West Penn Power Faces a $109 Million Verdict in a Fatal Backyard Electrocution

On June 2, 2009, Carrie Goretzka walked into her backyard in Hempfield Township, Pennsylvania, to call West Penn Power. A line over her property was arcing in the trees and had again cut power to the house. As she dialed, a 7,200-volt conductor broke loose and fell on her. She was 39. Her two young daughters and her mother-in-law watched as the live wire burned her, and the family could do nothing but wait for crews to shut off the power. Goretzka suffered burns across most of her body. Doctors amputated her arm trying to save her. She died three days later.

Shanin Specter of Kline & Specter tried the case for her husband, Michael Goretzka, who sued as administrator of her estate. The firm traced the failure to the splice that joined the conductor running over the yard. West Penn Power crews had spliced the line without first cleaning the wire with a brush, a step the manufacturer's instructions required. Skipping it let the connection corrode, overheat, and eventually let go. Evidence showed the line over the property had fallen before, and the utility had not corrected the underlying defect. The firm presented the death not as a freak accident but as the result of preventable, repeated negligence in maintaining the line.

In December 2012, an Allegheny County jury returned $109 million, consisting of $48 million in compensatory damages and $61 million in punitive damages. It stood as the largest contested-liability personal-injury verdict in Pennsylvania history at the time. West Penn Power appealed. In February 2013, the company dropped that appeal and paid a reported $105 million to close the case. The two numbers are distinct: the jury awarded $109 million, and the post-verdict settlement was reported at $105 million.

The case carried consequences beyond the payment. The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission penalized West Penn Power and required it to retrain its linemen on proper splicing and to inspect existing splices for the same defect. As part of that enforcement action, the utility paid an $86,000 fine.