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Building owner appeals court’s $3.5M award to injured worker
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Posted on Jul 27 1999
A building owner has appealed to the Supreme Court a lower court’s decision ordering him to pay $3.5 million awarded by a jury to a man whose arms were amputated as a result of “electrocution” injuries.”
The appeal was filed Friday by Kim Kyung Duk, who owned the commercial building in Chalan Kanoa where plaintiff Felix F. Fitial obtained his permanent injuries eight years ago.
Through his legal counsel Joseph Arriola, Kim sought the high court’s review of the case after the Superior Court denied his motion for retrial last month.
In upholding the jury’s decision, Manglona said that based on evidence presented at the trial “it cannot be said that the award of $3.5 million for [Fitial’s] injuries is so excessive as to shock the judicial conscience.”
The case arose from an incident in February 1991 when Fitial fell from the commercial building, then under construction, after accidentally touching a live electrical wire. As a result, both of his arms had to be amputated.
At the trial, Fitial told the court about his pain and sufferings and how he became dependent on his families for daily regiments as a result of his arms amputation.
Manglona was convinced that the jury’s award is not excessive” considering evidence of the “traumatic circumstances and economic damages to Fitial. (MCM)
