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BURNED PAIR WIN $8 MILLION SUIT VS. COMPANY
Canton Repository
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
Reproduced in-part from original articleAKRON ... Two carpet installers severely burned in a 1998 home explosion have been awarded $8 million in damages.
A Summit County Common Pleas Court jury agreed with their claims that the warning label on a can of carpet adhesive was too small for users to see.
Greg Roach of Canton won a $5 million judgment. He had lost the tips of his fingers and much of his hearing and sight. He was burned over 70 percent of his body.
His former work partner, Gordon D. Falkner of Green, won $3 million. He picked up Roach and helped him escape. Both men were permanently disfigured, their attorneys say.
"The verdict sends a message to every manufacturer of dangerous and defective products that maim and kill people that that conduct won't be accepted in our community," said Allen Schulman, their Canton-based attorney.
Roach and Falkner sued Para-Chem, the South Carolina Company that produces M-280 All Weather Outdoor Carpet Adhesive.
The pair were in the midst of installing outdoor carpet in the basement of an Akron home when the pilot light of a hot-water tank in an adjacent room ignited the adhesive's heavy vapors.
Both men were thrown through the air during two explosions. Falkner was able to pull Roach up the steps, and they both stumbled outside in flames.
Falkner "literally pulled him out of the fire and saved Greg's life at the expense of his own body. He probably could have gotten out with only minor injuries," said attorney Brian Zimmerman, who tried the case with Schulman.
"They're both heroes."
Doctors gave Roach an 8 percent chance of surviving.
The 36-year-old father of one spent 55 days in a drug-induced coma. He had 18 surgeries and lost much of his hearing and sight. He had to relearn how to walk and talk.
The company argued that its product wasn't meant for indoor use and its warning label was sufficient.
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