Truck driver unloading hay falls off ladder as he climbs to top of load. $3.5M. Los Angeles County.

Facts and Background

• Facts and Background:

  On or about July 9, 2014, plaintiff Bartolo Flores was delivering a load of alfalfa hay to defendant Anderson Hay & Grain. Plaintiff pulled his flatbed truck into the defendant’s facility for unloading. As required by the defendant, plaintiff had to untie the load of hay from the top of the load and afterwards an Anderson employee would unload the delivery.  The proper method of untying the load is to be lifted to the top by either a man basket or a safety cage. Instead, plaintiff was given a ladder to use. As plaintiff climbed the ladder and almost reached the top, the ladder slipped and plaintiff fell. Plaintiff had been making deliveries to the location several times a week for five years and was well familiar with the process.

• Plaintiff's Contentions:

  That the defendant negligently failed to provide him a safety cage as is required by the defendant’s policies and instead gave him a 13-15-foot high extension ladder to unhook his load of hay on the top of his truck.

  That when plaintiff entered defendant’s facility, he was greeted by defendant’s forklift driver who previously lifted him up on his forks, but now insisted he needed to use a man basket or a safety cage attached to the forklift. The forklift driver testified he would go locate one but returned some time later stating he could not find one and that plaintiff needed to use a ladder instead because trucks were starting to back up waiting to unload their trucks. (The forklift driver testified at trial that he never saw plaintiff that morning before he had fallen and was lying on the ground; he had no idea from where plaintiff got the ladder.) A current co-employee supervisor of defendant testified that he was aware that the forklift driver had in fact seen plaintiff and talked to him prior to the accident, contrary to the forklift driver’s testimony. The co-employee also testified that due to a recent unrelated accident, they were required to use safety cages or man lifts for any unloading and that the ladder was no longer acceptable when this accident occurred.

  A former employee manager testified off subpoena without any objection from defense that the defendant formerly allowed ladders to be used but as a result of this accident, safety cages were required and that the defendant’s policy was changed as a result.

  Plaintiff testified that as he was climbing the ladder, the forklift driver initially attempted to hold the ladder but left when plaintiff got near the top, causing it to slip and fall to the ground approximately 15-18 feet. As a result of the fall plaintiff was removed by ambulance and hospitalized for knee injuries and knee surgery and later was treated for lower back injuries and a laminectomy in his lumbar spine. Thereafter, plaintiff returned to work as a truck driver and was out driving during most of the trial including during the jury deliberations.

  Plaintiff’s technical expert Larry Miller testified that safety cages should be used when unloading trucks and that using ladders for this purpose was an unsafe practice as hay on the floor caused the floor to be slippery and the ladder unstable. 

• Defendant's Contentions:

  That plaintiff took it upon himself to wander around defendant’s plant to retrieve the ladder and used it in violation of defendant’s safety policies. (Plaintiff countered that the closet in which ladders and tools were kept were locked, and plaintiff could not have accessed the ladders even if he wanted to.) Defendant’s technical expert, Carl Beels, testified that the ladder was a safe and acceptable practice but plaintiff should not have taken it upon himself to wander around defendant’s plant unescorted to locate a ladder, he should have waited by his truck.

  During the four months that plaintiff treated with Dr. Chandran for his knee, he never once mentioned back pain to Dr. Chandran. Dr. Chandran testified that had plaintiff mentioned spinal pain, he would have been referred, through workers’ compensation, to a spinal specialist. Plaintiff did not mention back pain or treat with a spinal specialist until he retained an attorney and the attorney sent him to a different doctor, on a lien basis, outside workers’ compensation.