A Cook County jury awarded a Merrillville man $2.4 million due to a 2009 fall he suffered while working at ArcelorMittal's Burns Harbor plant in Illinois

 

MAY 28, 2015

Fall from ladder nets Merrillville man $2.4 million jury verdict

A Cook County jury awarded a Merrillville man $2.4 million due to a 2009 fall he suffered while working at ArcelorMittal's Burns Harbor plant.

Douglas Anoman, 46, suffered a fractured leg when he fell from a ladder at a part of the plant operated by contractor Scrap Metal Services of Burnham, Ill. 

The jury in Circuit Court Judge Daniel Lynch's court found Scrap Metal Services fully responsible for the accident, due in part because the ladder Anoman used was out of code.

"He was repairing a crane and had to use a ladder," Anoman's attorney, Ken Allen, said. "The ladder was manufactured before OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) was passed in 1971."

Allen said Anoman's injuries required him to have knee-replacement surgery and to change jobs, which required him to go back to school.

"The verdict was about 10 times what the company offered to settle for before trial," Allen said. 

"This jury sent an important message: enforcing job site safety to prevent accidents is better and cheaper in the long run than acting negligently and facing a substantial verdict. We hope this company, and others, will get the message."