The plaintiff in a wrongful death suit stemming from the 2019 electrocution of a worker at a West Texas midstream energy plant is seeking “Kardashian cash” – and may not be entitled to a penny, because she was the electrician’s girlfriend, not his common-law wife – lawyers for the plant told a Dallas County jury Monday.
The comments came in closing arguments in an 11-day trial in a suit filed by Maria de los Angeles Rodriguez, identified in the complaint as the widow of 44-year-old electrician Gabriel Vela, who was killed May 4, 2019, while working in the motor control center of the Lobo III midstream gas facility in Luling County.
Jurors in the court of state District Judge Monica McCoy Purdy deliberated through the afternoon without reaching a verdict. They are to resume their deliberations Tuesday morning.
McAllen trial lawyer Ray Thomas, Rodriguez’s lawyer, and Michael K. Hurst of Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann, representing Vela’s aged, ailing parents, said their clients are entitled to collective damages, including exemplary damages, in the range of $100 million because plant officials and the electrical contracting company that employed Vela were grossly negligent in allowing Vela to work unsupervised on a live electrical cabinet that was, according to a work order, supposed to have been “cold,” or de-energized.
“That work permit turned out to be Gabriel’s death warrant,” Thomas said, adding that in 34 years of practice, “I’ve never seen a case of gross negligence like this.”
The plant, in Mentone, Texas, is operated by EnLink Midstream of Dallas and owned by Delaware G&P, an EnLink subsidiary. Their principal lawyer in the case is J.J. Knauff of the Miller Knauff Law Firm of Dallas.
Knauff said his clients “did nothing wrong” and called the plaintiff attorneys’ suggestion of a $100 million verdict, including punitive damages, “a circus of silliness,” a “lawsuit land narrative,” “funny money numbers” and “Kardashian cash,” that would guarantee Vela’s survivors a “champagne and caviar lifestyle that they have never had.”
A co-defendant, OGT, the contractor that employed Vela, is principally represented by Jim Grau, managing partner of Grau Law in Dallas.
A fourth defendant, Applied Consultants Inc., the on-site safety representative hired by EnLink to oversee a 2019 expansion of the Lobo III natural gas plant, settled with Vela’s family during trial for $2 million, according to statements in open court.
Grau called OGT “an award-winning company” and said Vela was “a very, very experienced electrician” with 25 years’ experience who should have known the electrical cabinet he was working on was energized, in part because there’d been an “arc flash” in the cabinet the day before he was electrocuted – an event the electrician was warned about at least three times.
Defense lawyers contended during the trial that Vela caused his own death by doing work beyond what he was authorized to do and by improperly removing isolation barriers, or safety shields, in the electrical cabinet, thereby exposing live conductors.
“We do think that he was negligent. … I don’t like telling you that, but that’s what the facts are,” Grau said in his closing argument.
Tamara L. Rodriguez, a partner with Vidaurri, Rodriguez & Reyna in Edinburgh and, along with Knauff, one of EnLink’s defense attorneys, said employment records, income tax forms and other evidence cast doubt on Maria Rodriguez’s claim that she and Vela had a common-law marriage.
“Just because they lived together does not mean they were husband and wife,” she said, adding, “I think she’s lying to you” because a “girlfriend” is entitled to nothing in a wrongful death case.
“She doesn’t need private jets, fancy cars,” the attorney said. “That’s what $70 million [Maria Rodriguez’s share of the suggested $100 million verdict] buys you.”
Hurst played for the jury an excerpt of the videotaped deposition of Vela’s father, Jose Vela, in which the father sobbed uncontrollably when asked to describe his relationship with Gabriel and the effect on his life of his son’s death.
“He was my son,” Jose Vela said, speaking in Spanish. “It hurt me a lot.”
“No one should have to bury his child,” Hurst told the jurors.
He said EnLink’s “lip-service safety culture resulted in a man’s death,” adding, “all these defendants listen to and know is money. … It is not OK to cut corners. … If you say it loud enough, maybe they’ll listen.”