Lawyers with Bovis, Kyle, Burch & Medlin notched back-to-back defense wins last week, including a federal verdict clearing a home-building company of liability for an accident that left a man paralyzed and another awarding a little over $8,000 to a woman seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars after being hit by a vehicle at a flea market.

The federal verdict followed a seven-day trial stemming from a workplace accident when a crew was erecting a two-story log “kit” home near Blairsville in 2015. Bovis Kyle partner James Singer said the plaintiff, Jimmy Cribb, was a sympathetic person but shifts in his story and the quality of the defense's expert witnesses helped sway the jurors.

“There were inconsistencies in this version of events, and he was fairly successfully impeached at trial. I don't know that he was as sympathetic as he had been after his testimony,” said Singer, who tried the case with firm partner Eric Ludwig.

Cribb is represented by Andrew Lampros of Hall & Lampros and H. Forest Horne and Huntington Willis of Martin & Jones in Raleigh, North Carolina. They did not respond to requests for comment Monday.  

According to Singer and court filings, the homeowner hired Blairsville's BR Mountain Homes LLC for a range of preliminary work, including grading the lot, pouring the foundation and putting in the first-floor joist system over the basement.

Because there was going to be a stairway going into the basement, the workers left a space about 15 feet by 38 inches in the joist system and then covered the entire floor with particle-board subflooring so that the opening could be cut out later.

Another crew came in to erect the house, and they were placing wall panels on the second floor when one panel slipped and began to slide toward Cribb.

In an effort to dodge the panel Cribb, then 47, jumped to the first floor at the site of the future stairway. The flooring gave way, and he crashed down to the basement floor.

Cribb, then 47, shattered multiple vertebrae, which in turn severed his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.

Cribb was helicoptered to Grady Memorial Hospital and spent several months at Shepherd Center.

Cribb sued BR Mountain Homes and its owners, James Thurman and Richard Davis, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in 2017, for negligence and premises liability, arguing that leaving a portion of the floor unsupported essentially created a “booby trap.”

Singer said he came aboard as the case was preparing for trial and was not aware of the details of any demands early on.

“A demand was made early on that was either rejected or not responded to,” Singer said. “I do know there was no mediation or settlement discussions.”

Trial began March 4 before Judge Richard Story.

There were several issues at play, including whether the flooring had been fitted with a temporary support, whether BR was the general contractor (which it denied), and evidence that Cribb had alcohol and cocaine metabolites in his system when his blood was drawn at Grady.

Singer said Cribb admitted that he and his boss had a couple of beers earlier in the day of the accident and that he had used cocaine several days before that.

“All the witnesses on the site that day said he was fine,” said Singer. “Our position was that, if you're going to work on heights with no railings, there's some contributory fault. His employer had not provided protection and was aware that he had been drinking.”

Cribb claimed past and future medical damages of nearly $2 million, and at closing his lawyers asked for more than $10 million in special and compensatory damages.

Singer said the judge allowed the jury to consider claims for both ordinary negligence and for premises liability, if the panel determined that the defendants had been the general contractors on the job and thus responsible for ensuring the safety of any invitees.

The jury took about three hours on March 12 to declare the defendants not liable for Cribb's injuries.  

Singer said that, in conversation afterward, the jurors he spoke to were more impressed with the experts who testified that the defendants had met or exceeded standard building practices in laying the decking.

“The defense experts were more hands-on builders, and I think that was helpful,” he said.

In a separate trial on March 13, a Banks County jury delivered a verdict that—after apportioning almost half the fault to the plaintiff—awarded her $8,399.

Bovis Kyle partner Wayne Tartline said there was no dispute that the plaintiff, Donna Meeler, was injured when a pickup truck backed into her at as she stood at the J&J Flea Market in Commerce in 2017, injuring her wrist and elbow.

But the jury was unconvinced that the hundreds of thousands of dollars in back surgery were related to the accident.

“They told me it was 7-to-5 for the defense initially, but they ended up giving her some money for her injured elbow,” said Tartline, who tried the case with associate Eric Connelly.

According to Tartline and court filings, Meeler was standing in a parking space along a dirt driveway talking on her cellphone when a pickup truck driven by Jackie Griffith backed into her. Griffith and her husband were searching for a parking place and had backed up to take the one Meeler stepped into, Tartline said.

“Maybe she was trying to get a better signal; maybe she didn't realize she was moving,” said Tartline.

In any event, both Griffith and her husband testified that they were looking back and didn't see Meeler, he said.

“The plaintiff's testimony was, 'I wasn't in the roadway, and I wasn't in the parking  space,” said Tartline. “She didn't leave herself a lot of wiggle room; her deposition testimony was a lot more equivocal.”

Meeler was knocked unconscious and taken to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a dislocated elbow and chipped bones in her wrist and arm, Tartline said. She began to complain about lower back pain a month later.

The Meelers sued Griffith in Banks County Superior Court in 2017.

According to their complaint, Griffith had apologized at the scene and said she was “distracted,” but Tartline said Griffith disputed that.  

“My client said she definitely never said that,” said Tartline. “These are strong, born-again Christians, and she said if it had been her fault, she definitely would have admitted it.

At the close of a three-day trial before Judge Currie M. Mingledorff II, the plaintiffs asked for $282,000, he said.

The jury took a little more than three hours to award $16,764 in damages but apportioned 49.9 percent of the fault to Meeler for a net award of $8,399.

The Meelers' attorney, Kevin Elwell of K.M. Elwell P.C. in Athens, said the case “did not turn out as we had hoped.

“It is always a pleasure to appear before Judge Mingledorff,” Elwell said via email. “The trial was clean, and Messrs. Tartline and Connelly did a good job. The parties had very differing views of both liability and damages, and evidently the jury saw it more the way the defense did.”

There will be no appeal, he said.