A Cobb County jury has awarded a Home Depot customer and his wife $1.5 million in a personal injury case stemming from a forklift accident inside a store.
According to the complaint, in November 2005 shopper Larry Reece fell and suffered neck and spine injuries after a pallet of plywood fell 24 feet from a forklift. The wood hit a barricade that knocked over Reece, who wound up trapped under the plywood.
The accident occurred at a store on Roswell Road in Marietta.
As part of the verdict, Reece's wife was awarded $30,000 for loss of marital relations, said the couple's attorney, Jeff Shiver. Shiver said medical expenses for Reece's neck injuries were about $120,000, including a surgery to repair herniated discs.
Shiver said his client accepted Home Depot's offer for punitive damages, but the case went to a jury over personal injury damages.
Reece, a 58-year-old Cumming resident, was unable to resume his work in residential construction, Shiver said. Reece "had a permanent injury and permanent hardware in his neck," Shiver said. "All he ever had done was construction work. We were very pleased with the verdict."
Over the years Home Depot — with its "sky shelving" packed with stock — has faced other cases from in-store injuries.
Home Depot spokesman Stephen Holmes said the chain "regrets that Mr. Reece was injured while shopping in our store. One of our core values is to do the right thing, and we've attempted to live up to that value by accepting responsibility for this incident and making many fair offers to compensate Mr. Reece for his injuries prior to this verdict."
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