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Plaintiff attorneys argued the freezer’s interior door handle failed when the worker attempted to escape, placing the company and manufacturer at fault.
The family of a Massachusetts worker who died after becoming trapped inside a freezer has reached a wrongful death settlement worth nearly $13 million, according to the lead attorney who represented the man’s children.
“This is a case that was dear to me,” said Douglas Sheff, of the law firm Sheff Law, who represented the plaintiffs in the case. “I cared a lot about these kids.”
The incident took place a few years ago, Sheff said. Due to an agreement to maintain confidentiality among the parties, he declined to identify the parties involved, where in Massachusetts where the incident occurred, and the exact date of the worker’s death.
According to Sheff, the worker was employed by a company that, in part, cleaned industrial freezers. As part of his job, he regularly worked at a large seafood processing facility owned by the defendant company.
The man’s duties included cleaning the interior of large freezers used in the plant’s operations. To complete this process, a worker would spray down the inside of the freezer, exit the unit, close the door, and activate “cleaning mode,” Sheff said. During that cleaning cycle, hot water and steam would be released into the freezer to melt frozen residue and sanitize the space.
On the night of the incident, however, the freezer door closed while the worker was still inside. He was unable to escape before the cleaning cycle began and was later found dead, according to Sheff.
The man’s children filed a wrongful death lawsuit against his employer, and the parties reached a settlement earlier this year through mediation for nearly $13 million, Sheff said. He said the case required an “extensive investigation” and substantial resources to pursue.
His firm assembled a team of attorneys and experts to reconstruct what happened and determine who was responsible for the worker’s death.
“We had seven lawyers working on this one case, and we used countless experts and spared no resources to really do a bang-up job for our clients,” Sheff said.
A central issue in the litigation involved the freezer’s interior door handle, which plaintiffs argued failed when the worker attempted to escape.
The plaintiffs’ legal team deposed witnesses connected to both the facility and the freezer manufacturer. Experts were also retained to analyze the condition of the freezer and determine how long any defects may have existed, according to Sheff.
The manufacturer had serviced the freezer approximately one year before the incident. The company argued that the door handle was functioning properly at the time of that service visit and that it had no contact with the freezer afterward, Sheff said.
As a result, the manufacturer contended that the handle became defective or unsafe after being serviced, which would have been developed after its last inspection and therefore could not be attributed to the manufacturer.
The defense also argued that responsibility for identifying any problems with the handle rested, at least in part, with the worker himself, removing fault from the company, according to Sheff.
The plaintiffs’ legal team argued that federal workplace safety requirements and industry standards placed the responsibility for maintaining a safe work environment on the owner and operator of the facility, Sheff said.
To support that position, the plaintiffs retained a number of experts, including a metallurgist, a specialist in the science of metals and metal failures. That expert examined the freezer door handle and concluded that the damage was likely present long before the defendants claimed they became aware of any problem, Sheff said.
The plaintiffs also hired psychological experts to help explain the impact the worker’s death had on his children and to support claims for damages under Massachusetts’ wrongful death statute.
Lawyers for the man’s children also used medical expert testimony to establish that the worker experienced conscious pain and suffering before his death, Sheff said.
“Any lay person can understand what it would be like to be steamed to death,” he added. “You don’t want to think about it. You want to gloss over it, but when you have a medical expert explaining what’s going on with each and every aspect of the human body, it’s something we can all relate to.”
The nearly $13 million settlement ultimately resolved the case without a trial, bringing an end to years of litigation over the worker’s death and the circumstances that led to it.
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