Workforce Bulletin

By Eric J. Conn

A federal jury recently awarded three workers approximately $180 million in damages for injuries sustained in a 2010 explosion at a grain elevator owned by ConAgra Foods, Inc.  See Jentz v. Conagra Foods, Inc., No. 3:10-cv-00747 (S.D.I. June 1, 2012).  At the one-month trial in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, the plaintiffs alleged that ConAgra and West Side Salvage Inc., a maintenance contractor and co-defendant, were liable for their injuries because they failed to:

1. Clean the grain bin properly;
2. Maintain wheat middling pellets (flour ...