ALTON/EAST ALTON – An Illinois appellate court has upheld a Madison County jury’s award of $3.31 million for a former boat worker who developed a life-altering respiratory disability from exposure to unsafe working conditions.
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In January of 2023, SCF Lewis and Clark Fleeting, LLC was ordered by a Madison County trial court to pay $3.31 million to former deckhand Kevin Mogensen. The ruling aimed to compensate Mogensen for lost wages, past and future medical costs, and more after a 2018 worksite exposure to corn gluten fertilizer permanently impacted his once-active lifestyle.
Mogensen was part of a team tasked with cleaning excess material off the surface of an SCF barge after bulk product and material had been loaded onto the barge via conveyor belt. SCF Safety Manager David Totsch testified that workers cleaned the material off barge surfaces using brooms and leafblowers, and “admitted that employees were not given a mask or respirator as part of their safety equipment.”
Billy Balcom, another SCF worker at the time of the incident, testified that Mogensen was less than 50 feet away from corn gluten fertilizer being blown off the barge surface for a minimum of 30 minutes on March 18, 2018. Shortly afterward, Mogensen reported having trouble breathing, with his respiratory symptoms worsening in the days following the exposure. He was admitted to Alton Memorial Hospital and diagnosed with status asthmaticus (severe asthma) and acute hypoxic respiratory failure, described as “a life-threatening situation.”
Mogensen’s legal counsel argued SCF “failed to provide him with a reasonably safe place to work, reasonably suitable equipment to perform his assigned duties, adequate supervision in performing his duties, adequate assistance to perform his assigned duties, and an adequate ventilation mask to filter out airborne particles.”
In response, SCF claimed Mogensen’s “own negligence caused his injuries, in whole or in part, where he failed to exercise care for his own safety and failed to perform his job duties in a safe, proper, and prudent matter.”
After deliberating for two hours and fifteen minutes, the jury awarded Mogensen $2.75 million for past and future pain and suffering, $500,000 for past and future loss of a normal life, and $60,000 in lost earnings. Mogensen was represented by Benjamin Tobin and Zachary Tobin of Pratt & Tobin, P.C., located in East Alton, Illinois. Joseph Hoefert of Joseph E. Hoefert Attorney at Law, located in Alton, also served as co-counsel.
The newest ruling from the Fifth District Appellate Court of Illinois strikes down an appeal filed by SCF, which accused Mogensen’s legal counsel of committing “multiple evidentiary errors” they claim deprived the company of a fair trial. They also claimed the awarded damages of $3.31 million were “excessive and unsupported by the evidence,” seeking instead to pay Mogensen $0.
The appellate court found the trial court’s initial ruling reasonable based on a number of factors, and determined Mogensen’s legal counsel had not committed any evidentiary errors that would have deprived SCF of a fair trial.
“The plaintiff’s young age at the time of the incident, the permanency of his injuries to his lungs and the lasting effects on his breathing, the permanent restrictions on his daily activities like loading groceries or walking his dog, and the potential necessity for future treatments all weigh in favor of the jury’s award for damages,” the court wrote. “Therefore, we will not upset the jury’s decision.”
The appellate court’s full legal opinion can be found here.
