Fort Bend County Jury Returns $222 Million in Power-Plant Steam Death

In June 2018, a steam turbine at the Jeffrey Energy Center, a coal-fired power plant near St. Marys, Kansas, would not come up to full power. Jesse Henson, a repairman, and a co-worker rode an elevator up the structure to find the problem. When the doors opened on an upper floor, superheated steam that had escaped from a pressure relief valve engulfed both men.

Henson suffered severe burns across much of his body. He was airlifted to a burn unit and died the following day. The second repairman who went up with him also died. The valve that released the steam had been serviced by Team Industrial Services, a maintenance contractor headquartered in Sugar Land, Texas, that the plant had hired to rebuild components on its turbines.

Henson's widow, Kelli Most, brought a wrongful death case in the 268th District Court of Fort Bend County, Texas. She was represented by Jason Itkin and Cory Itkin of Arnold & Itkin. The plant was owned by Westar Energy, which now operates as Evergy. For three years, Team denied that its work had anything to do with the release.

At trial, the firm put forward records showing that Team had inspected and modified the relief valve, and that the company had reason to know the part was defective and likely to fail. The plaintiffs argued that the steam release traced directly to that work, and that a properly serviced valve would have held.

On June 2, 2021, the jury found Team 90 percent responsible for the deaths and Westar 10 percent responsible. It awarded $222 million, including $35 million for past loss of companionship and $40 million for future loss of companionship, along with damages for the pain Henson suffered before he died.

The judgment did not survive appeal. In May 2024, the Texas First Court of Appeals reversed it. The court held that the noneconomic damages were not supported by the evidence and had been driven by improper closing argument, and it found no basis in the record for fixing a fair figure through remittitur. The appeals court also agreed with Team that the case belonged in Kansas, where the plant stood and where Henson had lived, so it dismissed the suit on forum non conveniens grounds rather than ordering a new trial in Texas. Henson's family afterward refiled the claim in federal court in Kansas.