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SHOOTING COULD COST COMPANY $52.4 MILLION
Thursday, June 14, 2007CANTON Not responding to the lawsuit of a man paralyzed by one of its security guards will cost a Willoughby-based security company $52.4 million.
A Stark County judge issued the whopper judgment Wednesday in the case of Joshua Doepker.
Willo Security employee Kevin Johnson shot Doepker, 26, at Skyline Terrace apartments Oct. 27. Police said Doepker was shot once in the neck as he sat in the driver's seat of his pickup truck.
The wound rendered Doepker a quadriplegic. He is dependent on a feeding tube and ventilator.
A message seeking comment was left with Willo, which offers security services in Northeast Ohio and Columbus. The company no longer provides security at the low-income housing complex.
Attorneys Allen Schulman Jr. and Brian L. Zimmerman sued Johnson and Willo on Doepker's behalf in March. When the defendants failed to respond, Common Pleas Judge Lee Sinclair issued a default judgment in Doepker's favor.
The judge then scheduled two hearings to establish the level of damages.
Doepker's attorneys presented evidence from medical professionals and played a video showing a day in Doepker's life.
"He lays in a nursing home bed, staring at the ceiling 24 hours a day," Zimmerman said.
Sinclair agreed that Doepker "exists as a prisoner within his own body," and will stay in a nursing home for the rest of his life.
"One cannot imagine a more profound injury," the judge wrote in his decision. He set compensatory damages at $34.4 million, including pain and suffering in the amount of $15 million.
The judge then levied $18 million in punitive damages against Willo and Johnson.
Ohio's cap on pain and suffering awards could reduce the total amount by $14 million, but the punitive damages won't change and will prevent Willo and Johnson from escaping the debt in bankruptcy, Schulman said.
"We believe this is a collectible judgment," he said.
Doepker's attorneys also said the case would be a good challenge to the pain-and-suffering cap, which they regard as unfair.
"This young man sees himself and knows what he's in for, for the rest of his life," Zimmerman said.
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