$6.5 Million Verdict for Army Private Killed by Energized Latrine at Fort Benning

On June 19, 2004, U.S. Army Private Van Ryan Marcum finished a training exercise on firing range Malone 14 at Fort Benning, Georgia. Exhausted, he sat down and leaned against the outer wall of a metal latrine that had been taken out of service and marked for demolition. The building was carrying live current. Private Marcum completed the circuit and was fatally electrocuted.

An investigation traced the hazard to overlapping failures inside the latrine: a short in the wiring to a fan had energized the metal shell, while a faulty circuit breaker and inadequate grounding and bonding left the building's exterior fully charged. The latrine had been abandoned rather than demolished, and its electrical system remained live and unaddressed.

The Shaw Group, Inc., a private contractor holding the Army's maintenance, repair, and demolition contract at Fort Benning, was sued by Private Marcum's estate in the Western District of Arkansas under diversity jurisdiction. The estate argued that Shaw had a contractual duty both to maintain the latrine safely until demolition and to complete that demolition on schedule. Both obligations had been ignored.

At trial, attorneys Will Bond, Samuel Ledbetter, and James McMath of McMath Woods, along with co-counsel S. Christopher Thomason, presented evidence that the electrocution risk was foreseeable. Prior work orders at other Fort Benning latrines documented electrical problems of the same type, placing Shaw on notice that abandoned structures with live wiring posed a danger to soldiers on the range.

The jury returned a $6.5 million verdict: $3 million for the loss of Private Marcum's life, $500,000 for conscious pain and suffering he experienced before death, and $1.5 million each to his father and mother for mental anguish. On special interrogatories, jurors assigned 75 percent of fault to the Army and 25 percent to Shaw, and judgment entered against Shaw for its proportionate share.

Shaw appealed, seeking judgment as a matter of law or, in the alternative, a new trial. The Eighth Circuit affirmed on February 26, 2008, upholding both the verdict and the fault apportionment, and published the opinion at 516 F.3d 1016.