A federal jury in Jonesboro recently awarded a former West Memphis firefighter $937,500 for being burned while wearing a fire coat that didn’t properly fit.
Damien Wesby had on the jacket, called a turnout coat, made by Globe Manufacturing Co. of Pittsfield, New Hampshire, when he responded to a house fire in 2015. Casco Industries Inc. of Shreveport had sold the coat to the fire department.
“Within seconds after entering the fire, [Wesby] began to feel his skin burning underneath his jacket,” according to his 2016 lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Jonesboro.
Other firefighters removed Wesby’s turnout coat and saw that he “had suffered serious burns” to his upper back and shoulders, the lawsuit said. The jacket was designed to protect firefighters from being burned, the suit said.
About a year before the fire, Casco received Wesby’s measurements to provide a custom jacket, the suit said. “Despite the fact that Casco had the benefit of Mr. Wesby’s full measurements only the chest size and jacket length were communicated to Globe,” the suit said.
Wesby sued Globe and Casco for his injuries.
Globe and Casco said the coat wasn’t defective and that Wesby should have noticed any problems with the fit before he was injured in the house fire.
The jury found that Globe wasn’t negligent. But it decided that Casco was, and there was negligence on Wesby’s part as well.
The jury awarded $1.5 million for medical expenses and no money for pain and suffering and scars and disfigurement. Since the jury found Wesby was 37.5% at fault, that $1.5 million judgement was reduced to $937,500 by U.S. District Judge D.P. Marshall Jr.
Donald Bacon of the Little Rock law firm of Friday Eldredge & Clark represented Casco. He didn’t return a call for comment.
Harris Yegelwel, an attorney at the law firm Morgan & Morgan of Orlando, Florida, who was one of the attorneys who represented Wesby, also didn’t return a call.
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