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Woodbury v. CH2M Hill9/10/2003
On remand from the Oregon Supreme Court, Woodbury v. CH2M Hill, Inc., 335 Or 154, 61 P3d 918 (2003).
Submitted on remand March 25, 2003.
Affirmed.
Plaintiff was injured when he fell while disassembling a temporary scaffold at a construction site. He initiated this action against defendant, the general contractor, which had retained plaintiff's employer to perform certain work at the site. He alleged claims for negligence and violation of the Oregon Employer Liability Law (ELL). The jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff, awarding economic damages totaling $6,750,000 and non-economic damages totaling $4,750,000.
Defendant appealed, assigning error to the failure of the trial court to direct a verdict on both the negligence and the ELL claims, to various evidentiary rulings at trial, and to the trial court's failure to limit plaintiff's non-economic damages in accordance with ORS 18.560, which imposes a $500,000 cap on certain claims. We reversed, concluding that defendant was correct that the trial court erred in failing to direct verdicts on both the negligence and the ELL claims; we therefore did not address plaintiff's other assignments of error. Woodbury v. CH2M Hill, Inc., 173 Or App 171, 21 P3d 153 (2001). The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the trial court correctly denied defendant's directed verdict motions. Woodbury v. CH2M Hill, Inc., 335 Or 154, 61 P3d 918 (2003). The court then remanded the case to us for consideration of the remaining assignments of error. We conclude that the trial court's evidentiary rulings were correct and that the court did not err in failing to cap plaintiff's non-economic damages. We therefore affirm.
I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND
We take the facts from our previous opinion:
"Reynolds Metal Company (Reynolds) hired defendant to conduct an environmental remediation investigation at a Reynolds plant in Troutdale, Oregon. Defendant, in turn, hired several subcontractors to perform certain work at the site. Stratus Corporation (Stratus) was one of those subcontractors.
"Stratus was owned and operated by Scott Flaherty. It had no full-time employees and fulfilled its own employment needs by hiring temporary employees. One such 'temporary' employee was plaintiff, who had worked exclusively for Stratus for over a year when he was hired to work on the Reynolds job .
"* * * * *
"Defendant hired Stratus, among other things, to construct a 'vehicle decontamination pad' at the Reynolds site. This requires Stratus to install a means of processing liquid waste from the decontamination pad. Defendant told Stratus to install a water pipe from the pad to a clarifier tank to accomplish the task. Defendant further told Stratus where to locate the pipe and what kind of materials to use. All of the Stratus work was performed by Flaherty and plaintiff.
"Most of the pipe was installed underground. In order to reach the clarifier tank, however, the last few feet of pipe had to be installed over a sunken stairway and corridor that ran approximately ten feet below ground level. Flaherty discussed with Griffin, one of defendant's employees, how to suspend the pipe over the stairway and corridor. They decided to construct a platform made of four-by-four and two-by-four boards and plywood. * * *
"When the remediation work was complete, Stratus was required to dismantle the platform supporting the pipe to the clarifier tank. Because Flaherty was occupied with other work, plaintiff attempted to dismantle the platform by himself. * * * While dismantling the platform, plaintiff wore no fall-protection harness. In the course of attempting to mo
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