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MINERVA ALUMINUM TO PAY $1.8M TO FAMILY OF BURNED MAN
Canton Repository
Friday, December 6, 2002CANTON ... Jeremiah DeNoon spent his last hours in agony, the burns covering his body so intense their impact could be felt down to the bone.
The 21-year-old had been engulfed in flames and debris while loading scrap into a furnace of molten aluminum.
Co-workers at Minerva Aluminum used 18 extinguishers before the fires were finally out. The damage covered 93 percent of DeNoon's body.
He toiled with the third- and fourth-degree burns, still conscious, for 23 hours before dying.
Minerva Aluminum settled a lawsuit Thursday by agreeing to pay DeNoon's relatives $1.8 million.
"The burns went through his internal organs to the bone ... . It was just horribly tragic. Twenty-one years old," said Brian Zimmerman, one of the family's attorneys.
DeNoon left behind a child and a pregnant fiancee, who has since given birth to their second child.
"Most of the money will be put in a trust fund for the children's future," Zimmerman said.
The agreement avoids a trial in which Minerva Aluminum was accused of knowingly putting DeNoon in danger.
The scrap he was told to haul was a scum like byproduct formed when aluminum is melted. Dross, as it is known, is dried and can be reprocessed at plants like Minerva Aluminum's Roosevelt Street facility.
The problem, according to Zimmerman, is that dross should never be stored outside where it can get wet. It was raining Nov. 30, 2001, when DeNoon used a loader to scoop it up and take it to the furnace where the temperature hits 1,400 degrees.
Zimmerman and attorneys Allen Schulman Jr. and Martin Chapman alleged that Minerva Aluminum knew the danger but had DeNoon proceed, even though he had worked there less than two months.
The two sides worked out a deal just days before Stark County Common Pleas Judge Lee Sinclair was set to hear the case. The company's insurance carrier will cover the settlement.
While DeNoon's death is a tragedy, he did not follow the proper procedures or have the loading bucket in the right position, said Lee Bell, one of Minerva Aluminum's attorneys.
Rather than ease the load in on the edge, DeNoon dropped it in the middle of the furnace, he said. That caused a 600-pound piece of molten dross to expel.
Although Minerva Aluminum had previously loaded thousands of loads of wet dross without incident, the practice would have been a big issue at trial, Bell said.
Zimmerman said DeNoon wasn't the one who made the mistake.
"No company would pay $1.8 million unless they accepted responsibility for this tragic death," Zimmerman said.
"This proves that Jeremiah DeNoon did not cause his own death."
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