On
March 7, 2000, Eric Dunlap was working on a construction project
at a large grain processing plant in southeast Iowa. As he was
piecing together ventilation piping on the ground near a roadway
in the corn elevator area, a Rampley Transport, Inc. semi tractor/trailer
veered off the roadway and ran over Eric’s left lower leg,
causing a severe degloving injury. Steve Six and Scott Nutter
represented Eric and his family in a personal injury action against
the grain processing plant, Rampley Transport and Keokuk Contractors,
Inc., another construction contractor working at the job site.
As the litigation unfolded, plaintiffs focused their claims against
the grain processing plant on a premises liability theory rather
than the negligence of the truck driver.
Extensive and protracted investigation and discovery revealed
that the elevator area at the plant was an overcrowded, unreasonably
dangerous work site. During the construction period, there were
at least five different contractors conducting various operations
in the same area with multiple work crews. In addition, hundreds
of trucks were delivering grain to the plant’s elevator
every day. The plant safety director
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admitted during his deposition
that he had received numerous complaints about truck drivers exceeding
posted speed limits at the plant, running stop signs and driving
off the road. The safety director admitted truck traffic was a
“common, persistent problem” and “a huge safety
concern.” Discovery uncovered that, months before Eric was
injured, plant documents recorded congestion and overcrowding
in the elevator area caused by the volume of construction work
and truck traffic as “one of the biggest safety issues”
at the plant. Discovery also revealed that the plant required
Eric to confine his work to a small staging area near the elevator
roadway. Eric’s supervisors
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and co-workers testified that they
had complained to the plant that the staging area was too small
and was located too close to the roadway. The evidence also showed
that, long before Eric’s injury, grain trucks were being
forced to drive slightly off the roadway and into the staging
area because the elevator area was overcrowded and the roadway
was too narrow. Documents revealed that the plant knew grain trucks
were having difficulties getting in and out of the elevator area
during the construction project.
The trial theme was that the grain
processing plant failed to take any
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