$3.8 Million Verdict for Electronics Technician Left With Disabling Tinnitus After Electrical Explosion at Chip Mill

On January 25, 2010, Verl Lee traveled to a chip mill in Oakville, Washington, to repair a malfunctioning Variable Frequency Drive. Lee was an electronics technician employed by Advanced Electrical Technologies of Longview. When he arrived, Daniel Fletcher, an employee of the mill's owner Willis Enterprises, was assigned to escort him.

Lee was standing inside the cabinet housing the drive -- a live industrial unit carrying hundreds of volts, many times the voltage of a standard household outlet -- when Fletcher, without saying a word, suggested he could get the fans turning and struck the drive with a screwdriver while the power was still on. The impact caused a short circuit and triggered an explosion. The flash was bright enough to temporarily blind Fletcher. Lee, positioned directly inside the cabinet, bore the full force of the blast's concussive shock waves.

The explosion permanently damaged Lee's hearing. He developed hyperacusis, an abnormal and often painful sensitivity to ordinary sounds, along with severe tinnitus that required him to wear a specialized headphone device to manage day-to-day. Dr. William Martin, one of the nation's leading tinnitus researchers, evaluated Lee and placed him in the top one to two percent of all people he had assessed for severity of the condition. Lee's wife, Marsha, brought a separate loss-of-consortium claim for the effect the injuries had on their marriage and family life.

Ray Kahler of Stritmatter Kessler Whelan, working alongside Craig Weston of Reitsch, Weston and Blondin, brought the case to trial in Grays Harbor County Superior Court. The central issue was Fletcher's decision to strike a component he knew was energized without first warning the technician standing inside the cabinet.

The jury found Fletcher negligent and assigned 90 percent of the fault to him and Willis Enterprises. Verl Lee was found 10 percent at fault. The total jury award came to $4.3 million -- including $2.25 million for Verl Lee's noneconomic damages and $414,000 for Marsha Lee's loss-of-consortium claim. After the comparative-fault reduction, the net award was $3.8 million. The verdict was announced March 6, 2014.