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Adam Dearmon -
Glen W. Morgan -
CALCASIEU refinery on fire
Glen W. Morgan and Taylor W. Miller of the Reaud, Morgan & Quinn law firm in Beaumont, reached a settlement of $104,950,000 – one of the largest settlements for a single wrongful death case ever recorded. The Honorable Judge Baylor Wortham entered the settlement into the records of the 136th District Court on Feb. 17. The settlement resolved the case against four of the defendants and leaves one defendant that has not yet settled.
Sept. 17, 2020, started as a typical Thursday for 22-year-old Adam Dearmon, the single father of a 4-year-old daughter. Dearmon was a technician working at Calcasieu Refining Company (CALCASIEU) facility in Lake Charles, Louisiana. That day ended with a preventable tragedy for which CALCASIEU and others have agreed to pay over $100 million in damages. According to Morgan, who represents Dearmon’s family, such a voluntary pre-trial settlement is unprecedented, and reflects both the severity of Dearmon’s injuries and the egregious workplace safety culture that existed at CALCASIEU.
Securely attached by a safety lanyard, Dearmon was working to clean hydrocarbons that were leaking out of a stack tower that CALCASIEU was rushing to get back into operation, allegedly to try to take advantage of the increase in prices after Hurricane Laura had passed through the Gulf Coast. At the same time, a worker using a side-grinder above him started to throw off fiery sparks, and suddenly Dearmon and his work surface were set ablaze.
According to Morgan, witness testimony revealed that Dearmon tried to escape the flames, but there was nowhere to go.
“Dearmon was trapped in the blaze until it burned through his safety lanyard. Blinded by flames and in excruciating pain, Dearmon fell from the scaffolding approximately 80 feet in the air, striking a hand rail on a catwalk below which added blunt-force head injuries and broken bones to the burns covering 80% of Dearmon’s body,” Morgan said. “Dearmon suffered for another six hours before finally succumbing to his injuries, as his parents stood by his bedside holding his burned hands.”
CALCASIEU was cited by OSHA with a serious violation and fined $12,288.
Morgan stated that, “Every family expects their loved ones to return home from work in the same condition in which they left that morning. If CALCASIEU and the other contractors had done their jobs, Dearmon would still be here. But, tragically, we still see these sorts of incidents happening all too often in Southeast Texas and the surrounding areas.”
Morgan recounted his own life experience, in which his ironworker father suffered an on-the-job head injury that caused both physical hindrances on his dad and financial hardship on the family.
“I want to help people . . . and to keep these types of things from happening,” he said. “ I have dedicated my career to being the voice of working men and women in my 44 years as a lawyer with Reaud, Morgan & Quinn.”
According to Morgan, the lawsuit and the evidence revealed in the pre-trial discovery have already led to positive changes – one contractor has instituted a complete redesign of their safety training program, and CALCASIEU has created a “stop work” protocol that allows anyone who suspects unsafe conditions to initiate an immediate stoppage of work to investigate the concern.
With one last contractor still in settlement negotiations, the total settlement of $104,950,000 will increase – but the future lives saved as a result of the lawsuit and settlement are worth so much more, Morgan said.