In Survivors v. Equipment Manufacturer (Ala. Co. Sup. Ct.), Spencer J. Pahlke and Douglas S. Saeltzer obtained a $5,500,000 settlement for the family of a 48-year-old commercial gardener who was pulled into a commercial woodchipper. The decedent was feeding branches into the device when his hand became entangled, and he was drawn into the machine. The team showed that the defendant defectively designed the chipper by failing to include an emergency shutoff device which was standard on competitors’ machines. The defendant sold a kill switch, but only as an after-market option. The $5.5 million recovery was composed of both cash and structured payments replacing the decedent’s income.
