Mobile Register – December 9, 1992
A court settlement was reached Tuesday in a products liability case in which a 43-year-old man received permanent brain damage as a result of a chainsaw accident.
The Mobile County Circuit Court jury, after hearing two weeks of testimony, had already started its deliberations when attorneys for the injured man, Danny Beuk, and Homelite settled the lawsuit.
Skip Finkbohner, Beuk's attorney, said the settlement with Homelite, the manufacturer of the chainsaw, was confidential and could not be disclosed.
The attorney said Beuk was injured on July 16, 1989, while working for Alabama Power Co. in Monroeville.
Finkbohner said Beuk was using a Homelite chainsaw cutting trees to get to downed power lines when the chainsaw "kicked back and hit him on the neck."
The attorney said the plaintiffs allege the saw was unreasonably dangerous because it didn't have a chain brake on it. "Our contention was the majority of the chainsaw industry was using those (chain brakes) as standard equipment in 1986, and Homelite was putting them on some saws as standard equipment, but not others."
The case was tried before Judge Edward McDermott before it settled. Attorneys Steve Olen and E.J. Saad also represented Beuk in the lawsuit.
Lawyers Involved: