William Joseph Mccoy III vs Weeks Marine, Inc, et al.

William J. McCoy III sued Weeks Marine Inc., et al. on a negligence theory claiming that as a direct result of the negligence of Defendant's employees a misplaced mooring rope loosed a steel stanchion from its base and catapulted it toward his face. McCoy, a deckhand, was adjusting a separate line from his tug to its load, a scow filled with mud dredged from the Tolchester Channel in the Northern Chesapeak Bay on November 1, 2003. The twenty pound steel stanchion was thrown through the air and hit McCoy, age 35, in the face. McCoy was bent over at work when the scow surged, pushing the entangled stanchion to its breaking point. And in "a fraction of a second,” the left side of his face was mashed. Plaintiff claimed that the accident occurred because someone employed by defendant ran the line around the stanchion rather than directly from point A to point B without anything in the middle turning the fouled rope into a slingshot.


The defenses assert are not available.

Plaintiff's verdict for $7.1 million. The jurors gave McCoy, a 35-year-old father of three, $7 million to compensate for his pain and suffering, $100,000 for his future medical expenses and $11,280 for his past lost wages. They found neither McCoy nor his employer and co-defendant Dann Ocean Towing Inc. of Tampa, Fla., had been negligent. McCoy was bent over at work when the scow surged, pushing the entangled stanchion to its breaking point. And in “a fraction of a second,” the left side of his face was “mashed