think they felt panicked and rushed,” Gibson said. “They cut corners and as a result, safety was nonexistent and it allowed for [Garcia’s death] to happen.”
After Garcia’s accident, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration conducted an investigation that cited Lindamood Demolition for “willful” and “serious” safety violations and placed the company in OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program. Manhattan-Vaughn was not named in the investigation.
“Manhattan-Vaughn was rightfully not cited by OSHA in their accident investigation and will appeal the jury verdict,” Quinn said.
Jurors did not hear any evidence related to the OSHA investigation, Gibson said.
Gibson said the $53 million award did not include punitive damages and that he originally asked the jury to award around $40 million.
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