Media Continues Coverage Of M&S $6.9M Trial Victory Due To Public Safety Issues

Originally published by Morrow Sheppard.

South TX Jury Slaps $6.9M on CenterPoint, Westwind in Gas Leak Case © 2017 The Texas Lawbook. By Natalie Posgate (Nov. 1) – A Laredo jury last Wednesday awarded nearly $7 million to a local elderly man and his family for a 2015 house gas explosion that left him with severe, lifelong injuries and put him out of work forever as a mechanic. Jurors determined after a two-week trial that Houston-based CenterPoint Energy, the natural gas provider, and Laredo-based Westwind Homes, the homebuilder, were responsible for the accident after failing multiple times to cap and seal a gas valve in the house. The incident occurred in February 2015, when Fernando Ramirez was repairing an electric dryer in the utility room of his daughter and son-in-law’s house. Ramirez and his wife, Minerva, were at the house babysitting their granddaughter while their daughter and son-in-law were out of town. They had asked Mr. Ramirez to take a look at the dryer while he was there. The gas valve was located directly behind the dryer, and gas began to leak after Ramirez, who “didn’t even know the valve was there,” inadvertently knocked it open while attempting to repair the dryer, said John Sheppard, who represented the family at trial. “There was a huge explosion that the neighbors described sounded like a sonic boom,” said Sheppard, founding partner of Morrow & Sheppard in Houston. “It moved the house off its foundation and had to be totally rebuilt.” Many of Ramirez’s injuries, on the other hand, cannot be reversed. Sheppard says […]

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