A Philadelphia jury recently awarded $9.5 million to a truck driver injured by a 15-foot fall from his truck while trying to fix the tarp placed over the truck’s load of stone.
Joseph Renda, then 46, of Doylestown, picked up a load of stone Oct. 22, 2004, at Martin Stone Quarries in Bechtelsville, Berks County, according to the plaintiffs’ pretrial memorandum and defense pretrial memorandums. After picking up the load of stone, Renda was placing a tarp over the load when a bungee cord got caught under the tarp. Renda climbed up the back side of the truck, standing on the side rail, in order to fix the bungee cord. As he was holding onto a tarp stop rod, a resting place for the tarp when not in use, the rod snapped and Renda fell more than 15 feet to the ground.
