BENTON – U.S. District Judge Staci Yandle awarded $5,051,471.24 to former barge deckhand Kevin Beam of Randolph County on Nov. 8, for injuries he suffered when a cable hit him.
More than a third of the amount covered past and future medical expenses.
Yandle flunked defendant Watco’s experts and challenged the credibility of one who testified that a crucial word appeared in his report by mistake.
Beam ached long before the accident.
In 2016 he told chiropractor Jodi Buskohl he had back pain for 35 years.
She blamed it on cumulative postural stress, injuries, and aging.
On Sept. 27, 2017, she concluded that he suffered permanent spinal injury.
She told him he’d experience pain for the rest of his life.
On Nov. 12, 2017, he stepped from a barge to a dock at Watco’s terminal on the Mississippi River in Cora.
He gave a reading and stepped back.
A metal cable 515 yards long weighing nearly three tons flew out of control and struck his hard hat, right shoulder, and back.
He sued Watco in 2018, seeking actual and punitive damages.
Yandle found Watco negligent in 2020 but rejected punitive damages.
She held bench trial on damages last December.
Watco’s barge and rope expert Rick van Hemmen testified that the cable didn’t whip Beam but slackened and dropped down.
“Beam was not struck by the entire cable,” he said.
He said most of it was on the dock or in the river.
Yandle found his testimony speculative and unreliable.
She found he didn’t determine the tension of the wire, where it broke, its shape, its height, or its speed.
“Additionally, he admitted on cross examination that he could not state with any reasonable degree of certainty the force that was involved when the cable struck Beam,” she wrote.
Eight doctors testified for Beam about treatments and procedures.
For Watco, Dr. David Robson testified that two kyphoplasty procedures caused unnecessary risk and no reward.
“While his report refers to kyphoplasty as a treatment option for Beam, he testified at trial that this was included in his report by mistake,” Yandle wrote.
She found that testimony lacked credibility.
Doctor John Mattingly testified for Watco that no compression fracture resulted.
He said imaging showed degeneration in Beam’s spine unrelated to the accident.
Yandle found the opinions of Robson and Mattingly conflicted at times with each other and the opinions in their reports.
“Beam’s treating physicians personally examined, evaluated, interacted with and actively treated him, and their opinions regarding the nature and extent of his injuries he suffered were consistent with the medical record as a whole," she wrote.
Watco’s medical billing expert Rebecca Reier testified that Beam’s bills weren’t reasonable or customary.
“Reier’s methodology was recently deemed unreliable and her opinions were stricken by the Third District appellate court of Illinois,” Yandle wrote.
Rehabilitation counselor Andrea Bradford, economist Kenneth McCoin, and life planner Todd Cowen testified for Beam.
Watco didn’t rebut them.
“Beam has been unable to enjoy many of the activities that he participated in before the cable incident, such as fishing and hunting," Yandle wrote.
She found he takes primary care of a disabled son who lives with him and had to enlist another son to help him.
She awarded $1 million for disability, $1 million for past pain and suffering, and $500,000 for future pain and suffering.
She awarded almost $1 million in unpaid medical expenses.
Watco had paid $381,461.58 in medical bills.
Yandle awarded almost $800,000 in future medical expenses, more than $200,000 in past wage loss and almost $600,000 in future wage loss.
Kurt Arnold of Houston and Peter Flowers of St. Charles, Illinois represented Beam.
Ronald Fox of St. Louis and Colter Kennedy of Edwardsville represented Watco.