Moises Ore was on the eighth rung of a 12-foot ladder when the step gave out from under him. Next thing he knew, he was tumbling through the air before everything went black.

“No one witnessed it. They found him on the floor unconscious,” said his attorney, Sam Coffey of Coffey Trial Law in Fort Lauderdale, who helped secure a $4.7 million verdict against the ladder's manufacturer Tricam Industries Inc. and seller Home Depot USA Inc.

“We worked against some of the best lawyers in the country,” said Coffey, who teamed with second chair Kenneth Wayne Ferguson against the ladder industry's national product liability defense counsel, Paul Kaulas of McVey & Parsky in Chicago and Jeffrey Mowers of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith in Fort Lauderdale.