Jurors in Harris County this week awarded the family of a man who was killed at a construction site a total of $640 million, most of which came in the form of a whopping $480 million assessment of punitive damages against Houston-based TNT Crane & Rigging.
David Lester Loree II was killed in September 2021 at a job site during construction of the College of Business and Library building on the Texas A&M University-San Antonio campus, according to the lawsuit. Loree, a journeyman pipefitter, was part of a crew working to install HVAC units on the fourth floor of the building at the time of the incident.
It was windy on the day the HVAC units were being lifted to the fourth floor of the building, according to the lawsuit, with gusts as high as 45 miles per hour. Lift jobs like that are supposed to be called off when wind speeds exceed 25 miles per hour, the lawsuit alleges.
“The wind blew the unstable, top-heavy unit over when the crane operator cabled up the unsecured load,” the suit alleges. “David Loree was crushed. He suffered terribly… His death was not immediate.”
The Loree family — David’s wife and two children — filed suit in October 2021 against a handful of defendants, including his employer Way Engineering, McCorvey Sheet Metal Works and Byrne Construction Services. But the trial went forward only against TNT Crane & Rigging.
The trial was bifurcated, and in a May 13 emergency motion for a mistrial, dismissal of the punitive damages phase of trial and sanctions against plaintiffs counsel, TNT Crane & Rigging’s attorneys argued Tony Buzbee’s social media posts, made after phase one was completed, were “inappropriate” and “egregious.”
TNT told the court it was seeking those remedies “based on plaintiffs’ counsel’s flagrant, calculated and unethical campaign to undermine the integrity of this bifurcated trial, including disclosures of confidential settlement communications in violation of Texas Rules of Evidence, Court Orders and ethical obligations.”
“Not only is this conduct inappropriate — it is an egregious and calculated assault of the fairness of the proceedings, warranting immediate intervention by this court,” the 22-page motion reads.
The jury found TNT Crane & Rigging liable on May 12 and awarded the family $159.8 million in compensatory damages. That verdict form was certified at 3:57 p.m. and minutes later, TNT’s lawyers told the court, Buzbee began making the objectionable posts on Instagram.
“Then, violating the very bedrock principle of our civil litigation system, plaintiffs’ counsel purposefully disclosed specific settlement offer terms in viral public posts, including the last offer made by defendants … By direct example, the following public social media post was made in and around 4:24 p.m. on May 12, 2025, whereby plaintiffs’ counsel writes ‘pre-trial the crane company ultimately offered David’s family $6.9 million to settle the case. I said no and pressed forward,’” the motion reads.
TNT Crane & Rigging argued the posts were inflammatory and could be potentially viewed by the empaneled jury still tasked with deciding the issue of punitive damages in the case. The defense argued that the public disclosure of the details of settlement negotiations merited sanctions against Buzbee.
Harris County District Judge Erica R. Hughes presided over the case and denied TNT Crane & Rigging’s motion on May 14. According to an order she entered April 24, the parties agreed to increase juror pay to $200 per juror per day.
The company issued a statement to The Lawbook on Thursday that it is “evaluating its options going forward.”
“We firmly believe this verdict is not supported by the facts presented in this case and it does not represent TNT Crane & Rigging’s long-standing and well-established culture of safety and putting people first,” the statement reads. “These values are deeply rooted in our culture and reinforced daily through our actions and words. Since its founding decades ago, TNT has not been found responsible for any other fatal incident on any of its job sites across North America. Additionally, neither OSHA nor any other federal or state agency cited TNT for any responsibility in this incident.”
The Loree family is represented by Tony Buzbee, David L. Bergen, Ryan S. Pigg, and Thomas C. Holler of The Buzbee Law Firm and Jackson R. Reed and Travis B. Terry of Reed & Terry.
TNT is represented by Susan Noe Wilson and Marilyn Vilandos of Schouest, Bamdas, Soshea, BenMaier & Eastham and John H. Kim, Denise Kim and David McDougald of The Kim Law Firm.
The case number is 2021-68047.